Underestimating Our Children’s Awareness?

Do we underestimate our kids or are we spot on?

This question has been floating around my head; though it’s not the first time I’ve had floating thoughts, nor the first time this one has made its rounds, it is at the forefront today. After our wedding fiasco (said lovingly and lightly), we had theories going round on what effected our son.

Before the true magnitude of the ‘illness’ was understood, people questioned if J got sick because of nerves. Vomiting from anxiety isn’t necessarily unheard of. However, his cognitive and other needs made us believe he didn’t really ‘know’ he was going to go into a room full of people and walk down a wedding aisle, pillow in hand as he’d practiced the day before.

Sure, he knew there were people there, he knew it was the occasion as he was dressed as handsomely as every, but did he really ‘know’. He was away from most of the activity finding refuge in the bridal waiting room, with his favorite (previous) teacher and watching videos on my Droid X. Yes, he has sensory issues and in times like these usually finds himself marching around making various noises, though the videos always calm him as they were doing now….

But, he did vomit. It was sudden. It was accompanied with other body releases. Could his sensory issues, already finding situations such as this heightened, have been put to the maximum overload that his body released all in nerves? Even if this isn’t so, as we believe it isn’t as these issues still continue, I wonder….

Do we underestimate our children’s abilities to understand all that’s around them and being asked of them? I wonder…in a situation like this….what do you think?

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