Many of us who parent special needs children are concerned about their ability to live independent lives as adults. My pastor’s wife was just asking me last week; what level Lyn was at academically, and what I thought her long-term potential was. No, it wasn’t out of line for her to ask, we’ve attended the same church for the past 15 years. She has known Lyn since we got her a few weeks before her fourth birthday and frequently comments on how far she has come.

Frequently, Lyn makes the mistake of doing what others tell her to do, without checking with an adult to see if the directions are correct. For the past couple of years, our nine-year-old daughter has been giving her inaccurate or inappropriate directions.

Lyn and I always have the exact same conversation.
I say, “Lyn, how can you know what you should do?”
She responds, “By asking you.”
I say, “Did you?”
“No, but she told me to do it,” She responds with her head down.
“Lyn, is she your mom? Did I leave her in charge? Is she older than you?” I always ask one or two of these questions.

Unfortunately, it is to no avail. This morning, before she ate breakfast or got dressed she was coloring over a poster she made last night for VBS. Horrified, I said, “What are you doing?” “Well, Dani said I needed to color the rest of this red.” Then we had the conversation that we always have at times like this, the one in paragraph two.

Lyn has been stuck at the same third grade work level for about four years now. I did learn at some of the trainings I’ve attended in the past that most learning-disabled children tend to stagnate between 10 or 12 years old.

She is completing some of her workbooks for the third time as I’ve run out of alternative textbooks. She continues to get the same questions wrong and to stay at about a “C” level. We’ve tried progressing her to a higher level of work, but she gets really upset when she has to redo a page three times to get a “C.” She even spent four hours trying to complete one page of work, which is why we developed the hour limit per subject rule.

Long-term, we think we could set her up in an apartment to live independently if we maintained control of her finances. We recently redid our will, and set up her trust never to mature, never to pay out the balance to her. The executor of our estate is to maintain control of her money using it to pay her bills and expenses as needed. Since she is so gullible, we are concerned that otherwise, she would just give it all away to whomever asked.

What about her body, will she give that to whoever asks as well? I would hope not, she has been raised in the church and signed a purity contract last year, but she does whatever others tell her to do. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she is easily compliant. Luckily, we still have a few years before making a decision about her adulthood.

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