Big Decisions

Our daughter has only been with us for a couple of months and we've had to make some pretty big family decisions already. When she first came she was placed in general education with an itenerant, within 2 weeks I could already tell that was not going to be a good fit for her. We worked towards finding a better solution for her education goals. She is now in deaf ed for her main curriculum and in general ed for science, health, social studies, art, music & P.E. This was a very difficult dicision because I can understand both sides of the coin. On one side with her just being in deaf ed only she would feel more accepted because all the children would be deaf & she would be able to build her sign vocabulary more. With her just being in general ed she would learn how to intergrate better with hearing children and learn more oral skills. Her vocabulary is only that of a 5 year old even though she is 10 years old. I believe that by her being in deaf ed, they will build her vocabulary by giving her the extra attention that she needs to understand each word. I'm very excited and optimistic about her education future. We of course are reinforcing the same objectives at home that the school has for her. They are things like speaking and signing (simotaneously) in complete sentences, counting money, telling time, etc.

We also had to choose which sign language we were going to use. Her school and our church signs SEE 2, so for right now we thought that would be the best option for Rebecca. It would give her more consistency and help her to learn to write and speak in complete sentences. I have nothing against ASL, PSE or any other language. I just believe that for now SEE 2 would help her the most because it will give her consistency. If her school and our church used ASL, then I am sure that we would be signing ASL. Later after she has a language foundation, we plan to teach her ASL but right now I don't think it is the right option. Again, this was not an easy decision but probably one of the most important decisions.

Deciding to move forward and have Rebecca in our home was an enormous decision. My younger daughter had only been with us for one year and we were about to finalize her adoption when God opened the door for us. There were many steps in getting her in our home and everyone was skeptical and looking back at them I don't know if I can blame them. Our other daughter was barely getting her ground in being a family, she also has had in the past major behavioral concerns, the children were specifically seperated by CPS, Jamsine's file said for her not to be placed in a home with any special needs children & we didn't know sign language. We had just a few things to overcome, but we started learning everything that we could about the deaf community, learned sign language, prepared our other daughter & did a lot of praying and lobbying for her.

Every parent has to make decisions that effect the outcome of their childrens lives. I pray that the decisions that I have made are the correct ones. I know that having Rebecca in our lives has only improved us and our family. We had to work hard to get her in our lives, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.