Atelier Mandaline

  Why effort fails when the message is wrong When we adopted our son from China, he was almost nineteen months old. He spoke Chinese, not English, and he had an open cleft lip and palate, which made communication even harder. He became an incredible actor. If he needed something, he acted it out. His big sister, who was four at the time, always understood him. I did not. One afternoon, a few weeks after we came home, he kept saying something that sounded like “hala.” He had started learning a little English, so I assumed he was practicing “hello.” So I smiled. And I said “hello” back. Sometimes I even waved. This went on for hours. Finally, he walked to the refrigerator, grabbed the handles, slid down onto the floor, and sobbed “hala.” That was when it hit me. He was not saying hello. He was saying the Chinese word that sounds like “e le,” which means “I’m hungry.” For hours, my child had been asking for food. And I had been responding to the wrong thing. I felt awful. And I have t...