I wanted to give everyone more than one post last month, but it didn’t work out. It failed on an epic scale. Now you may not think that it was a fail, but I don’t have another word for it. The month ended up being full of sorrow. Read on to hear my heart.
How It Started
Last month started with a post full of my high hopes as we went into Autism Awareness month. What I got was days fraught with contention, lies, anger, impulsivity, and sadness. Do I know these things are part of living with my son? Sure I do. Do I long for the day it isn’t like this? Yes, yes, yes! I have spent many days in tears on the floor wondering why. I despair of a life I don’t even know.
The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was a day that started pretty good. Not too many preteen rebellion rearing its ugly head. Well, as we trooped to the car to go to school, it devolved into a maelstrom of refusal, unpreparedness, fear, and sadness. I had to let go, watch my son go into almost certain failure based on his poor decisions of last week. It is heartbreaking and hard to watch your kids fail, even knowing that there really wasn’t anything you could do.
The Common Struggle
Don’t we all feel like giving up sometimes?
I have long realized I struggle with sharing his burdens and challenges. For instance, I spend a lot of time saying “We have a problem.” instead of “He has a problem.” Many of the first few years of his diagnosis I spent advocating for him and trying to find the best group of practices to help him thrive. For me, what has happened is that I have glossed over some of the things he can do for himself. I get way too emotionally invested in whether or not he succeeds at something. But also whether or not he fails or remembers.
Kids’ behaviors often trigger moms emotionally. From talking to my friends with neurotypical kids, they struggle with this. For me, it is an even stronger tie based on my own history. This is a perfect storm of a child who struggles with impulsivity and anger and a parent who internalizes every confrontation as a confirmation of how horrible they are at this.
The Failure
The day I let him fail, made me feel done as the day unfolded. He struggled a lot last month and it felt as if there were 30 days of chaos. Both in my head and in my home. Feelings of sadness and anxiety and lots of crying after realizing there was going to be an imminent failure. I could not snap out of it. There was no emotional stability. I wanted to give up. The secret here is I often want to give up.
I know I’ve said it before, but I won’t give up on him. Or me for that matter. But the truth is, I live in sorrow a lot.
Once again, it is April and we find ourselves in Autism Awareness Month. I have written about it previously and why I am on board with Autism Acceptance and not (just) Awareness. You can read about my thoughts here. This year, I am going to show you two views of autism at our house.
Sometimes it is BAD
Picture of five people walking in a desert with the words “This is Bad” written across it.
Recently my son decided he did not want to go to his expected appointment. I decided that he was capable of doing so, therefore he would go. It didn’t end well for either of us. A bit of backstory, he works better when he has advance notice of places to be or things he has to do. Even with knowing in advance, he needs constant repetition for it not to feel overwhelming to him.
Fast forward to the day of his appointment. He knew of this appointment, it is recurring as a matter of fact. I had done my due diligence in reminding him often, the last being just an hour before. Once the time came to go, he felt bad and refused to leave. I assured him that he could talk to the professional and assess whether he could complete the appointment. This was a strategy we had come up with the last time this happened. He continued to insist that this time, that was not going to work and he didn’t care what I said, he wasn’t going.
Now, a lot of my parenting is spent keeping my inner 10-year old from coming out to eviscerate anyone it feels is out to get me. This often means my kids. They are not really out to get me, but the push back sounds like it to my inner kid. Keepiing that inner kid quiet looks like me speaking in calm, quiet tones. Not engaging when I am told how much I’m mean and hated. Walking away whenever the verbal attacks feel like too much or morphe into physical attacks. Most of the time it works and we can all reset and address the problem.
It gets WORSE
Pictue of red flames on a black background, the words “Then it was Worse” written across it.
That didn’t work this time. It failed spectacularly, with fireworks and club music as accompanying background. I started off well. I repeated what he should do, what was expected, how we could compromise and he still refused to budge. His refusal went so far as to have him falling on the floor in abject horror at the very idea. I realized I was not going to get him to move and had to accept it. Next was to move on and make sure I followed through with the expected consequences.
When I tried to walk away, he decided that was not acceptable. He then locked his body around my feet and legs in an effort to ensure I did not walk away. This was the beginning of the end. No matter the calm I had been able to foster up until this point, I now lost all of it. I ended up in fight to keep myself safe from my own son. I was heartbroken and wrong and devastated at what I saw as my failure to be able to handle anything.
