HOPE

Dear Persons,

Last week, I took my daughter Z on a mother-daughter trip to Emily Dickinson’s home. Since Pardner is a chef, we have lots and lots of time together, but are almost always with her brother, G. The outing — happily anticipated by me —  involved a lot of side eye and bored resignation on Z’s part. Parsing which aspects of her attitude belong to rote teen sullenness, which are characterological, and which are attachment disordered is pretty much impossible, so I will just say that she was not terribly impressed. (She was “sort of ok” with the parts of our “adventure” that involved food…)

We were able to have this delightful alone time because, this spring, G got into a federal college prep program for underprivileged and/or underrepresented teens that provides several residential weeks of classes and other enrichment in the summer. 

I sobbed for days when G got accepted into this program. It’s not that I’ve never had allies. There have been lots of angels along our path (and some less-helpful people as well, to put it mildly…), especially certain teachers and helpers in his schools. But this program is comprehensive, and year-round, and it explicitly aims to get kids into college who might not otherwise go. 

I’ve always seen G — with his amazing ideas and creativity and interesting, interested mind —  as someone who’d have a wonderful, inspiring time in college; but I’ve also known it would be a huge stretch, given his learning differences and our income. I’ve been sad about that pretty much since G’s diagnoses.

For the first time, I felt like  a group of people who could really HELP G also really GOT and SAW him. After so many years struggling to get school staff to follow his IEP, or see him as more than just a label, these people were going to spend hours and days and weeks working with G and other teens to build the exact skills needed to get into and attend college!

The program was also going to help…well…ME. This enterprise of advocating for a child with learning and social and physical differences and challenges can be all-consuming. There have been many, many times when I have felt like other people were talking about a different kid when discussing G — and that they basically had never even met the child I knew…

Knowing that this program was going to help me did two major things: it allowed me to finally admit how much I NEEDED that help, and it gave me HOPE. 

Seriously, dear readers, it was a revelation to me how lonely and afraid  I’d felt in this endeavor — so much so that I couldn’t even acknowledge those feelings until there was something to alleviate them. I mention this because you may be in the same boat and I hope you, too, can find that thing or those things that uplift you and yours.  

In the weeks leading up to his first departure, I was increasingly worried as G failed (as always) to brush his teeth unless supervised or shower unless coerced, evinced literally no executive function whatsoever, and had an end-of-semester 9th grade experience in which both his grades and behavior (at home and school) could have been more than a scootch better.

In his first week at the program, self-regulation issues got the better of him. I was barraged with emails with innocuous yet terrifying headlines like “Update,” and “Checking in.” My Meeting Friend — having endured such periods of uncertainty and fear herself when her child was on tenuous ground in various programs — helped me survive. She gave me hope. 

Together, G and I and the staff of the program came up with strategies (including having no phone whatsoever) to assist G to fully participate. We gave me hope. He’s in the third week of the program and so far says it’s “fun” (his highest compliment). 

And Z? She’s doing her own camp, where she can be surrounded by other sour teens. I am pretty sure she’s having “fun” too!

Figure I - “Lego Construction Representing Unity and Difference” (when G saw I was working on this blog post he made this for me, saying, “Everybody expects Lego stuff to be square and this is not - it’s different. And the black and white together represent unity.”)

(Figure II - “The Usual Square Lego Form”)

It’s a little bit of a vulnerable thing, to allow oneself to hope. There have so far been ups and downs, but I’ll take it. 

I shall leave you with this poem, by a woman many people speculate may have been on the autism spectrum — and who certainly was both extremely “different” and successful in her own ways. 

         “Hope” is the thing with feathers 

         By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Welcome to Voices of Special Needs Blog Hop -- a monthly gathering of posts from special needs bloggers hosted by The Sensory Spectrum and The Jenny Evolution. Click on the links below to read stories from other bloggers about having a special needs kiddo -- from Sensory Processing Disorder to ADHD, from Autism to Dyslexia! Want to join in on next month's Voices of Special Needs Hop? Click here!

An InLinkz Link-up

FOURTH ANNIVERSARY LISTS II: ATTACHMENT DISORDERS

Dear Persons,

There are not as many advocates for attachment disorder awareness as there are for the other areas of advocacy I explore, such as adoption, autism, and sensory processing differences. For this reason, I regularly revisit this theme for this one-topic anniversary post.

Over the years, I’ve tended in this blog to focus more on autism awareness and advocacy because our experiences with attachment disorder feel somehow more private, more inflicted. Attachment disorders cause children (and adults) to act in ways that are often unhealthy, even anti-social, all because of negative childhood or early life situations that did not allow them to form healthy attachments, or prematurely severed such connections.  Unlike autism and other neurological differences, typically inborn states that do not fundamentally need to be “cured” (I write a great deal on this elsewhere), attachment disorders are a sometimes incapacitating psychological condition that can benefit from intensive treatment, primarily through therapeutic parenting or work with an experienced therapist.

