A Safe Place for Joey

I had been following newspaper ads and calling real estate salespeople without success when, unknowingly, one of my children, Fred, led me to my office.

With acuity and cruelty his fourth-grade classmates had dubbed Fred “the pig boy.” He was not really a pig, of course – but when he was upset or angry he flared his nostrils and curled his lips until a kind of snout appeared while he snorted and grunted and crawled under his desk.

I worked with Fred on reading and writing, but he also saw Dr. Oldenburg, a clinical psychologist, for his deeper emotional problems. Rea Oldenburg was both respected and controversial. She was well known in the field for her work on the origins of children’s fears, and almost as well known for her outspokenness. We conferred by phone several times a month about Fred’s progress. During one of these conversations, shortly before my graduation, Rea Oldenburg mentioned that Fred’s mother had told her that I was planning to open a practice in learning disabilities and was looking for office space.

I stalled, trying to choose my words, sure she would think me presumptuous. But instead she said, “If you’re serious, there’s office space opening up here in our building. It’s only one room, but there’s off-street parking. Dentists and eye doctors downstairs. Psychologists and psychiatrists upstairs. You’d be on the second floor with us. We all have patients like Fred, who have learning problems as well as emotional ones.”

I was at the address Dr. Oldenburg had given me before nine o’clock the next morning. Any office building with Rea Oldenburg in it would have been attractive to me – but to have it on a quiet, tree-lined street in what was or had been a residential neighborhood seemed too good to be true. The building itself was wood shingled with a stone front and blue-shuttered windows. The dozen nameplates beside the wide front door announced its metamorphosis from home to business.

“It’s small,” Dr. Oldenburg’s secretary repeated, opening a door to a room, off a small waiting room on the front side of the building. “And there’s no bath – but Dr. Oldenburg would probably let you use ours.”

“It’s perfect,” I said.

I scrounged up the security deposit and first month’s rent. I furnished the office with a windfall of slightly inappropriate office furniture from a friend who was closing his BMW dealership. Not the small, welcoming round table and chairs and white wicker I’d visualized – instead a six-foot-long, black-walnut-topped desk with black swivel chairs behind and green leather chairs in front. I bought a secondhand file cabinet and had a phone installed, and I had a place of my own.

The children loved my office almost as much as I did – especially Michael. Eight years old, not yet reading, painfully shy – until he reached the desk. Once there he leaned back in the huge swivel chair, propped his feet on the desk, lit an imaginary cigarette, blew smoke rings, and proclaimed himself ready to begin. I sat beside him in a smaller chair – and Michael was right. He was ready and he began to learn to read. Michael was the first of a number of children referred to me by the psychologists and psychiatrists on the second floor. Maggie, Bobby, Fred, and two or three others whom I had been seeing at the church moved with me to my new office. Gradually, my practice grew.

I had been seeing twenty-year-old Tony at the church, and he too preferred my new office space and furniture. His father had bought Tony’s way through private high school by paying tutors to write Tony’s reports and by making donations to the school building fund in amounts large enough to bring him passing grades. Tony had been referred to me by a psychiatrist with the comment, “He wants to learn to read; he will also benefit from healthy mother figures in his life.” Tony himself told me he was coming to me because he wanted to be able to read the “f ——— menus” when he went out on dates.

Then there was eight-year-old Adam – sandy-haired, freckle-faced, with the nicest parents in the world. “He’s just like I was,” his father said. “I had a terrible time learning to read. I still can’t spell. Just help him as much as you can, make it as easy as possible for him. I know he’s going to be all right. It just takes a while.”

Next came Robin, six years old, referred to me by Dr. Oldenburg. “I don’t think there’s that much wrong,” Rea said, “but she got a poor report at school – doesn’t follow directions, reverses her letters. A lot of it is developmental, but she’s an only child of older, well-to-do parents and she’s under a lot of pressure. Be a buffer for her between school and parents. Give her some academic help. I think it will pay off.” Robin looked just like my old Shirley Temple doll – the same blond curly hair, round brown eyes, and rosy cheeks. It was hard to believe I should be paid to work with Robin. But Dr. Oldenburg was right, and within six months she was in the middle reading group and blooming like an amaryllis.

I was beginning. Sometimes I feel as though I still am. I grew under the tutelage of Rea Oldenburg and the other professionals on the second floor, but it is really the children who have taught me. Sometimes with joy, sometimes with sorrow, I learn a little more about how to help children from each child who enters my life.