But being able to handle everything is not the mark of a good parent, it isn’t the mark of a bad one either, frankly, it is just a lie we have told ourselves. Where does it say we are supposed to handle every situation with grace and aplomb? Nowhere I have found. I spend a lot of time with my son, schooling him, transporting him to appointments, and everything in between. Somehow, I still fall into the myth that I am in control of him. Well, I am not. I can not control him, just as I can not control any other person. At the end of hours of back and forth, I felt defeated and torn apart by the actions and words we had inflicted on one another. I wanted to give up, and I probably did for a few hours at the end there.
Other times, it is awe-inspiring
Phot of a field of white and blue wildflowers, the word “Awed” is written over it.
My son has a keen and quick mind. It is often used in myriad efforts designed to make his life easier. Unfortunately his idea of easy, is really just him cutting corners and trying to get the most with the least effort. This sounds like a terrible thing, and in some cases it is just delaying the inevitable. Sometimes though, he comes up with great ideas that work well, especially for him.
There was the time he made grilled cheese by toasting bread, buttering it, then melting cheese between the slices in the microwave. All because he didn’t want to clean up a pan, nor wait for it to heat up. I may not want to eat this type of grilled cheese, but he loves it, can do it himself, and doesn’t leave a mess I have to beg him to clean up later.
There was the time I realized he saw adding three digit numbers and multiplying as patterns he broke down in his head to get the right answers. I would require him to show his work as he started working multi-step problems. My son would balk at the very idea of writing any more than he absolutely had to in order to get the answer. Often, in his mind, this meant he only wrote down an answer. I finally stopped complaining and cajoling and asked him how he got the answer.
Then he explained himself and my mouth dropped open, I had to ask him to slow down and repeat himself. The answer was a complicated, to me, series of patterns that he saw clearly and used to come to the answer. I have taken several higher level math courses and had never thought in the ways he did. Some of his ways were better for understanding what was going on anyway. And that should be the outcome of education. We should understand so that we can then apply it and answer problems. We should not be memorizing facts that last for a year or shorter with no way to translate it to the next step.
Nothing is dull
As in many areas of our lives, life with him is good and bad, up and down. What it isn’t is a death sentence. It isn’t a sad thing. He struggles with some things, at others he excels beyond my imaginings. Life with him is not what I pictured when I found out I was pregnant. In many, many ways, it is so much harder and painful. Yet, when I stop focusing on the difficult, negative things, I see the great beauty of viewing life the way he does. It is quirky, and funny, and wild. It is full of breath stopping hugs and kisses on your arm when you least expect it. He brings a dimension to our lives that only he can. And I know, God made him for just such a time as this.
I challenge you to accept, not only the autistic people in your life, but anyone different than yourself. Different isn’t bad, or wrong, or made to be hidden. Different is, just as the sun is. And you wouldn’t want to be without the sun, would you?
Hey everyone! I was thinking about how my life is taken up with a lot of care of children and family. Sometimes I believe I am doing a terrible job, as many of you might. But, I realize I often have these feeling more when I haven’t been paying attention to these 5 habits I’ve developed. Read on and even if you aren’t a mom, there might be a takeaway from the 5 habits every mom should develop.
1. Develop a self-care routine
You might think the idea of self-care is an overrated fad. It is so much more. Lots of people have realized that taking care of themselves should be a priority and not an afterthought. So while it seems as if the phrase just popped up and is used everywhere, it just means we have become more aware.
Many of the self-care routines you can use are small, everyday things you can do to make sure you feel good. There is skincare and makeup (if you wear it). These acts can be like a ritual that is calming and makes you feel prepared to face the world. Maybe you enjoy manicures, pedicures, or bubble baths. Any of these and things like them can calm our minds and refresh us. I also include hobbies in my idea of self-care. These things make us feel good by virtue of being something we make time to do. So don’t discount activities, that don’t involve the kids, that you enjoy.
You are probably reading that title and shaking your head. I know, schedules can be the detrimental to our days. But they don’t have to be. Often as moms we are controlling many peoples schedules. There are sports, dance, martial arts, gymnastics, theater group, and a host of others. They all take up time in our responsibilities with our kids. We have to schedule weeks in advance to meet our friends for dinner! Yet, I find if I give myself a loose schedule, like a block schedule, I can be more focused and accomplish more than running a cab service and errands. I set aside blocks of time designated for different activities that happen daily and weekly. I make a few different iterations based on how the weeks change with activities.
