I first came across the inspirational essay, Welcome to Holland, years ago when I sat on the board of a neonatal foundation. Working with parents in the trenches of shock and grief, during a time that should have been utter joy, was difficult. At that time I was the proud parent of one child, a son my husband and I believed to be “normal”. I remember feeling guilty on occasion as I sat with parents in the NICU or held and rocked the ever so fragile and tiny babies that were fighting to live. I had been blessed with a healthy child, while so many of these parents were faced with the possibility of death or long-term disabilities and challenges of their prematurely born children. I also felt thankful that we had dodged a bullet, but the essay resonated with me as a mother and lodged within my heart.

Forward years ahead. My oldest boy was a handful and exhausting. Happy, bright – without focus at times. Creative, special, “out of the box”, and incredibly loving and compassionate. As his parents we appreciated his gifts, but his kindergarten teacher felt otherwise. Vehemently. He drove her nuts. She called us in for a conference two weeks into the school year. She told us, “I’ve never had a child like him in all of my twenty-five years of teaching.”

 We asked her to work with him, to challenge him. He was in his element when he was challenged. But, she was a product of the staid American public school system – learn by rote. She couldn’t possibly begin to consider any other way of teaching a child. He had been reading prior to coming to kindergarten. The children were learning their letters, one each week; he was bored. We could tell by her expression that she wasn’t going to embrace him and realized we were in for a long year. Our son was clueless. Good thing. We had many parent-teacher conferences during the year. The last one was in the early spring, after we had already made the decision to enroll him in a private school with much smaller classes and interactive learning.

He thrived in this new school environment. But he became more impulsive and his focus went in and out. Painfully facing that he might have some issues, we had him tested. The testing indicated he was ADHD. We were in denial and kept the information private and chose instead to stay in constant contact with his teachers. As he grew older he became more impulsive. His grades went up and they went down. His focus came and it went. We rode the roller coaster with him and began to consider the possibility of medication. Our long discussions with doctors were often accompanied by tears. As his behavior became more erratic we made the decision to go ahead with medicating him. It was one of the toughest choices we ever made, but the arrival of our second daughter, with her extreme sensory integration spectrum disorder, underscored how important it was to intervene. Medication made a difference and we realized we put the decision off to use it longer than we should have.  

Dragging my feet, I arrived in a different part of Holland than I had with my daughter. And slowly, through the years I’ve become accustomed to it. It’s not a horrible, scary place. It’s just different. And like Kingsley says in her essay, “…you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a new language.” I have – I’ve embraced it, thankful that it exists and that I am able to appreciate the very special, wonderful things that Holland offers.

 Judy’s essays and articles have appeared in parenting magazines. Her story, “Souls Speak”, is featured in A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families: Stories That Celebrate a Special Gift of Love . “Healing the Roots of Our Grafted Tree” is featured in the upcoming Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be? (EMK Press, September, 2009). Judy is an editor for Story Circle Network. She is a contributing writer for the adoption network, Grown in My Heart and blogs at The International Mom’s Blog.