There are many ways to write about children with learning disabilities. I have chosen to tell the stories of five children because this is the truest way I know to show what these children are really like. They are not all cut from one bolt of cloth – they have different disabilities and different degrees of disabilities. It is an injustice to lump them all under one broad term and assume they are all alike. Instead, it is necessary to know each child in detail, adding one tiny specific after another. Nothing ignored – everything important – until all of a sudden the child becomes clear to me and I can see what needs to be done. The label is the least important part, and I have finally stopped fussing over which term is best. It is the child who matters.

We all have our own protective devices, but these children have more than most. Because they are convinced that they are stupid and therefore unlovable, they cover themselves as much as they can. Of course, if they weren’t intelligent, they wouldn’t worry about it because they wouldn’t be so painfully aware. But as it is they play the fool, act the clown, disrupt the class, figuring it’s better to get in trouble than to look dumb. They slop their handwriting across the page – sometimes they can’t help it, but often they do it so no one can prove they can’t spell. They say they hate stupid games like Trivia because they can’t remember non-meaningful facts. They have temper tantrums to show that they don’t deserve to be loved. But all the time there is a silent cry for help from these children who, given the opportunity, will startle you with their insights, sensitivity, intelligence, humor, and ingenuity.

Out of the hundreds of children I have known, the five I write about here are the ones who cried out the loudest – demanding to be heard, to have their stories told. They are unique, as every child is, but they are also universal in that I see dozens of Joeys, Bens, Alices, and Charlies every week of my life – and, every so often, another Eric. Their hair may be a different colour, and they may be taller or shorter, thinner or fatter, younger or older, from varying economic backgrounds and with different degrees of impairment – but I recognize them immediately and am continuously excited and challenged by how much they can learn.

Children with learning disabilities are just as bright as other children, but they will probably have to work harder than most to be successful in school. They need support and encouragement. I have seen that with love, remedial help, and a safe place somewhere in their lives, they will learn and grow.

Joey (#u4721b473-8b27-5bd0-8084-6348ff636a93)

“Zap! Wham! Zappo!” A water pistol pointed at me through the branches of a rhododendron bush. “That did it. I gotcha now.” A thatch of red hair and a small freckled face emerged momentarily between the leaves.

“Joey,” a voice called. “Stop that! Come out. Come say hello to Mrs. MacCracken.”

A dark-haired, pink-cheeked woman emerged from the bushes. “You are Mrs. MacCracken, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“I’m Mrs. Stone, and I’m sorry,” she said, shaking my hand and then pointing toward the rhododendron bush. “He’s not always this bad. I just can’t get him out of those bushes.”

I smiled. “I know what you mean. New experiences can be very exciting.”

“Thank you for understanding and for seeing Joey,” Mrs. Stone said. “We’re at our wits’ end. It’s like somebody wound him up too tight before he was born. I’ve been waiting seven years for him to run down but …”

Mrs. Stone screamed as Joey sped down the driveway toward the street. “Stop! You know you’re not allowed!”

The small boy paused in the breakneck run, swerved gracefully toward the azaleas, performed a perfect pratfall on the lawn, picked himself up, and dashed down the driveway again.

“I’ll get him,” I said. Words obviously meant little to Joey.

A delivery truck lumbered down the street, and Joey braked at the end of the driveway to watch it pass. I took advantage of this brief pause in activity and crouched beside him, capturing his small dirty hand in mine. “Hi, Joey,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Startled, he turned to face me, his blue eyes wide, head tipped to one side, sunlight ricocheting off his bright red hair, highlighting the freckles on the bridge of his nose and cheeks.

“Here we go,” I announced, still holding his hand. I ran toward the azaleas, swerved back onto the driveway, up onto the low stone wall that ran beside it, lifting Joey with me. He laughed out loud as we made one fast turn through the parking lot, down the slate path along the other side of the building, running at top speed, Joey right beside me, back to the front door of the office building. Joey was smiling but was breathing hard, and I waved to Mrs. Stone with my free hand. “See you in about an hour,” I called. Not stopping, I propelled Joey through the door and up the stairs to my office, hoping I’d used up some of his excess energy.

We watched from the window as his mother backed the station wagon out the driveway and onto the street.