So, my blocks might look something like this:
5:00-6:00 exercise
6:00-6:30 rest and recover
6:30-7:30 time in prayer and bible study
7:30-8:30 eat and dress
8:30-10:30 wake son and prepare for school
10:30-11:30 tidy up from the morning
11:30-12:30 school drop off
12:30-2:30 work
2:30-3:30 chores and start dinner
When the time is up for a particular item, I leave it and move to the next item. It isn’t always an option to immediately stop or leave it till the next block, but the habit helps keep you checking off your to-do lists. The times may get moved around, items are added on those days there are appointments and after school activities. But, if I can keep items in a prescribed time, I seem to accomplish more. Don’t we all want to check more things off those to-do lists?
3. Develop a habit of journaling
Now, you may think, “I don’t have time for that.” Or maybe you are saying, “I am not a writer.” Let me tell you, you do have time and you don’t have to be a crafter of the next great novel. While I am a writer, and I don’t journal everyday, I know it helps me when I do. I have been journaling for years and it has always been a great way for me to work through my feelings. Acknowledging them, even if we don’t share them with others, can be cathartic.
These days, I certainly don’t seem to have a lot of time to do full journal entries every day. I’m falling into my bed as soon as the last kid is safely in theirs. Cause let’s face it, I am mostly exhausted! Anyway, even if I don’t do a journal entry, I like to record one line of gratitude. What can I look back on and be thankful for in my day? Sometimes, it is as small as sharing laughter with the kids or finishing a project on time. Whatever it is, realizing that it wasn’t all doom and gloom that day makes our brains smile.
4. Develop your kids responsibility
I must say, I kind of dropped the ball on this. All my friends would be talking about the great skills around the house their kids have, and I am like “Hunh?” I realized that as a mother of children with special needs I had gotten into a rut of taking care of them with the many difficult things and forgot to let them spread their wings.
Chores and just general helping in the household, really sets up capable adults. And let’s face it, they won’t be young forever, we want them to go out into the world to be good and kind people. So, making sure they learn things like washing dishes, sweeping, care of their possessions, washing their own clothes, and cooking are pretty vital. There is a whole list of items broken down by age groups to guide you if you are lost. Bonus gift here is that you actually get to do less, more time for self-care.
Responsibilities dealing with executive functioning skills are big at our house. My son struggles a lot with them and my daughter often gets distracted and refuses to actually do them. So, helping them learn ways they can manage things like school assignments, preparing for the day, or practice for after school activities grows their brains and helps them form good habits. Now if I can find a way to teach them these things without the backlash, then I would be rich!
5. Have fun
Photo of four women of color looking at a mobile phone outside Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Parenting is a really hard job. No matter that people tell you before kids, after them you realize your idea was way off. So many things come up and are changing. Sometimes it is hour to hour and it becomes hard to keep up. While there are plenty of self help books out there, we don’t get a one size fits all education before we bring those little bundles home. You won’t get it right all the time and you will forget something vital, like the time I forgot to pick my kid up from school! The feeling of ruining their lives forever will come to haunt you. But, if you can view it all as an adventure of the unknown where even the bad things bring growth. I believe you can be in this season of mommyhood without losing it completely.
Have you been reading this summer? I spend a lot of time reading, a host of genres. Really anything that captures my attention I will try. I even have that terrible feeling of guilt to finish books I don’t really like. So, I generally have a never-ending books to read list that grows daily as I find more interesting stories I want to give a try. This summer I meant to catch up on some books I had on my list from earlier in the year and read one parenting book in regards to my 2e children. Well, like many of you probably, summer was a blur of fun, pools, beaches, camps, and video games. While the kids did all of that, I found myself gravitating to quick and fun reads with tons of HEAs. So, I didn’t get to some of those books I originally planned on, but I read other great stories, so it isn’t a bust! Now, as we have only a few weeks before back to school here in Central Florida, I am re-committing to finishing these three books.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi – this book has had a lot of great buzz. Many writers I enjoy following made me aware of Ms. Adeyemi before the publication in February. Then I saw the viral video of her unpacking her first box of bound books and I knew I wanted to be a part of her expansive love of words. This fantasy tells the story of one girl’s journey to reintroduce magic to her world along with fighting the ruling monarchy. Grand new world with interesting characters and qualities, check. There are wonderful takes on mythology, religion, and culture, so sign me up to be immersed in this newly imagined world where a girl is fighting to save us all. And, it is now a summer read on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, which is awesome exposure for the author. This is a must read on my list and I can’t wait to jump into Orïsha through the pages of this novel.
