Insufficient? Maybe...or maybe not.

Let’s get one thing straight…I am not a helicopter parent.

I let my children take appropriate risks, fail or succeed on their own two feet, and learn from their experiences. But I’ve also learned – slowly and painfully over time – that you also have to go with your gut sometimes, even if everyone tells you you’re crazy.

Not so easy when crazy runs in your family, so you think they might just have a point.

Morgan has always been a reader. She started reading when she was four, and was at a 1st grade level before she entered kindergarten. We didn’t push it…she just loved it.

We try to have a really common sense approach to academic achievement with our kids. I was an OCD, over-driven student who got absolutely SCHOOLED by the geniuses I went to college with, and learned the hard way that there is a GIANT difference between being reasonably intelligent and a hard worker, and being brilliant. Peter was a crappy student with an undersized work ethic, all the way up until mid-way through college, when he discovered the subjects he liked. I went to a smarty-pants, private undergraduate university and he went to a huge public university. He took time off; I finished in three years instead of four. We both did well in graduate school, and ironically wound up in pretty much the same place – functionally intelligent, well-skilled professionals who emphasize life balance over ambition but do pretty well for ourselves in fields that we love.

What that taught us was two-fold – a) there is more than one way to wind up making a living doing a job you can stand in a happy life, and b) common sense approaches take a lot of the angst out of parenting as far as education is concerned.

That’s why I didn’t freak out when Morgan started testing below the bar in reading speed, but was still working hard. It wasn’t until she clearly had stopped progressing in the level and length of the books she enjoyed that I started to realize that something was wrong.

Her teacher was great and we worked hard on fluency together. She was game and did a great job and made some strides. But it wasn’t really working. We went to the doctor. Her vision tested normal. I didn’t want to be THAT mother. But I really knew something was wrong. So I asked if she could see a specialist. Being the awesome doctor that he is, her pediatrician referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist at Children’s.

We couldn’t get in for three months, after the school year had ended, and meanwhile Morgan’s struggles had continued, although her fighting spirit kept her in the game. Her beautiful big, blue eyes had perfect vision, the doctor said, in every way but one.

Often undiagnosed until adulthood, and responsible for many unexplained slow readers, Morgan has a condition known as “coordination insufficiency.” She doesn’t have it as bad as she could, but there is no quick fix. Here’s the Mayo Clinic’s explanation.

“Convergence Insufficiency (CI) is a common binocular (two-eyed) vision disorder in which the eyes do not work at near easily. It is an eye teaming problem in which the eyes have a strong tendency to drift outward when reading or doing close work (exophoria at near). If the eyes do drift out, the person is likely to have double vision.

To prevent double vision, the individual exerts extra effort to make the eyes turn back in (converge). This extra effort can lead to a number of frustrating symptoms which interfere with the ability to read and work comfortably at near.”

Or:

"Convergence insufficiency (CI) is a common binocular vision disorder that is often associated with a variety of symptoms, including eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision, diplopia [double vision], sleepiness, difficulty concentrating, movement of print while reading, and loss of comprehension after short periods of reading or performing close activities." Archives of Ophthalmology. 2008;126(10):1336-1349

“A person who has convergence insufficiency may show and/or complain of the following while doing close work (i.e., reading, computer work, deskwork, playing handheld video games, doing crafts, etc.):
• eyestrain (especially with or after reading)
• headaches
• blurred vision
• double vision
• inability to concentrate
• short attention span
• frequent loss of place
• squinting, rubbing, closing or covering an eye
• sleepiness during the activity
• trouble remembering what was read
• words appear to move, jump, swim or float
• problems with motion sickness and/or vertigo
It is not unusual for a person with convergence insufficiency to cover or close one eye while reading to relieve the blurring or double vision. Symptoms will be worsened by illness, lack of sleep, anxiety, and/or prolonged close work.”

My first reaction was predictable: GUILT. Morgan had complained about headaches throughout the school year. I’ve cursed her in my head a million times for her “flighty” attention span, and was convinced that her constant loss of place in reading was due to a lack of focus. But I’d accepted the initial vision testing results that her sight was 20-20 so she was fine.

The guilt lingered, but I moved on pretty quickly to relief. So there was an explanation. There must now be an answer. We could get this fixed, and Morgan would be on her way back to easy reading street. Glasses, exercises…I sat expectantly waiting for the doc to fill in the blanks.

But it turns out it won’t be that simple. Morgan has already compensated really well. Home exercises aren’t very effective, so vision therapy needs to take place in a professional setting. Even that isn’t guaranteed to help much. Surgery isn’t an option. The real answer is mostly tutoring, visual therapy, and patience. There is a small chance she could grow out of it, but a greater chance that she’ll both struggle and continue to find ways around it.

The bottom line is that my child has a disability.

I started and erased that line about 7 times just now. I can’t even stand to see it there. Ok, I GET it. It's pretty minor. I know that it’s not THAT serious. I know in the scheme of things, this is NOTHING. So many parents have to watch their children go through so much worse.

But every parent has a dream that things will be perfect for their child. That school will come easy, confidence will come naturally, and happiness will flow freely. I love to read and I’d always thought that the pleasure of books would be something Morgan and I could share for a lifetime. Not that it won’t now, but it will be a longer, bumpier road getting there.

And that’s the other part. Life is going to have to restructure for us for awhile. I don’t want to ask her to give up any of the things that she loves, but tutoring and visual therapy are going to have to happen a couple of times a week, and we’re going to have to devote a lot more time to her academic support as a family. I’m so glad this summer because one of sailing and riding and friends, so that her head is cleared and she’s rested. She has a lot of work ahead of her.

But she’s also got Sam and her dad and me and all our love. Most importantly, she is an enthusiastic optimist, a hard worker, and a passionate learner. In the end, that combination's probably a lot more vital to a happy life than perfect vision.

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