“She’ll be back,” I promised. “Come see the rest.”

Joey was immediately involved. He no longer raced madly, purposelessly; now he explored the shelves of books, the children’s drawings that covered the walls. The same electricity that drove him to random motor movements could be used to divert him. Joey wandered from the bookshelves to the table of games. “Can we play one of these?”

It was the first time that I had heard him speak a full sentence, and I was pleased that his speech was clear and well-articulated. “Sure. But first come over here and let me show you the stopwatch.”

I settled Joey behind the big desk, handed him the stopwatch, and sat down beside him to show him how it worked.

He was obviously surprised and pleased to be holding the heavy silver watch by himself. “Is it s’pensive?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “See, you push this to make it start, this to make it stop, this to take it back to the beginning. Let it run for one minute, and then open this drawer and put it in the box. I need to ask you some questions.”

Joey sat perfectly still for a minute, immersed in the stopwatch. Then he carefully put it in the box, but he couldn’t resist picking up a Magic Marker from the drawer. “Later,” I said, putting the marker back and closing the drawer, and making a mental note that Joey had continually used his left hand so far. “Now,” I said, “see if you can tell me your name, address, and telephone number.”

Joey was getting happier all the time, and so was I. What did the school find so terrible about this little boy? There was energy and a contagious exuberance about him. He could speak; he could follow directions.

Joey had been referred to me by Dr. Grayson, his pediatrician, who disagreed with the Child Study Team at Joey’s school, which felt he belonged in a special class. Dr. Grayson recommended that Joey be seen by a pediatric neurologist, who reported “a mild ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) not severe enough to require medication at this time.” Dr. Grayson then recommended that the Stones contact me for a diagnostic educational evaluation. I had been somewhat reluctant, feeling that Joey had already been tested by qualified people. But Dr. Grayson was eager for a second opinion, and because he was an old, respected friend, I agreed to see Joey at least once. Now I forgot my earlier reluctance to evaluate Joey – I wanted to know everything I could.

I spent the next hour concentrating hard on Joey, noting all the things that were right with him. First of all, he was an appealing boy – his thick shock of red hair plus freckles and a wide mouth and slightly asymmetrical face made him look like the kid on the cornflakes box. His movements were quick and graceful, and I liked the way he got interested and involved when I showed him how things worked. I liked his laugh. I liked the information he had stored up. He knew that his dad worked in a bank and that his dad’s name was Al. His mother’s name was Gail, and she ran computers. He knew his two older brothers’ names and ages and that the reason he didn’t have any pets was because his mother said he was “lergic.”

I liked the way he understood about the chips, which I used as a reward system, immediately comprehending which colour was worth how much. I liked the independence with which he took over. “No. Don’t tell me which colours I earned,” Joey said halfway through our first session. “Just how much. I can figure it out.”

Joey pulled the old cigar box that held the chips close to him and studied the list on the back cover of the box. “Oranges are five, blues ten,” he said out loud, “reds are twenty, greens are twenty-five, yellows are fifty, and these silver ones are worth a hundred each, right?”

“Right.”

“Are the silvers real?”

“Yes, they’re fifty-cent pieces. My dad collected them. I put them in with the other chips to make it more interesting. All this testing can get to be pretty dull stuff, so at the end of our time you count up the chips I’ve paid you and then decide if you want to spend for something little or save for something bigger. You buy stuff from the basket – stickers, balls, pens – things like that. I’ll show you when we’re through.”

I didn’t say it out loud, but chips can also help keep a child from getting too discouraged. Most tests have “ceilings,” and when a child misses three or four questions in a row, the test ends. So in the course of an hour’s evaluation, a child may “fail” a dozen times or more – and most of the children I see are smart enough to know when they’re wrong. Shoulders slump. Heads droop. But if I pay at the end of each test, counting up the answers by fives or tens, adding a fifty or so, and say something like “Pay yourself one hundred eighty-five,” shoulders straighten and heads perk up like flowers after a summer rain. As the child’s pile of chips grows, his confidence grows along with it. I may be skewing a few statistics, but I’m seeing the child at his optimum, and that’s what’s important to me.

Every once in a while I’d ask Joey a bonus question like “Why do you think you’re here, Joey? I ask all the kids that.”

“’Cause I’ve got a lot of problems.” Joey’s voice was barely audible.