Cedric The Demonic Knight by Valerie Willis – in the vein of transparency, I personally know Ms. Willis but haven’t read her work before. This is the first in the Cedric Series and was published a few years ago. Here we get to go on another adventure into a fantasy world built with folklore, myths, and history from the 12th century. It is filled with beasts and demons, where Cedric battles himself in an epic choice quest. I always find it fascinating the many ways writers use and interpret folklore and myth. I am excited to finally read this fantasy world.
The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. – as you know through many of my posts, I have twice exceptional (2e) kids and sometimes that means things don’t go so smoothly. One of the psychiatrists in our lives suggested I read this book to better equip myself and our family with understanding behaviors, identifying triggers, and solving problems in a proactive manner. I have read the first couple of chapters and I see us in almost every paragraph. So, I look forward to reading this popular parenting guide that has been useful to so many others and recommended by those we entrust with our physical and mental health.
Now that I have this goal, I’m planning to finish by September 30th. Stay tuned to see if I can do it.
Have you ever heard of the term ‘I need a vacation from my vacation’? If you haven’t, it is when you take a vacation and do so many things that when you get back to your obligations, you are exhausted! Vacation should be a time of rejuvenation, even if you are exploring new things. For me, vacations almost always include my kids and therefore it is much like being home, but in a different setting. There are sibling squabbles and cries of hunger. The inevitable scrapes and bruises, and the ever-present need to keep some semblance of our regular schedule, especially so we can sleep. That last one probably doesn’t apply to many, I know many kids who handle change and flexibility well. My kids do not. AT. All. So, yeah, I went away on a lovely vacation and now that we are back and thrust immediately into camps, friends, and a need to unpack; I need some alone time to recoup my senses. Not going to happen soon, unfortunately, so I just use the times between and after activities to sit and just be. You know, when they let me, because spending time with friends isn’t enough and once home, you still want to interact with me!
What I have learned, is not to over schedule our summers anymore. I am sure this need to schedule comes from a weird place many of us seem to have these days, that our kids will be ruined and forget their names if we don’t schedule every moment of their summer with the right balance of fun and learning. The super great, Bunmi Laditan, of The Honest Toddler recently wrote that “I think this generation of parents is the first one to believe they need to create good memories for their kids via structured activities forgetting that childhood, when safe and watered, is intrinsically fun.” She goes on in this cool thread about how she feels the comparison heavy world of social media leads us to feel we must one up the other parents with how many fun activities we can do with our own kids. That last sentence is me paraphrasing and adding my own emphasis to Ms. Laditan’s words. For sure click on the above link to read it yourself, there is more good stuff there. Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming. I think she has a good point. Not everything good for kids in the past is good for them now. And, I really hate the adage ‘my parents did this thing and I turned out fine.’ So this isn’t that either. But, I had some structured events during the summer, but mostly it was me going outside and finding something to do. Often friends were around, sometimes not. Sometimes this hanging out outside happened at a friend’s house. Either way, my summers felt fun. I remember the time with happiness and when it was time to go back to school and write the inevitable ‘what did you do this summer’ paper, I was rested and ready, emotionally too, to go back. All that to back up why I no longer schedule all the fun into our summers. The first time I did this, I was a frazzled, stressed out mess. Even before the new school year started, I wanted out from under them so I could rest! The kids seemed keyed up too, and I’m not sure if they felt they had even had a break from school when it was all done. I don’t want to feel like that again, so I changed the way I did things.
This summer, we are doing what has been pretty successful the last few years. The kids have 2-3 scheduled events like camp or vacation and otherwise we just go where the mood strikes on a daily basis. Sometimes that is the beach, or a friend’s house, the park, or the library. Dare I say, we even just hang out at home sometimes. And my highly scientific research tells me that we are all happier because of it. We had to jump right into some of those scheduled plans when we returned from vacation which has a lot to do with me feeling like I still need rest. I usually can just hang around and get that vacation from my vacation, not so this time. But, I roll better with it now and my kids are learning to do the same.
