Third Anniversary Lists II: Attachment Disorders

[I apologize, again, for weird formatting - it seems to be stemming from my blogger template and I cannot seem to fix it without causing more problems...:( ]

During the bus portion  of the second leg of our mainland China adoption journey – from Nanchang Airport to Nanchang City – our guide, whom we called “Rose,” stood up in the front of our bus and announced “Girls from Jiangxi province are known for being beautiful. Oh – and your daughters are going to be VERY SPICY!”

Now, I don’t know so much about how little Ashley, Brooke and Jade turned out…And from what little I know they seemed to be coming along quite mildly…But I can assure you that Z [whose original Chinese name we kept] is most decidedly “spicy.”

The other day, she asked me, “Mama, why am I still so angry from being in an orphanage when that was so long ago?”

“I think part of it is that you are a really smart kid, who had a lot of feelings even at a very young age,” I told her, “and I think part of it is that you naturally have a strong temper!”

As with autism, if you’ve met one kid with an attachment disorder, you’ve met one kid with an attachment disorder. My Z would probably have been “spicy” no matter how she grew up. Still, some things tend to be shared by people who have attachment disorders, such as certain types of behavioral issues that may be otherwise uncommon. Attachment disorders in children often necessitate therapeutic parenting, which looks very different from “normal” parenting -- and was, for the Full Spectrums, a MAJOR revelation.  I’ve written every year on this specific topic to share our experiences and what we’ve learned. Here are the past two posts on this subject:

http://fullspectrummama.blogspot.com/2013/01/first-anniversary-lists-ii-attachment.html

http://fullspectrummama.blogspot.com/2014/01/second-anniversary-lists-ii-attachment.html

Here are some details on the three main strategies for attachment disorders that I have tried over the past year, restoring omniscience, channeling and venting:

1. RE-ESTABLISHING OMNISCIENCE

To demonstrate the importance of this strategy, I offer this anecdote:

Full Spectrum Mama, having found Z in possession of something of questionable origin (i.e. not from known source and never seen before by FSM): “Where’d you get that?”

Full Spectrum daughter, Z: “In my room.”

FSM: “Well, I’ve never seen it before. So I am asking you where it came from.”

Z: [Blank.]

It’s that moment when your kid realizes you Don’t Know Everything. That moment gets more loaded when your child has an attachment disorder and the typical attachment disordered tendency to…appropriate things. LOTS of things.

The worst part of the blank non-reponse is, as several loved ones noted: Why not a better story? Something along the lines of “Someone gave it to me,” or, “I won it at school.”

Why not? Because I don’t even merit that! Anyway, she’s known for some time that if she gets too specific, her story may be refuted (see, most recently, new rhinestone hair-doodad collection, courtesy of “Ayi Fern”…”No! Full Spectrum Grandmother!”...”No…”).

Hence; “In my room.”

Back in the day when I could be convincing in my omniscience I was able to coax the truth out of Z. Then we could make things right by returning things whence they came and making amends. I would say, “In five minutes, I will give you a chance to tell the truth about that,” and, in five minutes, she would. Then we would figure out a solution.

We are entering a new realm now.

I have only one hope for a way out without getting professional help: RESTORE OMNISCIENCE. Just today, Z asked me, “Mama, can you fry stewed meat?”

“Why on earth would you ask me that? You know I am vegetarian…Oh, wait…because I…know everything?”

The response was something between an eye roll and a nod.

Sigh. I’ll be…in my room.

So let’s say OMNISCIENCE isn’t happening right now. What are some alternatives?

2. CHANNELING

This may be a bit trial-and-error, but I have found that CHANNELLING disordered behaviors, especially compulsive ones, can be very effective. The idea with channeling is to replace a disordered activity with something more healthy and pro-social. You may have to try a bunch of alternatives before you hit upon one that works, or you may just get lucky! I wrote about one major 2014 success in WADS. 

3. VENTING

Not long ago, Z was on an extended tear of “zesty” behavior: constantly testing, pushing, on edge…Having some experience with these cycles, I was able to keep her adequately on point, but only barely – and it was exhausting. As I have written in previous posts on this subject, boundaries are key; as I learned from our therapist, who specializes in attachment disorders, even small boundaries must be held in order to keep attachment disordered fears in check. So basically I have to be holding my ground on every little thing as she, typically, gets increasingly relentless…It’s not the most pleasant scenario.

