Emotional development, etc

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

As Ben improves and becomes more talkative I'm noticing what is missing from his

mental development. He is 9 and has had epilepsy now since March 1999. He has

had

mainly atypical absences and myoclonics - maybe one tonic but it could have been

a

cluster of myoclonics. Seizures have never been controlled, right from the first

day.

He's in mainstream school with a full-time assistant, by the skin of his teeth

and with

the help of the diet at the eleventh hour!

I have been helping him with some literacy/English and in discussing the

characters

in this particular book and their feelings, etc, I find that sadness is not

really part of

Ben's view of life. Might this be because he has lived in his own world for so

long that

he cannot relate to things emotionally? He feels anger, but not sadness. Is this

typical

of a much younger " normal " child? Or is it normal for a nine year old? (My other

son is

totally not like this!) When his grandma died a year or so ago he wasn't really

sad at

all. Just pseudo-sad - made a long face because we were all gloomy! There's a

lot he

doesn't yet perceive about the way his own year-group behaves and and how the

kids

relate to one another. None of this worries me really but I do find it

fascinating. I

guess he will catch up in his own good time, all being well.

Rose Toms