Team Sports

     This week our daughter will play in a volleyball game against a team from another tiny country school around the corner. This will be a first for her as she has never been on a team of any kind. Her relationship to sports has been quite tenuous because of her learning disorder.  Non-Verbal Learning Disorder includes a whole list of fine motor, gross motor, balance and spatial difficulties along with the inability to comprehend non-verbal communication. So we are very excited that our 12 year old has this opportunity to play a game she has found she enjoys, with a team of her classmates. It sounds like such a small thing but for us it is large. My daughter is used to being picked last for school yard games and things. On the "Big Bang Theory" Sheldon stated that he was always last to be chosen, unless there was a kid in a wheelchair. Then he was second to last. And that's how it's been for our daughter. And regardless of how well she does at the game, the important piece is that she belongs. She is a member of the team and that matters to her. When it looked as though another activity was going to interfere with this volleyball game, she said to me: "But Mama, I can't let my team mates down!" And that is a feeling that my daughter has not felt often in her 12 years of life: there is a place on this team for her. She belongs.