Anyway, after a few weeks where I could sense Z was struggling quite a bit with something, she got angry (I don’t even remember what about) and stomped her foot and had the most comical expression on her face that I laughed when I looked at her. She became furious and stomped up to her room where she began to rage and throw and break things and scream ceaselessly for some time. After which she emerged, apologized, and has remained pleasant ever since.

I am not trying to advise you to send your child around the bend by teasing – which I did NOT mean to do! – just advocating for the occasional recognition of a tantrum as, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, a potential healing tool. The occasional VENTING session can be extraordinarily cathartic.

Next in the Anniversary Lists Series: Choosing Your Battles!!!

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

BLACKINESE

Pardner grew up in predominantly African-American neighborhoods. I was born in Panama and grew up spending time in Panama City and the Darien jungle town of La Palma (and in the interior, in smaller indigenous villages), usually being the only white person around besides my father. My godfather was an Emberá Cacique (the Emberá are the indigenous people of that region; Cacique means chief). The population in La Palma consists largely of Darienistas – descendants of escaped African slaves.

So Z’s New England-based family is a lot less super-White-rooted than most two-White-parented families around these parts….But that still doesn’t quite explain why she thinks she’s Black.

Z was adopted from China and is of – so far as I know and can tell – entirely Chinese ethnicity. When she was a baby I often thought she looked as if she could have been Emberá, but this resemblance has diminished as she has grown older.  In any case, I’ve always made sure to have positive representations (books, music, art) of people of all shapes, sizes, abilities, neurologies, and skin tones around the house. I try to celebrate a variety of cultures and perspectives. My goal has been not so much to make Z aware of being special (because she is Chinese, or was adopted, or…) but to teach –sometimes without explicitly doing so – that all people are inherently valuable.

For example, here are her favorite dolls:

                            

   

Figure I – Z’s Full Spectrum of Dolls

“Cinderelly,” far right, is a little hard to explain. Something involving Grandparents and a very headstrong young lady. Otherwise, as you can see, we have a very inclusive and diverse doll family. “Donna Poodle Itchy,” center, who is of Chinese descent, is Z’s favorite doll baby, but she loves them all. And, I suppose, feels ethnically connected with them all as well: she knows she is from China, her parents are White, and she is, apparently, Black-identified.

 I’ve heard her telling people several times, “There were only two Black kids at [her old school]. Me and [Black person].”

And check out this Thank-You card she – who has warm beige-toned skin - made for her best friend, who is from West Africa and has very dark brown skin:

                             Figure II – Thank You Card (Self-Portrait by Z, with her Best Friend)

Many, many moons ago, I worked at a fabulous organization called New Jersey S.E.E.D.S.  with the man I (along with his four sons, and I bet a few others like me whose lives he’s touched deeply) am now privileged to call “Dad.”* There was a student in our program who was half Black and half Chinese and called herself “Blackinese.” I’ve never forgotten the pride this student had in her voice when she explained her heritage, nor the excellent word she used to encapsulate that heritage.

I’ve been reluctant to too-strongly correct Z on her identification with other people of color of (speaking generally) a different color because it does seem to be a very positive thing for her. She is privileged to live among many terrific role models of all sorts, and in a progressive, inclusive community where being a person of color is a plus (ideally, in my humble opinion, it should be a neutral, butanyway…).

So I guess she’s just Blackinese.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Here’s what this wonderful man said when I asked him how he identifies himself ethnically as I began this post:

Hi [FSM],

Jesse Washington once asked me to describe my race in six words. I answered, “Race is a fiction; I’m black.”  

I do not say African-American because all of us come from Africa, some simply left the Motherland later than my ancestors did.  If we are simply African apes my ethnicity is special because I identify most with blacks worldwide.

Love,

[“Dad”]

WADS

Here’s a spectrum for you: a Sneaky Spectrum.

On one end we have G, who does stuff like shouting “Don’t look! I’m changing!” when doing a changing-inside-towel thinger at the beach. As you might imagine, he’s not much of a sneaker. His sneaking is always cartoonish and ridiculous – stomping down the stairs on his tiptoes with a sheepish expression on his face as he tries to sneak a granola bar after bedtime, spitting his greens into the toilet then forgetting to flush…

My father told me when I was very young that I was a bad liar and I’ve pretty much not lied since. That was a pretty good teaching. He also tried to teach me to be subtle and ladylike. Which did not work. Both of which – not lying, not being subtle (subtlety usually reads to me as manipulative) – now totally make sense in my corner of the spectrum.