I share our Full Spectrum family struggles with my daughter Z’s attachment disorder for two reasons. First, because families all or partly formed by adoption or fostering may be facing this condition unawares, and may be desperate for help; and, second, because one of the central reasons we are a Full spectrum is because my children are so divergent – and this is partly because of Z’s attachment disorder. 

I will offer a little background. As you read about my daughter, please do so bearing in mind that her condition was/is not her “fault” – and is therefore nothing to be ashamed of...

When Z came home she was furious - with good reason. She was ultra-demanding, starving, relentless.  As she got older she began to steal, hoard, and lie compulsively. She became controlling - and a master manipulator. Constant power struggles with a tiny person were exhausting for the whole family (including Z!). Her tantrums continued to disrupt almost any environment she found herself in, well into her ninth year.

Her acting out was most overt with me, her mother, because she trusted me the most -- and thus needed to constantly test me. Highly challenging attachment-disordered behaviors may well be reserved for the home environment, or particular individuals, such as a parent or teacher.

While she was small of stature, adorable, and enormously charming – traits which her therapist pointed out were actually a disadvantage to healing, because they masked the ugliness of her behavior – Z’s behavior much of the time was destructive in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

If you have a child who is exhibiting such behaviors, GET HELP. Trust me, you’re going to need to learn to do things very differently than you might expect! For example, many families with children who were adopted attempt to make up for any pain caused by the loss and turmoil of the adoption process by being indulgent and extra-doting with their children. Conceding to a child’s every demand, even with loving intent, can be a recipe for disaster with a child who has an attachment disorder. Look for a therapist with expertise in this area, and read everything you can find. I’ve talked about some specific strategies here and here and here, as well as below.

Children (and adults) with attachment disorders desperately need to feel SAFE. To that end, they try to control the things and people around them.  It might sound counterintuitive, but – in a very real way – such attachment disordered behaviors emerge in a painful search for safe, strong attachments. Unfortunately, attachment disordered actions tend to result in forming primarily conflict- and need-based relationships, rather than healthy, loving ones.

TMI? Successful therapeutic parenting in one sentence? Yes:

Create an environment with

CLEAR and

CONSISTENT

RULES and

BOUNDARIES

          so that your child can feel safe

-- and so can channel his or her energy into healing and growth.

As unknown as they are, attachment disorders are very real. They can be debilitating for families; they are also sometimes almost completely curable. In our family, many years of consistent therapeutic parenting, at times under the care of a therapist who specializes in attachment disorders, have resulted in a child who is light years healthier and happier than she would have been without this specific mode of therapy.

As Z heals, her true character – brave, loyal, funny, quick, loving - begins to emerge, unhindered by a condition imposed upon her by chance through her birth circumstances. She’s strong, in her own words, “Tiny on the outside but HUGE on the inside!” She’s a wonderfully practical girl, sometimes a bit more blunt than she was raised to be...but these things are characterological, part of her disposition, not just a result of trauma. In fact, we see a myriad of traits, such as being an astute judge of character, that merge positive aspects of her natural self with lessons learned from living through an attachment disorder. Perhaps best of all, while she’s never going to be the world’s most sentimental person, she’s cuddly in a way I could not have dreamed of even a few years ago.  

She feels safe enough to relax in my arms...versus her previous inclination to demand that I carry her around at all times. The wonderfulness of this shift cannot be overestimated.

Children are terrifically resilient and, like plants, they just want to GROW. They just need the right conditions to do so in the healthiest way possible for their unique needs.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

EXCUSES, EXCUSES…

Dear Readers,

The Full Spectrums are moving. Given that we are a gang with a lot of feelings, a lot of stuff (where did it all come from????), and sensory and behavioral differences, there is PLENTY of “writing material” here. However, time to actually write is nonexistent, not to mention my pronounced lack of the necessary mental and physical energy for anything beyond the basics of mothering, my work, and moving.

Please bear with me while I post much, much less than I would like…

In just over a week, I will be publishing a Sensory Blog Hope post about face-blindness.

After that, as soon as possible, I will be writing my next Third Anniversary Post, “Choosing Your Battles.”

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

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

REESE’S THEORY OF HOMEOPATHY

The Full Spectrum Household has been avoiding refined sugar for over six months now.

With the younguns, this move is behavior-driven; for Maman, it’s a serious health issue.

As Halloween approaches, I find my mind wandering to – well, what do you think?

Candy.

Because we will be trick-or-treating, complete with all the quirks of Full Spectrum boundary awkwardness in doorways (every year G wanders casually into at least one random stranger’s home, focused on an enticing trinket or element of decor) and social ineptitudes (hey, now we really can’t recognize you, um, everyone) and violations (quick - watch Z’s hands in the serve-yourself bowls).

Many of our ‘specially fun qualities are exponentially amplified by being all hopped up on sugar.

So, then, post trick-or-treating, there will be these bags of candy. In the kitchen. After the Full Spectrum children are snug in their beds. In their bedrooms.