It is hard to put yourself and your struggle out in the world. For me, when I write a post that is personal, it is in the hope that my current reality will reach and help someone. It is also cathartic. So, in that vein, this post is about the struggle of impulsivity on our family.
Impulsivity is associated with a number of diagnoses, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and anxiety, all of which my son has. It is like a perfect storm of impulsivity in his little body. Impulsivity is characterized as acting on a whim, with little to no forethought, or consideration of the consequences. Now imagine that you have what I like to term as an overdeveloped emotional quotient. I envision this as being heavily influenced by the constant ebb and flow of other people’s emotions and your own. For example, your friend is having a day where they really need space, some down time and don’t really want to hang out or talk. You can’t understand this temporary change of normal interaction you have with your friend. This leads you to be upset, to question whether or not this friend likes you anymore, to dissect their interaction with everyone else and casting yourself in a bad light. Since this is happening in your head, you can’t focus on your work, or your other friends, and you become angry and unable to exhibit expected or required reactions to anything else. Your entire emotional health has been upended by a perceived emotion of this friend. So, you have been influenced by your friend’s emotions and your emotions have become explosive as a result. Think of it as not only being sad by someone else’s misfortune, but devastated and you feel out of control and unable to think through the consequences of your choices. Now imagine you are a prepubescent child with this added struggle. Do you see the recipe for constant upheaval? I do, but recently I realized that this overdeveloped emotional quotient can enhance the impulsivity towards the negative.
Often, the inability to control impulses is characterized by lying in our house. The unknown consequence of truth-telling when you know it confesses wrong doing is debilitating and therefore you lie hoping no one catches it. This lying then becomes the idea that your family can’t possible love or like you because you can’t get it right. Every time you mess up even the smallest bit, your mind tells you that you are a terrible and unlovable person. This is when impulsivity may lead to harmful actions. But you don’t recognize that harmful acts mean you are physically injured.You act without thought that running into the street can lead to pain, you act without thinking that hitting yourself can be damaging, you can believe that not being around is better than being terrible. But you don’t realize that not being here is permanent. We must recognize that these thoughts and actions may be indicative of depression also. Depression is not only an immense sadness, it is sometimes the inability to process emotions and thoughts which leads to dangerous impulses. Many medications used to treat symptoms exhibited by those with ASD, ADHD, and anxiety may cause depression. You now have a diagnosis that increases lack of impulse control and are given medications that may lead to depression. Recently we had the misfortune of learning how destructive this intersection of impulsivity and depression can be. My son was incredibly upset by emotions of others at school, then struggled to make good decisions and choices, which then led to him impulsively exhibiting self harmful actions. Our response has been swift in hopes of helping him understand that even when you don’t want to harm yourself, taking actions that could lead to harm can easily turn into being harmed. That being harmed is permanent, that our lives aren’t movies or television where the hurt and damage isn’t real. He is constantly battling the emotional part of his brain trying to take over and he barely knows what that means.
I continue to learn that we have a long way to go to understand what mental illness can look like in children. There is a great need to research how we can help our children when mental illness is present with other illnesses of the brain. But, I still have to go figure out, with the professionals, how to treat this adolescent depression and keep my son safe. I fumble with the words to reassure him that emotions are a fact but our reaction to them is ever evolving and in our control. I try to help him understand that he can review his day and recognize where he might be influenced by negativity in someone else. This is a hard thing when awareness of others and self is still an emerging skill. But, he has always been a hard worker, so I am encouraged that he will put his tenacity to work here.
This Mental Health Awareness month, I hope that you are educated on how impulsivity and mental illness can coexist, that you can love and support someone who struggles with this, that you can see someone you love in here and seek help. I hope that we continue the conversation, the education, and the support so that no one is left to languish in the convergence of impulsivity and mental illness.