At the other end of the Sneaky Spectrum, we have Z, who is a Master Sneak. And it scares me because I have no idea how to deal with it.

Here’s an example: WADS. One of Z’s special habits is making little balls of chewed up paper with water and spit. She likes to take them in and out of her mouth, and store them for long periods of time. This results in a reeking, festering mess; and, in her mother here, a mixture of exasperation, disgust and compassion. Obviously, wads fulfill a deep need in my daughter, whether for oral sensory seeking or something more emo-, and orphanage-related. But…I need to help her fulfill that particular need in a healthier way.

So I tried Solution 1: No Water in the Bedroom. This did not work, as Z is worlds above me in the Sneak Department. She found a myriad of ways to sneak water into her room and create wads. Stashing water in the containers of “beauty products” I gave her so she wouldn’t eat mine…a tiny doll’s mug under the bed with murky, saliva-y water…wads hidden wrapped in non-masticated tissues next to her bed “in case she needed to blow her nose”…

Over years, we’d have the talk – “Please don’t chew up paper and leave it in your room. It’s not healthy because the wads get full of germs and smell bad too.  If you need food or a drink I will give them to you…” OR “You may NOT have water in your room!” – and a few days (or weeks) later I would find a glass (or another vessel) of water and an (increasingly tiny) container full of paper/water/spit wads.

Innovative.

The mildly unsanitary aspect of the wads gets to me less than the sneaking. The worst part is feeling that I am somehow helping her to become a Master Sneak.

Telling Z not to do something just doesn’t work. (Lest you forget that this is a Full Spectrum we are working with, telling G not to do something doesn’t always work either. But he’s – I was going to say more sanitary, but no – less potentially dangerous in his efforts.)

Like many children with attachment disorders, Z has a deep underlying need for control. I can wear myself out supervising her every moment, but we are already almost there. And I need to help her learn healthy habits and heal her attachment disordered behavior, rather than training her to stay one step ahead of The Law.

I’ve long known I need to do something indirect, something subtle in this, the Matter of the Wads. Unfortunately, my brain just does not work that way!

Meanwhile, over the years, my early bird G spends his mornings reading; early bird Z seems to spend them making wads.

Until now!

Solution 2: After years of worrying about the implications of Z alone in her room with needles and scissors, I finally gave her a whole bunch of sewing and weaving stuff to play with at her own discretion.

I noticed a few weeks after the crafty gifts that these activities seem to have worked to channel/redirect her wad-making energy, indirectly and subtly!

This was so indirect and subtle I didn’t even know I was doing it.

Anyway: Huzzah!

Fingers crossed on the sharps.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Poorly Behaved: A Context Spectrum

“Z, please come downstairs,” I called from the kitchen.

Since I was cooking dinner and not really paying attention, it took a few minutes to realize my daughter hadn’t shown up. Sharing in kitchen chores is something Z really enjoys, an opportunity for us to have plain old fun together, so I tried again.

“Z,” I repeated, perhaps the tiniest smidge more emphatically, “Please come downstairs.”

She came to stand near me as I bustled about.

“Sorry Mama,” she informed me, “I didn’t hear you the first time.”

Hmm.

“Well, if you didn’t hear me, “ I sputtered, “How would you have known I called you the first time, then?”

Blank look.

“Oh, never mind!”

“Normal?” Perhaps. (Although not in the autism area of our Full Spectrum.) In the context of the rest of that day’s events, this exchange emerges as one of many instances of survival-motivated behaviors that add up to an overall tendency toward evasiveness and, therefore, at least in our case, dishonesty.

How does one raise a child inclined to subterfuge? On even the most minor points, Z tends toward confabulation. That is, her disorder (for confabulation implies an illness, often dementia) inclines her toward making up whatever answer is most suitable to her needs. 

We have made some real progress with tantrums since the early days (see, for example, http://fullspectrummama.blogspot.com/2012/06/needhelp.html) but the more subtle matters of day-to-day integrity are an ongoing trial.

