Now THAT Was An Odd Coincidence

Thing Two and The Girl had a soccer game today.  (They play on the same team.)  After the game, I was casually chatting with one of their assistant coaches, who is a friend of mine.  Out of the blue, she commented that it would really help if parents of special needs kids would talk to their kids' sports coaches upfront about any medical issues the children may have.

After a brief moment of being mightily taken aback (since I wrote a post on that very subject less than a week ago!) I asked if she was having trouble with Thing Two--since she's known him for some time, I didn't specifically talk to her about him at the beginning of this season.  I was thinking that maybe she'd forgotten about his auditory processing problem.  That wasn't it, thankfully.

As it turned out, the child whose on-field behavior was concerning her has been in the same intervention program as Thing Two for years, so I happen to know that he does have medical issues and is almost certainly not trying to drive her nuts, although he has apparently been succeeding.  (If I had to guess, he is high-functioning autistic, but I don't know that for sure.)  She'd been trying to figure out whether he had special needs or just really did not want to be part of the team for some time.

A real-life example: a coach who would have been a lot less frustrated today and other days if this child's parents had communicated with her upfront, and a child who would probably be having a lot more fun if the coaches knew that he has special needs and how to accommodate them.  A lose-lose situation!