Can a Professional Diagnosis Help Us Be Better Parents?

After a little outside pressure we are finally going to have Jude professional assessed. Yes, we took him to an occupational therapist last year who noticed he had several sensory processing issues but we haven’t done any thing beyond that. The primary reason we’ve put it off is finances and ignorance. We honestly didn’t really know where to start and just assumed it would be expensive. Even though we’ve started the process we still aren’t sure what we’re doing, if we’re doing it correctly or what the outcome will be. But at least we are taking a step in a new direction.

As much as I don’t want him to be defined by a “label” I’m hopeful that putting a name with his struggles will help us communicate with the other people in his life the challenges we face and the plans we develop to help him. It will be much easier for everyone to point Jude in the right direction if we are on the same page and if we are using the same terminology and outside professional input.

It’s incredibly hard for me to explain the challenges we face with Jude without people just assuming we are being overly dramatic or that we just need to try a different discipline technique. I think that after we have a professional diagnosis it may be a little bit easier to explain or at the very least people will be intimidated by a technical medical term I feel confident throwing around.

All joking aside, I do want to brag on just how far Jude has come in just the past year. Over time and much research we’ve been tweaking our techniques with Jude and have gradually seen success. Some of it just comes from his maturing with age but some of it is a direct result of our (Jude’s and Joe and I) hard work.

Jude is a very intelligent child and I partially expect them to discover that he is gifted but with that comes some other struggles like his delayed behavioral development.

In the end I know whatever the diagnosis our main goal is to help Jude become the amazing man I know he is destined to become and that makes me very proud.