I was recently talking with my mother about why I haven’t really explored the online world of attachment disorders in the same way that I have those of autism and aspergers syndrome. I told her I thought it was because most autism sites seem to celebrate people’s differences while I feared attachment disorder sites would just make me scared or sad. I knew that they might make me feel less alone in our struggles, but I suspected hearing about other people being as hopeless and desperate as I have sometimes been would be depressing.

When I googled “attachment disorders,” the first site I ended up on was:

http://adoption.families.com/blog/a-letter-to-our-new-neighbors-about-our-rad-daughter.

I had landed on a link to a letter on a parenting site, from a mother of a child with an attachment disorder to her new neighbors. Her daughter was quickly forming intense friendships with people in her new neighborhood and this Mama was concerned about the healthy development of those relationships.

I know how she felt having to write that letter. When you have a child with an attachment disorder, sometimes you feel like you need to write similar letters, over and over, even to some of the closest people around you.

A Context Spectrum comes to mind: yes, I understand that sometimes {insert behavior} is “normal” (and, hey, maybe you are trying to make us feel better – thanks!) but in a context of {behavior}, {behavior}, and {behavior}, it is NOT normal. And to ignore it will NOT help, in fact it will almost certainly make things worse.  So please, dear {recipient of letter}, understand that we need to handle this in a way that might seem overly strict to you, but, beloved {recipient of letter}, trust me that you do Not know best in this context.

This letter-writing Mama’s daughter is, like Z, incredibly charming and engaging, and her mother is worried – for good reason – that her daughter’s interactions with neighbors may spiral out of balance in any number of ways.

Her letter most definitely touched a nerve.

I didn’t go to any other attachment disorder sites that day.

I had a vague idea about attachment disorders but assumed since I brought Z home under the age of one she would be unaffected by this illness.

The fact that I was unable to put Z down for a year or so (according to those with intact memories of this period [not including me]) without causing an unremitting stream of bloodcurdling screams to emit from her tiny mouth might have indicated that something unusual was going on. I attributed her neediness to her exceptional intelligence and sensitivity, as well as to her temperament, about which our guides in China had warned us. I can still remember “Rose,” standing at the front of our bus with a microphone, announcing with a big grin, “Since they are from Jiangxi Province, your daughters are gonna be Spicy!”

The contrast between the plump, smiling, radiant six-month old baby in the referral picture I received and the scrawny, closed-faced child of nine months and three weeks that I met was stark. What happened in those three months? Was it something specific, like hunger or abuse? Or was it just that my incredibly perceptive girl had noticed that something was missing? 

I thought that once I brought her home and fattened her up a bit that jolly baby Z would re-emerge unscathed. It hasn’t been that simple. Loving my vibrant, wonderful yet troubled daughter has not been enough to heal her – yet; and we have searched at length for therapeutic modes of discipline that will actually work.

When I first brought home my “first and best-behaved child,” Pancha, who happened to be a dog (Figure I), I resolved to never say “bad dog!” “Bad dog” just sounded so mean. Love the sinner, hate the sin! I decided, instead, to call her “poorly behaved” if she did something “bad.”

       Figure I -- The beautiful Pancha,* a.k.a. Sri Sri Sri Panchananda-ji, Gabooboogee, The Punk

Pancha joined my household when I was in the early years of graduate school and was living on a fellowship that only barely paid the bills. Every once in awhile – as in, every year or so -- I would buy something new to wear; slightly more often I’d indulge in second-hand clothes from the 96^th Street Salvation Army.

When Pancha was still a puppy, I purchased a precious, precious new pair of shoes. She promptly chewed them to pieces. I was devastated and determined to prevent such an event ever recurring. I put her on her back to show her who was boss and scolded her with a mighty wrath. She trembled, cowering and groveling in guilt and remorse. Except – as she cowered and groveled in guilt and remorse, she reached out with one paw and – dink, dink – played with a toy.

My daughter reminds me a lot of Pancha: brilliant, beautiful, vivacious, punk, very lovable, very hungry – and with a bifurcated mind. One part focused on pleasing Mama, the other (larger) on getting what she wants…Conscience? “Is still acquiring this skill,” as they say on Vermont report cards. My beautiful dog and my beautiful daughter: both quite good at aping respect; underneath that surface layer, both convinced that they should take control. It was cute in a small dog, in a small person it is sometimes disturbing.