As you would expect, this little voice in the back of my mind is all, “You know what? If you just had a little bit of candy, say, a few Reese’s peanut butter cups, basically, that would be like…homeopathy!”

“How so?” the small remaining rational part of my mind wonders.

“Because, duh, if you never EAT Reese’s Cups, how will your body build up immunity? How will it know how to process Reese’s Cups, should it ever be exposed to said Cups???”

Exactly. Thus, have I put forth the prestigious, correct-ish “Reese’s Theory of Homeopathy.”

And I think it’s safe to say this scientific-homeopathic model may, in moderation, be applied to a number of other aspects of life…At least until the Special Candy Fairy comes and replaces all the candy with nurturing, commercial-free, organic playthings and natural, lo-flavor veggie-butter-leather.

Happy Halloween!

Love,

Dr. Full Spectrum Mama, Ph.D.

EIGHTY-SIXED

My daughter has an attachment disorder. When she is anything but entirely comfortable she talks constantly, animatedly and without ceasing.  My son has aspergers syndrome. He talks at high volume in an unmodulated voice.

In other words, my children are sometimes rather LOUD.

Consequently, we don’t spend a whole heck of a lot of time in restaurants.  But the other day we had a family date with another mother and her aspergian son and her peppy daughter and, sure enough, the table next to us complained.

See, we had thought we could have a peaceful night out with the kids.

We had walked into the restaurant and immediately seen a large, multigenerational family in the big center table. They’d smiled big, friendly, relieved smiles to see us. They knew we, with our four potentially rowdy elementary school aged kids, would balance they and their two little guys right out. 

But we all knew we’d all be trying to keep our children as well-behaved as possible for the comfort of other diners…

Our sons were excited to see each other. They began putting on raucous, clearly innocent and dorky (vs. aggressive or obnoxious - and why do I feel the need to point this out?) plays with their chopsticks. This friendship has been a beacon of hope for both boys, who struggle socially in their own schools.

Our gals were excited to see each other, chatty, berating their big brothers for being “annoying.”

Maybe four minutes after we sat down, a server approached our table. She was super sweet: “We don’t mind your kids at all but another table is very upset…” They informed us we were welcome to eat in the other part of the restaurant. The closed part? That is usually unused?

We knew it wasn’t her fault and agreed right away, trying to leave as little mess behind as possible, taking our glasses etc. with us, faces burning.

Someone from the other family asked what was going on. Looking straight at the offending table, I informed the nice family in a clear, LOUD voice that someone had complained about our children, despite the fact that they were being relatively well-behaved. I explained that we had to move to another room.

There’s a ferocity to motherhood that once made polite, feminist me hiss the B word at a woman who sniped about my letting my young child play under the table at a restaurant (at the time he'd been diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder and I knew he was overwhelmed by restaurant stimuli). ...A protectiveness that had me retorting “What are you whistling at? You better not be whistling at my baby!” at pregnancy catcallers.

As well as that loving ferocity and protectiveness, there is a sadness when someone judges your child on his or her appearance or on other inevitable aspects of their being. Doesn’t acceptance start in the little things? Allowing children to make a little noise? Reach for their Skittles? Be included even if they are a different color or neurology or different ^$%@%^% ANYTHING?

Don’t ALL children learn through having opportunities to broaden their experiences? By moving outside of their homes and their neighborhoods to restaurants, different streets, neighborhoods, cultures??? Don’t they deserve as many chances to grow as we are able to offer them?

Children who are held to basic standards of kindness yet allowed to make mistakes in the niceties without dreadful repercussions may grow up to be accepting, no?

Post the Zimmerman verdict, I listen to my friends with sons of color talking and writing about how they instruct their sons: “Don’t act suspicious,” “Stay quiet,” “Keep your hands visible, “Don’t make yourself a target”…

A week ago I might’ve ventured to hope that we were moving away from the necessity for such admonitions.

How far are we willing to go to keep our kids quiet? How far to keep them safe????

Acting “erratic” (G) and dining out while brown (Z) are definitely things I see in my kids’ futures. I want them to feel welcome in the world nonetheless! I thought taking them to a restaurant would be a good thing, but our good thing almost got eighty-sixed along with us.

Do you think, stern people of the next table, that we have not tried to have our children fit your behavioral standards?  Do you not think we are doing our best and maybe occasionally deserve the right to go out and eat dumplings?

See those first few sentences of this post where I define my kids as their conditions? You, next-table chumps, have just gone one worse than defining my children by their conditions. You haven’t even given them a chance.

Sure, sometimes a noise complaint is just a noise complaint. But I think we owe it to ALL OUR CHILDREN to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Children raised like that will likely do the same for others.

Anyway, the restaurant had another room and we went there – and the other family actually got up and came over to hang out with us out of solidarity. (Thank you, warmhearted, inclusive, attractive, multigenerational family!)

So things ended up ducky.

Still, the next time you are in a restaurant (or someplace), won’t you smile at someone who is maybe a tiny bit out of their comfort zone? Maybe even ask to watch the chopstick drama?

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama