Clothes Make The Man

Dakota is not big on "playing". At least not the way other kids play. He is not the least bit interested in physical play like tag or chase. He doesn't really care for playing with action figures or cars. I can get him interested in Legos, but mostly because he wants my attention and it's something I can do with him for extended periods of time without going out of my mind.

Mostly what Dakota wants to do is role play, and his favorite type of role play is to play school. When we play school he is the teacher and I am the teacher's assistant. I never get to be the teacher. I always have to be the assitant. Dakota is exceptionally good at role play, and at impersonations. Almost since the day he arrived Dakota has had the ability to do dead on impersonations of our friends and his teachers.

While we all take delight in his talent for impersonation, I can't help but feel a little twinge when I think of how and why he developed these skills. I think of Dakota as an infant, lying unattended in his crib. He had to be so careful about how he reponded to his caretaker. He had to notice everything about her in order to gauge whether his tears would be met with a bottle or a curse. He spent his toddler-hood divided between three different homes. Completely powerless to protect himself physically he had to rely on his powers of observation to determine the safety of a new environment. In his early days with us taking a punch from Dakota was a sort of badge of honor. It meant he trusted you enough to know you wouldn't hit back. Thankfully the hitting days are behind us and he now has other ways of indicating when he trust you.

So, back to the impersonations ... now that we have identified something Dakota loves to do, and something he is very good at doing, I think our responsibility as parents is to find a way to help him to develop and share it.