Z doesn’t even do the fake remorse, groveling or cowering. If Z is found out in a lie or poorly behaved activity she is, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed. She has to be reminded, often firmly obliged, to say she is sorry.  The jury is still out on whether forced apology works on any non-superficial level or is an acceptable parenting tool, beyond the most simple and public of social situations (i.e., “Please apologize to that other child for cutting in line”). 

A wise aunt once told me, “Be careful that you don’t scold your child in a way that makes her begin to have a picture of herself as ‘the bad one.” I’ve tried to combine that with the notion of “poorly behaved” to manage Z’s disordered actions as actions per se -- and not character flaws. As I mentioned, we’ve made major progress with tantrums. We are down from multiples every day to an average of one or two real humdingers a week!

But Z’s general approach to life seems still to be one of pragmatic get-what-I-want-with-a-minimum-of-obstacles-ism. Despite my never using this word with her, when I ask Z why she did a given “bad” thing she will answer me with a shrug, “Because I am bad.”

                              Figure II -- Self Portrait by Z, casually left on the drawing table

During a Harry Potter camp last summer, the kids brought home stuffed owls and kept them in their windows. A mysterious “someone” would send notes every night (for a very long time, every night, until, indeed, the owls got very “tired” and “retired” to chairs and beds!). Over and over again Z received notes that affirmed her essential, innate goodness, in words she could understand: “Let your good heart shine,” “ You are so kind inside – don’t be afraid to let your kindness out!” and so on.

    

        Figure III – Drawing under the drawing in Figure II: slightly comforting in the drawing 

                           context spectrum, assuming she is the one with the wings...

Around this fall equinox I had a talk with G and Z about what the equinox represents -- the equal day and night hours, the meaning of equanimity, finding balance…

I shared that I felt like my teaching work had taken over all my writing and yoga practice time (please see http://whitewhine.com/) and that I felt out of balance for that reason. I asked them if there was anything in their lives that needed to be in better balance.

G replied that he felt that his life was in a good balance.

Then Z announced, “I‘m too bad. I’m going to stop being bad, just like I stopped biting my nails.”  (Her quitting a serious nail-biting habit is an example I always use for her to remind her of her strong will power.)

“Oh, Z, you are not bad,” I reassured her, “Sometimes you may do a thing that seems bad but that’s just because you are hurting inside.”

This is, after all, how I explain unkindness, cruelty, lashing out and general chumpitude to myself and to my son, on his spot on the Full Spectrum. I prefer this explanation to one of selfishness, and in Z’s case I believe it holds true.  It is my failure as her Mama that all my linguistic somersaults have not prevented my daughter from thinking she is “bad.”

Nor have my modes of discipline made much progress: Did Z stop being poorly behaved? Not quite yet.

Is not the fact that we both get to keep trying not one of the neatest things about life?

Love,

The sometimes poorly behaved but never bad,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Some haters may quibble with the word “beautiful” being used to describe my stunningly lovely dog. I have nothing to say to them.

1. 
   

Ancestry

Holidays can be a little bit tricky in a Full Spectrum household. Take Easter, please. The morning egg hunt presents huge problems when one child goes Machiavellian (strategy, speed, ruthlessness; goal: vanquishing cousins, sibling…result: victory) and one goes aspergian (general neural overload - candy, neural/visual/auditory overload – frolicking cousins, warp-speed sibling; goal: vague…result: paralysis, tears). (Please see self-explanatory Figures 1 and 2.) Ditto, Birthdays: think piñatas, favors &c.  We have adapted by focusing on the pre-filled Easter basket, the set number of packets – one for each child – in the piñata, and so forth.

                      Figure 1                                                                                            Figure 2

St. Patrick’s Day, too, has its potential pitfalls. Over oatmeal breakfast on that fateful day, I was sharing an uplifting story of how the children’s Scots great-grandfather would wear a button on his bum that read, “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” much to their Irish great-grandmother’s chagrin, when Z asked me, “Mama, am I Irish?”

[Censored!] I was completely tongue-tied. There was a long and (to me) somewhat uncomfortable silence. I’d’ve preferred to have been thinking about many other questions right then, including my ongoing internal debate over which is better as the face ages: the jowl-less wrinkles of your skinnier folk or the wrinkle-free jowls of the pleasantly plump?

