Island Parent February/March 2021

demic subjects. Silas, a friend of Colwyn’s with PWS in Vancouver,
is also in a small, special needs cohort in school.
“I think as a special needs parent you are constantly scanning
the environment for threats like some robot in a movie,
which can feel a bit crazy. Are we worried about his exposure
in school? Yes. Special needs kids are not as aware of their bodies
in space, and ahem, sometimes personal hygiene,” says Silas’
mom, Heather Beach. “I’m worried about his lack of interaction
with anyone else in the school, his inability to find any new
peers or feel a part of the school community.”
And, like Cowlyn’s school program, the lessons are simplified.
“He is not getting exposure to any subjects other than math,
science, English, social studies and art. It’s basic. “There are a
lot of life skills programs, which Silas is beyond,” she adds.
Having a special needs child doesn’t exempt you from all the
other things life throws at you.
Our family is lucky, but I have Type 1 diabetes and an
81-year-old dad who we haven’t seen since school started in
September.
Many families have other kids, so do those kids have to miss
seeing friends to protect the entire family? Yes. Parents get sick.
Carol, Trinity’s mom, had thyroid issues in the fall so had to
take some leave from work. It enabled her to homeschool, but
also put other stressors on the family.
Some families are parented by single moms or single dads
who must work from home while being the primary or only
caregiver to their neurodiverse child.
Our kids don’t work well on their own, for the most part,
they need help in doing schoolwork, maybe toileting, eating (or
limiting eating) and in engaging with what resources are available.
Behaviours flair with the added stress and anxiety, some
kids pull pictures off the walls, some kids skin pick to infection,
some sleep all day. Teen suicide is on the rise as well.
On the positive side, Colwyn struggled early on with all of
the changes, but the frustration led to more speech. He’s been
a relatively nonverbal kid, but started saying names, and songs
titles, and expanding his words from partial to more full pronunciations.
Over the last 11 or so months, he has begun to
really talk. Mostly about people he wants to see, or places, but
he also read a book to a cousin over Zoom.
Last spring every time we were in the car he’d say something
that to us sounded like “Uncle Phil” His cousin, when she was
here, thought he was saying “Agatha” but we finally figured it
out—Island View! And so began our frequent walks at Island
View Beach.
Slowing down between March and June and then throughout
the summer meant Colwyn could catch up mentally with things
he’d been learning and working on his whole life and begin to
talk!
For more information and to view the report, Left Out:
Children and Youth with Special Needs in the Pandemic, visit
rcybc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CYSN_Report.pdf
Yvonne Blomer is a Victoria writer and the
past Poet Laureate of Victoria. Her most recent
books are Sugar Ride: Cycling from Hanoi to
Kuala Lumpur and Refugium: Poems for the
Pacific. yvonneblomer.com.
IslandParent.ca
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