'He felt I was giving him away'

Sounds to me like she's trying to "buy him off" with a bike. Screw the bike, mom! Learn some ASL and get that child something so you two can communicate. What good is a bike when you don't even connect and get to know your own 5-year old son?
 
VamPyroX said:
Yeah! I was thinking the same thing.

It kinds sounds pathetic for someone to try to look for pity with an excuse like that. What's worse is the way she just sends him off to a deaf institute like that as if it's a "special home for special people" that she doesn't want to deal with. :roll:
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I didn't get that impression at all. It sounds like she is really struggling to do the right thing for her son. She doesn't have that much of an education, has a job that is physically demanding and probably doesn't pay that much, and sounds like there is no husband around to rely on either.

It sounds like she is doing the best she can. Maybe it doesn't measure up to ideal standards, but I got the impression she's trying to do right by her son.
 
I buy and sell bikes. I can have 1000 bikes and I'll not be happy if I did not have a relationship with my girlfriend.

I don't care if this Mom get her son a bike for Christmas or 1000 bikes. I bet the kid would be thinking what bike?? Why would I care about bike if I don't have my Mom??
 
Hopefully it's not an either/or situation. She can give him the bike AND work on their communication skills. Maybe teaching him to ride the bike will be a fun experience to bring them closer?
 
Beach girl said:
Hopefully it's not an either/or situation. She can give him the bike AND work on their communication skills. Maybe teaching him to ride the bike will be a fun experience to bring them closer?
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Hopefully Mom will buy bike and teach kid to ride bike. That is what my parents did. They taught me to ride a bike.
 
My mom did for me, too. I got my first "big girl" bike the first Christmas after my dad died. He had already bought it for me and was so excited (I learned later) to give it to me and was looking forward to teaching me to ride.

Then he died very suddenly just before Thankgsgiving. It was tremendous shock to us all. (He was only 43.)

A friend of his offered to come over to put it together on Christmas Eve, after we kids were in bed. The next day, Christmas morning, when I saw it next to the Christmas tree, I was SO thrilled!!

Took it out right away, and my poor mom - never very athletic herself - did her best to teach me to ride, and it didn't take too long before I was off and riding around the neighborhood.

It was a very memorable Christmas. I hope this little boy's Christmas will be memorable, in as many good ways as possible, too.
 
Dude this IS very sad. I mean he's 5 years old and in the dorms?!?!? Older kids in the dorms, I can see....but little kids need to attend day programs and then live at school when/if they're older.
 
shel90 said:
My brother learned ASL at the age of 5 and it is his only way of communicating through the air and my parents still dont know ASL. It is very common with a lot of hearing parents of deaf children. Most of my students' parents never learned sign language despite the free ASL classes being offered by the program I work at.
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Learn ASL age 5 very different learn ASL age 1. Age 5 maybe he learn from friends, classmates, teacher, tv, etc. How else a 1 year old learn if not parents??
 
There's just something very off about this. I understand it is a single mother that works a physically demanding job and probably is what I call a 'gapper' - she earns just over the limit to receive assistance but yet not enough to really make it on her own. She is probably struggling. They have their physical needs met, but probably don't have a lot left for extra wants such as toys which is where Salvation Army and Toys for Tots come in to assist the parent in getting these for her children during Christmas time.

But still, she could have found a way to learn basic ASL to communicate with her son along the way. If I am not mistaken, do some states offer a weekly ASL tutor to work with the hearing parents of a deaf child, if the parents desire to use ASL as the primary language for the child, or am I dreaming?
 
You know what I would love to see? In the case of little deaf kids from hearing families who NEED to go off to res school, why not have a special foster family sitution where young kids could live with Deaf families...there's nothing wrong with having say....fourth graders and up living in the dorms. But really little kids......that's too much.
 
So, hes getting a bike and other toys for christmas. Okay, I think I got a better idea. Why dont the mother just LEARN sign language for her own son as a christmas gift?
 
That's so sad!! My hearing girl is 5 and even if we can communicate easily, I'd bet if I sent her to live in a dorm she would think exactly the same: that I dropped her. No matter how much you explain, they're just too small... Days, weeks, are still hard to imagine. You can tell them "I'll come in a few days" but they'll still look for you when it's time to bed, they'll still miss you every day, they'll still think "what did I do so wrong that mum doesn't want me anymore?". So maybe she knows some sign, but... That may just not be enough for a 5 yo to accept such a separation.
That doesn't make it less strange anyway: if the son has used ASL since 1 yo, by 5 he could be able to teach many signs to his mother. I feel like this may be a case of lack of "bonding" between mother and child... And that is always so very sad! Luckily he found a welcoming environment in the deaf school... I hope she takes the chance to learn ASL now. The will to buy a bike at least shows us that she cares, and she feels something is missing between them: maybe in time she'll eventually find out what it is, and learn how to improve communications with her son. The school could help her in that sense.
 
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