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Here’s what Society had to say When My Son Didn’t Speak at the Right Age

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Living in a typical middle-class Pakistani society, where myths, Nazar, and Jadoo follow more than religion is pretty hard. Yes, I’m talking about the present, the 21st century Pakistan where family system still believes in old wives tales.

In our society, pregnancy has always been eluded with myths and totkas which many women think they can pass through without any help from doctors. Pregnancy is an awesome time period for many women. And in the end, celebrated with the addition of a family member.

When a child is born with any disability or special need, until or unless it’s obvious that a child can’t hear or see, you can’t get an idea what a child has been through. I used to be like other people though educated and never thought it would happen to me. When my son was born, I was elated and the happiest woman on earth. His smile seemed normal. As I was an ex-student of developmental psychology, I have designed a chart to follow but as days passed by I noticed that he is becoming frustrated, angrier, and a bit of Mr. share me not.

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And even on forcing him to speak, he never mouthed a word. A year passed and I was being comforted by people around me of my family members about how boys speak later than girls and it’s normal. I had a gut feeling that something is wrong, so we set off to the nearest and one of the finest hospitals for speech therapists. We couldn’t even get appointments because they were busy until the next two or three months. However, we didn’t lose hope and continued to look for other places and that’s when I found out about therapists that offer speech therapy.

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In Pakistan, most of the curing depends on how much time does it take and here comes the therapeutic technique which doesn’t give you certain time period or assurance about how soon the problem will be solved. In my case, my son and I had to wait for two years till I heard him say a sentence but the effort was fruitful.

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On surface, it might not seem like an effort to get your child to therapy but people who have been through any kind of psychological or physical disability of kids must have known my struggle of people asking me, “your son must have been cursed as you have not fulfilled any mannat” or any other religious obligation or “you might have been running in the fields at Maghrib in your pregnancy” – these are few of the many reasons that I have heard.

In the end which is now a day though I haven’t reached my happily ever after with my child. His speech has been progressing at a good speed. But I want to tell people or parents (obviously parents are from another planet) that nothing is going to work as magic even if somebody has cast voodoo on their child – It will cost you a great time, what we say in Urdu, “dawa k sath dua bhi karo”. It took three years for me to help him recover with the help of doctors and great effort from his therapists.

Don’t ever lose hope. There are millions who can’t even afford the treatment. Fate does count and just believe in God. It may take time and patience for a child to respond and you have to bear each and every body’s totkas and Ilm of Jinnat and Nazar. Pakistanis think that nothing can happen to us without black magic. Obviously, Allah has made us so invincible. But seriously, I wonder when will our people learn to support the others who are going through struggles in their lives?

What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments below.

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