Mother's dilemma

I'm in dilemma. Adriana is 5 years old and by right she should be in pre-school. The thing is we have problem looking for the right school for her. She is a slow learners and she can't talk yet which make it difficult for any school to accept her.

We have been looking for a suitable school for her since last year. There are very few special school near our place and even if we found one, Adriana must have someone with her since she is not potty trained. This put another dilemma on us-who shoud go with her? Another thing is that she is not a severe case, if you look at her she seems like normal kids but her mental and physical does not look like she is 5, she is more like 3 years old kid. We have been adviced by her physicians, and her therapies that it is better for us to send her to normal pre-school so that she will learn from her normal peers rather than sending her to special school where the rest of the students might be worse than her and she will not improve.

I'm quite agreed with them, even now Adriana goes to normal nursery and we can see her improvement, but normal school would not accept her. Their reason is that they do not have facilities to deal with special kids.

So, where this put us?? We have been asking special organisation like NASOM and places that deal with down syndrome kids but they refused to take her in for the same reason as normal school, they do not have facilities for kids like her. She is a slow learners and she needs different approach from autism and down syndrome kids.

The best solutions that these places came up with is one of us stay at home and sort of home school her. Easier said than done. There are several reasons on why this is not the best solution for us, the first and foremost is at this point of time we could not afford to lose one of our income. Living in KL, it is essential for both parents to work just to get by. However, Amli is working on making this possible by working his ass off and I'm happy to let go of my job-even now I can't wait for him to say "ok, you can quit your job".

Another reason is that Adriana would not respond to us since she knows that she can manipulates us. She only listened to you for about 5 minutes and then off she goes-playing. She hated it when you gave instruction to her asking her to do something, but she will do it on her own. That is why it is very challenging for her therapies evertime she has session with them. She refused to do things that they asked her to do but leave her alone and about 5 minutes after that she will do it but not when you are hoovering behind her. So, we end up have to buy things that they used in her therapy sessions and leave it to her and she will do it on her own when she feels like it.

Having special kid is very challenging for us especially when you are working full time and you do not have enough time with her. I tried my best to spent quality time with her and tried to teach her thing or two. I have been teaching her ABC, only that 3 alphabets and now if you show her A, she will said A. That took me almost a month but it was worth it. My main concern right now is her education, and where to send her. I want her to have the same opportunities as my other children but this is a challenge for us, and I pray to Allah that one day I will find a way to provide the very best for her. Insya-Allah.