Ahem. Since Z was adopted from China, I have a ready-made response for one of the hardest questions: “Why didn’t my birth mother keep me?” China’s one-child policy –for all its questionable aspects – offers the option of a simple answer to this complicated question: “Your birth Mama gave you up because she had to, since in China most couples are allowed only one child.”

But what about this question? Is Z Irish or not? Clearly she is not genetically Irish. But her maternal great-grandmother was fresh off the boat from Ireland. Pardner, G and I are all genetically part-Irish. As I sat there, mouth agape, Pardner (Thank you universe for Pardner! Thank you! Thank you!) came to the rescue, assuring her in a strong brogue that, “Everyone’s Irish on St. Paddy’s Day!”

“Good,” she said, “because the leprechauns are going to come to our school this weekend and turn everybody’s chairs over.”

Oh.

Walking into school several weeks after St. Patrick’s Day, Z asked me, “Mama, if we can have ancestors…can we also have ‘anbrothers?’” After I stopped laughing and, frankly, bragging to everyone I ran into over the next few hours about how funny Z is, it hit me that she is still thinking about ancestry a great deal.

Maybe all those Easter eggs – and all those other material, tangible, often-edible (and sometimes eaten even when not-edible) things -- feel vitally important to a little girl who’s not quite sure what’s inside herself.

Next year I am just going to say, “Yes. Yes, you are Irish baby. Because you are mine.”

Love and leprechauns,

Full Spectrum Mama

Would you rather…I

Want to make me cry? Reduce me to a quivering, sobbing, snot-covered mass of mama-jelly?

Ask about Z’s ID card.

The day I met my girl, she was just over nine months old. Dressed in a little light green and white jumper from the orphanage, she was astoundingly beautiful, if looking a little scared. She initially came across as quiet to the point of being possibly drugged, and was clutching her identification in her tiny hand. Why did she have to hold her own ID card? Why did my baby have to bear that responsibility?

When I think of most nine-month old babies, I cannot imagine they could be relied upon to hold on to anything consistently. There was Z, in that moment where she was passed from her Ayi (in this context, caregiver) to me, all alone in the world and bravely responsible for her own miniscule self and her very own identity.

Want me to cry some more? Ask me about “Tommy.”

Tommy lives up the street from us in a quaint, slightly run-down little house with his elderly parents. When Tommy was in school, Pardner’s ex-girlfriend was his teacher. In those days, “special needs’ children were not mainstreamed and he went to a “special” school. Pardner used to come into the classroom and play his guitar and harmonica for the kids and he has fond memories of Tommy and the others in the class dancing with total glee. 

Now Tommy is middle-aged, a pudgy man with his pants hiked high and a bald spot. I usually see him walking jauntily up and down the street with his walking stick, always staying in sight of his house and waving at everyone who drives by. He always seems happy. Every time I see him I think of his parents: I wonder if they worry about who will take care of him when they are gone. I know full well there are social services and safety nets but what will happen to him when his parents are no longer able to run that household? What if what Tommy wants is to stay in his own home?

A few weeks ago, we had a big snowstorm. I didn’t see Tommy for a few days and I noticed that there was no smoke coming from the chimney of the house. The small driveway remained without tracks. I haven’t seen any activity at his home since. I am afraid that time has come.

These two tear-inducing items represent the two poles of a Full Spectrum of fears for my children. I have a daughter who was able to --  in a very real way -- take care of herself at nine-months old…because she had no choice. Almost six years later she remains trapped in a massive control scheme, her babiness largely inchoate. I have a son who is very bright and desirous of independence but who may never be able to live on his own without assistance. I worry, I worry.

So many faiths advise us to “be here now.” We are warned that the present is all we have for sure. Our nowadays are sprinkled with lovely small moments, sometimes bumpy but always full of big, deep love. Wisdom traditions notwithstanding, I worry about the days to come. What is the right amount of worry, now and in the future? What is the right amount of care?

To be continued…

Love,
Full Spectrum Mama


PS. Dear readers, thank you so much for your support, wisdom and comments! I have tried to change the settings so that anyone – including anonymous followers (as most readers are) and random readers – can comment, so please try again if you have experienced difficulties posting.  Also, please feel free to email me for any reason. I haven’t figured out why some people are still having a hard time joining or posting but am happy to post comments for you or let you know when posts come out. Thanks and love, FSM

Vocal Fry vs. Gortles

Z was waiting for me at pickup the other day with a big, saucy grin on her face. She held up the latest Scholastic book order and announced: “Justin Beaver is in here?…He’s HOT!”

