Does anybody else obsess over self-driven cars?
One of the battles I am most loath to contemplate is that
with my son over driving. As focused as
G can be, he may be easily distracted, especially in unpredictable environments
-- and his judgment and sense are “still developing.” If those self-driven cars could just hurry up
and become available and affordable, I could sidestep the whole thing!
There are a couple of other battles we are fighting here and
now, though, reducing the free time I have to think about future technological
developments. I do this particular yearly list because it’s a handy format to
share some insights from the last year’s struggles. While there have been a
number of individuals and institutions that the Full Spectrums might’ve
considered deserving of a nice smack with the hateball bat this year, I am going
to stick with the positive, dedicating this post as usual to stuff you can try at home.
The critical differences between my children – my son is
autistic, socially-awkward and very open-hearted; my daughter was adopted from
china and has an attachment disorder; she is very savvy, and kind of a tough
cookie – necessitate a lot of soul-searching in terms of how to best parent
each/both. Parenting these two very distinct persons may (best case scenario) help
me see what sorts of parenting strategies might work with a variety of
children.
Here are some battle-choosing tips for my FULL spectrum:
1. BOTH
children benefit from Tackling One Task or Trait at a Time. I have found
it’s better to monitor/learn something specific
like “making the bed” over a more broad category such as “neatness.” The way
that I CHOOSE which tasks or traits are addressed rests on which skills and
traits will be most necessary to their lives as they grow up. With G, my
choices tend toward practical skills and self-disciplines that will allow him
to live independently; with Z, I tend to focus on skills and traits that
encourage her to “grow the good,” to feel safe and secure enough to be kind and
generous.
2. (Try
to) Be Consistent and Patient. Once you’ve chosen a battle, stick with it.
It can take a loooooong time for habits to become ingrained. I am still working
with G on “making bed,” while with Z it took a few days. Consistency is key –
and a challenge to maintain on top of everything else…
If you are like me, you get
t-i-r-e-d. Sometimes you may need to take a break from enforcement and get back
to it once you’ve recharged. You’ll know pretty quickly whether you’ve been at
it long enough for something to become a true habit when you start that break.
3. Find
the Right Reward. Z’s pretty easy: food. For a long time I was using
“common sense points” for G and “goodness points’ for Z, and when they reached
a certain number they got to choose a reward. This worked really well with G --
so well that he chose to stop doing it “because I have so much common sense
now.” But it was, I think, a little too vague for Z, who never seemed to get
above 10, anyway. So now we have malted milk balls that Z gets when she listens
in school: Specific Goal (see 1) and the
Right Reward (3). For G, gum and screen time are enticing rewards; he has a lot
of Specifics to work on, though and I haven’t been as Consistent as I should…
(Oh, I’m sorry…was that new-mama-ME
who vowed she would “never bribe her kids”??? Welcome to reality, my old
friend.)
4. Assuming
you’ve truly chosen worthwhile battles, you’ll want to eventually find ways to
make the battles you are trying to choose for your kids become Their Own.
Transfer control to them eventually so that you won’t have to do whatever it is
(making bed) or remind them of it (be kind!) FOREVER.
I see autonomy as an ultimate goal
and challenge for G, since his neurology can make basic daily tasks a struggle (mostly
in terms of simply remembering to do them).
So a big goal and challenge for me, then, is to help him see why he should and how he can take on practical skills.
Helping Z develop her superego
(that part of the self that has a conscience and promotes pro-social, ethical
behavior), so that she will be kind and honest when I am not monitoring her, is
also an “ongoing process.”
5. This
last battle is not a FULL spectrum issue, as Z is a voracious and completely
un-picky eater. But G, as with many people on the spectrum and/or with sensory
processing differences, would prefer to “live” on a diet consisting entirely of
white, sweet, bland food.
So, here are the Food Battles We
Choose:
a. The “One ‘No’ Rule:” G is allowed to refuse one
item at each meal.
Because he is by far the pickiest
eater in the house, and the rest of us tend to eat all sorts of things, this
seems reasonable. On a given night, I
may find myself picking spicy greens out of the mesclun, mushrooms out of the
rice, eggplant out of the relish… before even presenting Himself with His
dinner. Egg-zaust-ing. Now I allow one choice of a food that will not be on his
plate; the rest is up to him as below:
b. The “One Bite Rule” is the perfect corollary to
5.a. Sometimes it means at the very least that all the remaining foods offered
will be tried, however reluctantly…Sometimes it actually leads to a changed
opinion: one time, I made G try the romanesco cauliflower which had been his
expected “no” choice and then, having decided he liked that better than
expected, he chose not to eat the cooked bok choy.
Fascinating, I know, but the “One
Bite Rule” does sometimes create such mini-revelations.
Coming up, the next Sensory Blog Hop plus… what you have all
been waiting for!…the most popular, putrid post of the year! : THE COMPLAINT
DEPARTMENT! FSM has been a smidge behind the ball these last few weeks and is
very much still accepting last minute complaints at jineffable@gmail.com.
Love,
Full Spectrum Mama
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