Our life with Shelby
My daughter Shelby turns 17 this month. We have been through some hard times with her over the last few years. Shelby has read this and is fine with me telling you about what has happened. The name of her second grade teacher has been changed in this account.
My wife says that our middle daughter Shelby came into this world anxious and has been anxious ever since. She was a colicky baby who cried constantly. As a small child she was fearful of many things and hesitant to try anything new. She was most comfortable when she was alone and often played by herself. She spent hours in her room talking to her toys and creating her own magical worlds of imagination. Sometimes I would stand at the door and listen with a big smile on my face.
She was delightfully creative and smart as well. She asked all sorts of interesting questions about God and death and the meaning of life. She was fascinated by graveyards and tombstones, loved horses, and was afraid of just about everything else. I adored her. She was different from a lot of kids, but I liked that about her...
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I've often lamented the lack
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 13:49.I've often lamented the lack of an owner's manual for my son.
He started cutting at age 7. It's hard to wrap your mind around that kind of thing without all your fingers pointing to your chest.
God bless you guys and your family. It's a hard road growing up and a hard one raising a youngster.
LJ/PG
It was so hard to understand
Submitted by rlp on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 14:33.It was so hard to understand this behavior. There was a compulsive thing about it. Shelby tried so hard to stop. At one point I found a bunch of cut marks on the trunks of some shrubs by our back door. She cut the trunks instead of herself, trying to stop.
Shelby
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 12:23.Gordon,
Is that an actual picture of little Shelby at the beginning of the article? That is enough to make one's heart ache.
It is a sad and simple fact that this world is not kind to those who are seen as different. As delightful as children are in many ways, they are pretty unforgiving when it comes to accepting individual differences in their peers. And yet, people like Shelby, introspective, creative and sensitive, are our visionaries, our writers, our artists. Public school, and school in general, public, private, whatever, rewards conformity and mediocrity. Our schools are generally not equipped to deal with the children who are gifted in this way. Not gifted in the sense that they are geniuses and make straight A's, but gifted with gentleness, imagination, intelligence, and a wisdom beyond their years. Many adults don't appreciate these qualities in other adults, much less in children.
But, it was especially sad to me that that the people who should have been her advocates, like her 2nd grade teacher, were clueless as to how to appreciate a child like Shelby. She wasn't hurting anyone by not "paying attention." And she was still making good grades. She was simply doing something more interesting than what her teacher wanted her to do. And, sadly, this sounds like it was more the teacher's problem than Shelby's.
I am so sorry that Shelby has had to live her extraordinary life in this ordinary place. It is hard on people like her whose minds and spirits keep getting contained when they want to soar.
I am looking forward to hearing the rest of Shelby's story. I am glad that it will have a happy ending, as you said in one of your comments. I hope that Shelby has found a way to be true to who she is, which takes a lot of courage, because the truth is, we all need Shelby and people like her, most of us just don't realize how much.
In peace,
Donna
Heartbreakingly honest. God
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 04:58.Heartbreakingly honest.
God bless you all.