In a sudden transformation as surprising to myself as to Z, Full Spectrum Mama turned into a fascist, super-conservative, sexist anachronism. I heard the following phrase burst from my formerly liberal lips: “You are! Five! Years! Old! Okay, Six! You will NEVER say that word again!”

My rule of fear and oppression complete, Z felt able to respond: “Um, okay Mom.” Eye roll.

Then, resisting the urge to prove that ***I*** am the one who knows not only how to Read but to correctly pronounce Justin Bieber’s name as well, I took a step back to dispassionately analyze my reaction.

The first language Z heard was the local dialect in Fuzhou (a.k.a. Linchuan), in Jiangxi province in China. I am sure she also heard some Mandarin (which I have continued to integrate into her life, though not as much as I’d like). Until she was almost ten months old, she’d never heard a word of English. Nonetheless, Z has been speaking it in complete sentences with perfect diction since she was 18-months old.

What is truly remarkable about her speech to me, though, is the apparent savviness of her tone. She comes across as authoritative yet casually chatty -- much like a clever, popular, connected teen. Perhaps the most obvious element of this mature tone is how she uses the ultimate tool of with it girls everywhere: vocal fry (http://gawker.com/5867222/vocal-fry-is-the-hot-new-linguistic-fad-among-women), see also (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/young-women-often-trendsetters-in-vocal-patterns.html). Vocal fry sounds rather like a crumpling up of the inquisitive at the ends of her sentences. It’s a mini-hipster-rumble that signifies at once being totally in-the-know and a lack of caring too much.

G rumbles when he talks, too. Because he has some low muscle tone, phlegm often catches in his throat when he speaks and he makes a slight gurgling sound behind his words. I call this “gortles,” as in, “Honey, clear your throat – ya got gortles.”

Low muscle tone also results in lax enunciation of many sounds. This, coupled with his unique cadence -- Pardner often notes how G “sounds like John Wayne” – makes G sometimes hard to understand, particularly for other children.

G has been receiving speech therapy through his school since he his IEP (Individualized Education Program) was initiated years ago. His speech therapist initially maintained that G would “never” make much progress in his speech. I have been able, however, using a rewards system that actually matters to him (pokemon cards), to ease him into the habit of pronouncing many sounds correctly and he has become much easier to understand.

Recently, our dear friends Shu Shu Chuck and Fern Ayi (Auntie [in Mandarin] Fern) came to visit us. They brought lovely educational gifts for the kids and spent lots of doting time with them. Fern Ayi, was even kind enough to get up before dawn with them (“Would it be okay with your mom if you got up?” “Yes!!!” [“No.”]) and feed them bottomless bowls of cereal.

At brunch on Sunday, Chuck noted that same John Wayne cadence to G’s speech. I immediately began to explain that we are working on his speech, that he has help at school and so on.

Chuck looked a little sad. “Why?” he asked. “Why try to change what is unique about him?” He said he thinks G is a “wonderful” kid just as he is and decried our culture’s tendency to try to make everyone the same, and to treat difference as if it is a sickness.

I agreed with him wholeheartedly. Without really considering my audience, I had been making my standard excuses, not really lies per se, but statements intended to placate others who may be critical -- when in fact I think G is PERFECT EXACTLY AS HE IS.

Now to give some legitimacy to Chuck’s words: he is none other than Chuck Hoberman (http://www.hoberman.com/home.html), an amazing inventor and brilliant thinker. Among other things, Chuck designs marvelous toys for curious people of all ages. I think his life and oeuvre give great weight to his contention that we should NOT necessarily try to “normalize” our children’s every atypical quality.

Speaking of normalization, if truth be told, I’d like to ease Z’s speech away from the conformi-cool area of the speech spectrum:

The other night, we went to the local café for pizza night with another family. The sweet, smart mother of Z’s good friend brought her two girls - Z’s good friend and friend’s little sister. I brought along G’s best friend too, to be fair. (The injustice of unequal playdates is one felt and expressed powerfully across the FSM household spectrum.) The boys had their own table and the five of us girls sat at another.

