Insight: The challenges of being a deaf parent with a hearing child (BSL)

Let me explain. My partner and I are both deaf and we have three children. Our middle child is the only one who is hearing. We were really surprised to find he was hearing at his newborn screening because we have such strong deaf genes in our family. I am third generation deaf and my partner has deaf parents and a deaf brother.

So it was definitely a surprise when we realised we had a hearing person in our little family. It seems that only our middle child and our dog is hearing, deafness is the norm in our family even when it comes to cousins and so on.

Both of us – my partner and I – are BSL users. We don’t really have clear speech so we brought all of our children up the same way with sign language and we assumed our hearing child’s speech would just develop naturally.

Both of our deaf children attend a deaf school so it was unusual for us to have to look at hearing mainstream schools to be honest. I wasn’t used to being around so many hearing people either. Maybe I’ve been in a bit of a bubble.

Anyway, when our child started nursery we found out that he had what they called delayed speech clarity. He could converse absolutely fine with all of us at home in BSL and with our families but of course none of us really use speech.

His teacher said his speech wasn’t clear and that he was missing a lot of the consonant sounds.

I was foolish to assume his speech would develop naturally without socialising more with hearing people. The school told me not to worry and that as he was just 3 years old at the time, he had plenty of time to catch up.

After a year at nursery his speech improved but it wasn’t enough apparently so he was referred for speech and language therapy. He had this every week and I was encouraged to take him to different social clubs to interact with hearing peers. So he joined a football club and a karate group too.

It wasn’t just his speech that my hearing child needed support with. His teachers noticed he behaved differently, following our cultural norms of tapping people and banging desks to get peoples attention. He eventually stopped doing this and learnt to adapt depending on who he was. But it took time.

It was difficult for me when he was invited to parties by friends at school, having to mix with hearing parents who can’t sign was hard for me and he started to become withdrawn and moody. I wondered whether he was embarrassed by me because he was becoming self conscious and realising his parents were different to most.

Our hearing child has interests that we don’t really share. He loves music and going to concerts with his friends. He wears headphones for his games online and we don’t know what he’s saying or listening to half the time. It’s been a real challenge at times.

At one point our neighbours complained to us about noise coming from our house and we realised he had been playing music really loudly, knowing we wouldn’t realise. This made me feel embarrassed.

At school teachers have said he can be disruptive and grumpy in class. We have tried talking to him but I can’t help but think he just feels different to us all now. It makes me feel sad.

I think the teenage years are hard for anyone but it’s probably harder when you’re trying to work out who you are and where you belong.

I feel like parenting a deaf child feels natural and easy to me. Especially with the deaf school and deaf aware staff etc. Having a hearing child has made me go into the hearing world more and it’s made me feel quite different to everyone there.

I realise that most schools aren’t used to deaf parents. A lot of the homework that’s given is in a way that doesn’t suit those whose first language is BSL.

We try our best to keep our son happy, he loves his football and music but as he’s the quietest one in the family, I do wonder if he’s really happy.

That’s my story anyway. I wanted to share it because I think everyone assumes CODAs are automatically happy in the role they have. But I don’t think it’s always the case. Sometimes it’s a struggle especially if you’re the only one in the family who is hearing.

(This blog was translated from BSL to English) 

This blog has been written anonymously as part of the Insight series – where readers are invited to share their story or news about their interesting job with The Limping Chicken. If you have a story to share please email rebecca@rawithey.com 

Image courtesy of i-stock photos.