I wrote the following words earlier this week: As I listen to the discordant, high-pitched voice trample my love and concern, I dream of the day I don’t have to be my own champion. I wrote them in a fictional setting, but these sentiments follow me into my real life quit often. I thought I had gotten to a place where I wasn’t quite so invested in the behavior of my number one son. I tend to take it personally, though I know he has a number of medical diagnoses that exacerbate the severity of his behaviors, that the words he screams in anger don’t mean anything to him. Yet, I keep running to my room in tears, with my heart-broken and my body heavy with the weight of despair.
I have written in the past about my autistic son who also suffers with anxiety and oppositional defiance disorder. So, he has trouble with executive functioning skills, he has poor memory, he is terribly impulsive, and can’t stop talking to save his life. Also, like most children, he is the center of the universe and wants what he wants. Lately, he has become aggressive again. This time around he is bigger and stronger and louder. I leave rounds of aggression with him and am covered in bruises, and two minutes after he calms down enough to apologize he inevitably acts like there wasn’t a hurricane of emotional tantrum with him at the center. Right this moment, for the second time today, he is screaming about how hurt he is, how much we hate him, how we don’t listen to him, how it is basically our fault as his parents that he is screaming and kicking walls loud enough for the neighbors to be concerned. He is harming himself and breaking our hearts and I don’t know what more to do for him. Have you ever wanted to give up? I WANT TO GIVE UP, I WANT TO GIVE UP, I WANT TO GIVE UP! But I don’t. I DON’T give up. Every day I get up and do it all over again, because he is my child and I love him. But, I am not going softly into the abyss. I continue to work at getting him the best medical care and therapy I can. I am just really afraid that one day soon, the decision on how to care for him will be taken from me and my husband.
Does he understand what he is doing and uses the extreme behavior as a way to escape the things he doesn’t like and doesn’t want to do? Does he really not remember, or understand how he is hurting himself, how he is hurting those around him? I feel I no longer know what is prepubescent boy and what is ASD, or Oppositional Defiance, or Anxiety. Hell, maybe it is some nice combination of it all. That is usually how this works, right? Hardly anything dealing with the mind and body is completely autonomous and I should know that. Only, it is hard to be dispassionate and calm in the face of such anger. I know that I want him to accept and respond to help for this latest crisis, I want him to not only realize his potential but reach it too.
I am scared. I am tired. I am hurt. I will pray and continue looking for a good therapist to add to the roster. I will get up every day and do it all again.
Now, if you have read any earlier posts, you know in our home we live with a number of medical diagnoses with numerous acronyms, i.e. an alphabet soup. So, when I use that term, it isn’t derogatory but gives you an idea of the jumbled mixture we have to navigate.
Every family I have ever talked to or read about who have children on the spectrum, with ADHD/ADD, anxiety, sensory processing, mood disorders, and any number of other things that make social events a delicate dance fraught with minefields we don’t even see. As such, holidays can be some of the worse times for these families. Holidays are days full of unstructured days looming before us where the schedule changes frequently and the number of people we are asked to interact with can grow exponentially and involve many we don’t know well. These kinds of things can be very stressful to the child or adult dealing with any social communication problem. This year, we had the kind of rough Christmas day we haven’t had since early in our adventure as parents to exceptional kids. And while I didn’t really learn these lessons fresh this year, it certainly reminded me that I must stay vigilant to all things that can make or break a day.
Lesson 1: Be aware of changes the day before you are scheduled to be somewhere. This year, number one son did not sleep well, he probably only got a couple of hours of sleep. He was excited for Christmas, but he also suffers with insomnia and seems to function fine with little rest. This can be common with kids on the spectrum, especially. But, no matter how well your child can function with little sleep, holidays with set expectations can ruin that. If I had kept the idea that little sleep with high expectations can be difficult, I could have built-in more ways to help him reset for the family get together and the sit down dinner. I also would have been more understanding and accepting in the moment.
Lesson 2: Stay alert to warning signs and phrases from your child. In our world, avoidance of tasks is normal. Yet, Christmas day saw a rise in avoidance on a day that is typically filled with interaction. His need for reassurance through tactile input (affectionate touch) was high even without a corresponding meltdown and activities that normally interest him brought little show of feeling. By just being annoyed at the constant avoidance and need to be touched while we are busy with other things, I missed realizing that he was in an emotional and mental crisis where he needed help. I didn’t help successfully because I was stuck in my own idea of the day.