I am always a tiny bit wary of consorting with intact (i.e. not gobsmacked by divorce) families who seem like “normal” people with seemingly neurotypical, psychotypical kids. I am well aware that “seem” may well be the operative word in most cases; also, the above describes most of my friends…I am just setting this story up here. Our family is blended in several more ways than average and I hope I may be forgiven a smidge of healthy, wholesome paranoia.

At the boys’ table, G was talking about one of his favorite subjects, marine biology. He kept referring to “aminals” and his friend would get frustrated and correct him. After resisting the urge for some time I finally butted in, letting G’s friend know that I thought saying “aminal” was “pretty darn cute.” He remained unconvinced. “I think it’s annoying,” he informed us. G’s face fell.

Over at the girls’ table, Z was holding up her knife and fork and looking through them to frame my face. Then, still looking at me, she began to move them around in a kind of criss-cross pattern. In her perfect, angelic, singsong voice, she began to sing a perfectly enunciated little tune: “Cut, cut, cut…Cut my mommy’s face.”

The mother, who was seated next to me, leaned in and asked, very quietly, “Does she have violent tendencies?”

At that moment, I wished for Z to be much, much less comprehensible.

Not for the first time, I found myself simultaneously
1. wishing two opposite things for my two dissimilar children: that G’s speech would be more clear and compelling, and that Z’s speech would be less clear and less compelling; and
2. wishing that in each case I wasn’t wishing what I was wishing.

Despite knowing it was a kind of funny situation, and even with all those nice people around me I felt very lonely just then.

Love,
Full Spectrum Mama

Full Spectrum Mama - I

There is a range of ways of being known intimately to me as a person, woman and mother, a Full Spectrum, if you will. As a mother of two high-needs children, I need to access a Full Spectrum of being in order to parent my children. That seems to me only natural: we as individuals and families manifest so much that is unique - and so much that we share. As well, in the larger picture, human beings embody a vast, diverse ocean of commonalities and divergences.

For some time I have been thinking about the spectrum of human beings and in my mind simultaneously making more connections and broadening what we are offered when we are diagnosed as different…or have children who are diagnosed as such – or we or they are perceived as such…or we or they feel different. Where do we fit in? I see rainbows and oceans of interrelations.

Without – please! -- assigning any value to the various labels, imagine the Autism Spectrum. Let’s say it extends from mild Asperger Syndrome to PDDNOS (pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified) to severe Autism, sometimes presenting with other conditions. And then let’s place Sensory Processing Disorders just outside of this spectrum, to the left. Now let’s imagine that just as this spectrum extends to the right, it also extends to the left, and this hypothetical spectrum runs from so-called “normal” people (more on this later) near the middle, just beyond the “sensory processings,” to mild attachment disorders to severe attachment disorders.
Figure 1.

If I had better computer skills, this would be So much more luscious, but you get the idea. My intention is to show connections, more than distinctions.

In any case, I have two children, and I think of them at fairly opposite ends of this spectrum. My son has Asperger Syndrome and my daughter has an attachment disorder. I don’t want to in any way exploit them, so this blog will remain somewhat anonymous and I will refer to them only by initials (um, the wrong initials). I know there are other people out there who think that the wide range of humanity is fascinating; and I know there are other parents out there stretched thin. You are my people!

Son, G, was born under challenging circumstances in New York City weeks after 9/11. He was on a respirator in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with severe meconium aspiration for a week. He is now ten years old. He is the kindest and most caring child I have ever known. Generous to a fault...and deeply socially awkward. He talks really, really loud and basically wants to talk about his special interests at all times. He would give you his most treasured possession in a heartbeat.

Daughter, Z, was adopted from China at nine months of age. She is six years old now, and stunningly beautiful, with the most perfect features I have ever seen on any human being. She is incredibly intelligent and observant. She has a terrific sense of humor and exudes glamour. We call her mini-Satan. And by “we,” I mean Me, because, you see, these two children require Two Completely Different Mothers.

So that is what you will find here – stories about my daily multiple-personality life – and how I mother the Full Spectrum. I aim to be inclusive and non-judgmental and never, ever sanctimonious…but you may find me irreverent. I will tell you why we laugh and cry around the house (oh, and in public, for better or worse!) and about our mishaps and triumphs and would love to hear your stories too.

Love,
Full Spectrum Mama