Milestones

Yeah, it has concerned me that he is much younger than the other kids, he is much smaller. Like he is not physically able to do things which they are - like ride a bike or go on a scooter very well, because he just does not have that ability, he never has done. However, what he makes up for his lack of physical ability, he has the kind of intellectual side which I'm really enjoying teaching him about. So, I'm taking it upon myself to teach him the periodic table, to go through encyclopaedias and that sort of stuff and help him develop as a person. Because I think for me knowledge is power and the more, the more knowledge you have, the more kind of safe you are as you grow up into an adult, because you're not going to look stupid, you're going to be able to do anything you want. Knowledge provides you with, with choices, whereas if you don't have knowledge and you're... for want of a better word you're 'stupid', there are only certain things, or you don't like learning or you shy away from it, there are only certain things you are going to be able to do. Whereas if you have, if you work to the best of your ability and you have all that knowledge that you can choose to be whatever you want.

So, I'm a lecturer and he's watched me record lectures. And last year, he recorded a little lecture on Maths of his own. And his mannerisms in it are weirdly kind of adult, as though he really is imitating an adult – given which I guess he is like an adult giving a lecture, but that can also be his way of talking that he loves to explain things to other people, he loves to kind of teach them.

I'm always amazed by how much she can remember. She's, you know, we go through the whole three pages of phonics that they've got so far and what the different sounds are supposed to be, and she knows every single one. She knows what the actions are that they've learnt to help them remember them. And I think I would, I would struggle to remember stuff like that. And yeah, I, I feel a sense of pride when she… not that it's my personal achievement but, you know, like sort of family pride that she's doing this.