Lesson 3: Which leads us here. Don’t be married to your idea of the ideal day. When you live with people who work twice as hard as most just to understand the social cues and become uncomfortable and often inconsolable when away from home, you have to become adept at making plans knowing that they might be scrapped or totally overhauled because someone is having a meltdown or is just unable to function well in public. Sometimes when the kids are doing well, I forget that I must be flexible in the extreme. I did that this year. Even as I watched him meltdown and lash out, I didn’t immediately recognize that he needed a bit of extra help. Even as I talked to him about having dinner with the family I was seething a bit on the inside at the idea that he was refusing to come to the table. Something he is always required to do and had done many times in the past, was almost impossible this day.
I had become complacent you see, I expected things to go well because they had been going well for a long time. Instead of taking each day as they come, I had plans I didn’t want to change, I wanted some commercial idea of a perfect day and I didn’t stop till it was almost too late. It was evening before I recognized that what I was seeing was his inability to control himself and crying for help in order to do that. He didn’t want to make everyone else uncomfortable or delay dinner or run away when he should stay. He needed help in grounding himself and coming up with ways and space and time to be comfortable with what was expected of him. It didn’t matter that he had done it countless times before, what mattered was how he was feeling at that time, on that day. More than anything, kids and adults who struggle with any or all of the aforementioned disorders need time. Time to think, time to process, time to be. We have to be willing to give that to them recognizing that even if we don’t have the same struggle we all have had a situation in which more time helps greatly. We can’t be quick to give it to those we deem neurotypical and not to those we deem neurodiverse.
I am struggling with a way to talk about my day without sounding like a dictionary of clichés, but I really don’t know if that is possible. Or maybe, it isn’t quite possible for my brain to work in a manner that does not rely on clichés to get its point across.
I have talked about my autistic son and our struggles a number of times here, but I haven’t shared much of his sister’s journey. She is not autistic but does struggle with being twice exceptional, or 2E, and being the sister of the child who is different. If you want a refresher on 2E, you can read my post about it with some educational links. She is currently also in therapy to help her deal with anxiety and other coping skills needed to traverse her world as a gifted, asynchronous student. And all that sounds wonderful, today was a dose of the gritty reality.
We have talked about her school day, she seems to have had a good day and is excited because she got to spend money in the “Holiday Shop” at school. Now, this is set up so the students can pick small gifts for their family. She has apparently spent most of the money on gifts for herself. Besides, it isn’t as if she has earned this money, she has to ask us for it. She has eaten, fast food cause it was that kind of day, and has been given a deadline for rest in anticipation of homework time. Every time, I think that will be enough. That speaking to them in a reasonable manner will allay struggles against doing tasks they don’t won’t to do. It felt today as if this technique only works about 10% of the time. Whenever things are going bad, it is hard to see and remember the many good times. The times where you get more cooperation than opposition and more smiles than tears seem light years away, almost as if you have never experienced them. So, it comes time for homework and because I have told her to allow me to get the homework out and bring it to her, she has lost her mind. Screams are heard, bodies are thrown around, pencils go flying and papers are torn. What? Really? Because you can’t get the homework folder, you are now incapable of reading the directions or completing your homework. You need your parents to sit with you, you don’t need to calm down, you aren’t going to your room, you won’t stop screaming at your brother who is only trying to help. Her loving disposition has turned into that of a wet cat cornered in an alley. She is kicking, screaming, and scratching anything or anyone who gets close. She can’t tell help for harm anymore and no rational thoughts are going through her mind.
It always starts so innocuous. We are skipping through the tulips and then BAM! a bull comes out and tramples us under his hooves. That is how it feels. You are doing all the things normally noted to ensure a smooth transition between school and home. Yet, sometimes those techniques don’t do what they are designed to do. She needs more time, but she won’t say that, it is just meltdown over not being allowed to get her homework. Now, you may be thinking, why didn’t you just let her get her own homework. To be honest, I was executing a plan which included them cleaning up the tasks they were working on while I distributed homework. I had a plan and wasn’t flexible fast enough to head off the meltdown. I don’t always get it right. That is the key. I just don’t get it right every time. We think once we are parents that we will somehow be magically equipped with the right response to every thing that happens. The thousands of parenting books we are told we should read in preparation lulls us into thinking that is all it takes, knowledge of what to do when. Well, the real world doesn’t work like that and not just when it comes to parenting. I am struggling like most parents I know, to get it right. Parent guilt is a thing, especially if you are wholly invested in giving your kids a solid foundation for going out into the world. Which, I must say, I think is every parent until proven otherwise. It helps me sleep at night, true or not. I start off with the calm, low voice. You know, the one designed to force them to listen hard and reassure them you still love them. No matter that they have pulled everything off the shelves in Target, you are here, a never-changing bulwark of love. You constantly redirect the behavior, repeat the requirement, and swallow your tongue when she screams “I don’t care” and throws the pencil for the fifteenth time tonight! Then, by time twenty, you have lost it too. You want to let your inner seven-year old out to play and that seven-year old inside you wants to kick and scream to voice their displeasure and show the kid you can do it too. You can meltdown without a care in the world, and while you are doing it, if you are doing it, it feels freeing and fun. Then immediately you feel disgusted with yourself, at your lack of ability to not let an eight-year old drag you down into the abyss. You scream and then you rein it back in, a desperate attempt to re-exert your control. Frankly, it hardly ever works. The only way to really get control again is to apologize for your behavior and take yourself off to lick your wounds. Basically you have to do all the things you tell the kids they need to do in order to change their behavior. Ugh, it is such a bad feeling when your kids make you eat your words. I take this moment to tell them that Mommy needs a time out, then I run and lock myself in my bedroom in a desperate attempt to keep them from following me.
And that is the lesson you have to learn for yourself. Sometimes, Mommy needs a time out in order to be tuned in to the other important things. Because, honestly, the homework was only the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. She was obviously carrying around feelings about something else that had taken place in her day but couldn’t really articulate that. A meltdown over homework was her cry for help. Me screaming about the definition of “fair” was mine. So, I calmly told them I should take a time out since I was resorting to raising my voice. Then I pushed them out of my room and locked the door and read a book until I could think about opening that door without screaming.
I am back and running after a week of preparations, moving targets, and no power after Hurricane Irma came through. I feel blessed to have come through with our family intact, along with our home. As we continue the clean up efforts, I want to talk about parenting through hurricanes, or any storm. Particularly, parenting exceptional children of differing abilities. In my family, the differing ability we struggle the most with during storms is anxiety.
Anxiety is often thought to be the exclusive purview of adults. It is also portrayed as a person who is afraid to go places or to start things. I’ve learned that anxiety can look like anger through actions and words. It can inhibit sleep, and yes, just plain make you worried about the smallest chance of something going wrong or being different in your well-ordered world. For anxiety sufferers, storms might be right at the top of the list of things they never want to encounter. That is because storms are inherently unpredictable and bring more unknowns than they feel comfortable with.
We have spent years helping our children embrace who they are, including the anxiety. With that, comes lots of plans on how to calm our bodies and redirect our thoughts to what is more likely to happen, not what seems to be the worst scenario. With storms, we try to follow a plan of action meant to minimize their fears and keep them participating in life, rather than focused on the storm. The plan includes being truthful and direct, talks about what we will do in different outcomes, and reminders of past success of making it through storms. That is for the kids. For the parents, the plan is a lot looser. Parent Plan for the Hurricane is a lot less regimented and designed to help us not go crazy trying to manage the fears of the anxious ones. Remember though, it is hard to help anyone with fears that don’t always look like fear and leads them to act out, regress, and spend a bunch of time destroying things in their attempt to control their environment. So the parent plan includes adult beverages and laughter. The adult beverages help the laughter, which keeps everyone calmer.
As Irma made its way towards our state, leaving death and destruction in its wake and on the heels of the devastation in Houston, all parenting had to be done with laughter and love. My kids were scared and extremely concerned about everyone in the path of the hurricane as well as those affected in Houston. Parenting through this time requires patience and dedication. And really, I am a little skeptical that parenting and patience actually go together anyway! Irma caused a lot of damage, yet we were minimally impacted. We will spend time cleaning our home and helping our neighbors to show them how we come back from bad things. I hope it helps, because, hope is all we have. No one knows how well we are helping them, they can barely articulate their own feelings. I also don’t know how well we handle the patient part after the millionth questioning on the same topic. But we try, when we screw up, we talk about how it isn’t easy for adults either. We all just have to keep at it. And then we do that, keep at it. This week we won while parenting through the hurricane. I pray you get some parenting wins this week too.
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