PARTY BOOKS

I.

We are at a party. I am having a good time because I am emotionally prepared, have had my one allotted beer, and know lots of people. Z is fine, as always. G is careening around, reminding me of Brownian Motion, not connecting.

He’s basically gorging on sweets and walking in circles around the perimeter of the party.

I know he feels overwhelmed, maybe lonely too.

                                                  Figure I – What a Party Can Feel Like with SPD

II.

G is swinging on a vine outside the party.

“That kid is weird,” says a young white girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old. Her two companions, same general description, nod their heads.

Why? WHY IS MY KID WEIRD? What did he do? Seems to me this vine-swinging is the most “normal” thing he’s done all night.

III.

G wants to leave, as he has from our moment of arrival. I try to buy some time outside. A family - mother, father and child - are standing nearby. The father takes the child, gets in the car and leaves. From the child’s posture, I sense exhaustion.  

“Too much?” I ask the mother.

“Yes,” she says.

“Sensory processing differences?” I wonder aloud, not entirely sure why…just a gut feeling…

”Oh yeah - ___ [her child] is definitely spectrumy.”

(Note: While not everyone with Sensory Processing Disorder {SPD -- which I prefer to call “Sensory Processing Differences,” by the way} is on the autism spectrum, most people on the spectrum do have Sensory Processing Differences. Both ASDs {autism spectrum disorders – though I do take issue with “disorders” in this label as well [another post!]} and SPDs share the aspect of being neurological – vs emotional or psychological – differences.)

But back to “spectrumy:” Yay.

Now we can talk. And we do. Our kids were in different grades at the same school, which is why we looked familiar to one another. At this party, while my G was blundering awkwardly around, her child was getting and expressing an overwhelmed feeling in other ways.

So we have this great bonding conversation about the kids’ social lives and our home lives and all...

…And then she says, “I wish I’d’ve just let ____ bring a book. Then this all would have been totally fine.”

“Whoah,” I shake my head. “G wanted to bring his book too, and I just wanted him to try this and be here, try to connect and talk to people and practice social skills…you know? And it’s been pretty rough…WHY DIDN”T WE JUST LET THEM BRING THEIR BOOKS?”

We sad-smile at each other.

They could have sat together, reading. I bet they would’ve been totally happy, not careening or leaving. I bet they would’ve had the best time.

Next time.

                                      Figure II – What having a Book at a Party Can Feel Like with SPD

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

An InLinkz Link-up

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.

A Spectrum Rainbow II

 A Spectrum of What You THINK You Are Going To Do 

This particular Spectrum has come up a lot lately so it seems like a good time to share:

Madelino warned me when Z started kindergarten that I would need a year to recover, at least. She said that I might think I was going to now be able to do all that stuff I’d not been able to do all these years (so, now, in addition to teaching, I would definitely write that novel I’d been meaning to write, find new work that earned lashings of money, see friends, organize our lives, have plenty of time to relax…and, oh, that memorial poetry cycle!).

But no. 

What would actually happen was that I would spend a lot of time on catching up on nine years [fill in your number here – or just insert “the summer months,” because that counts, too; or tailor your slightly unique accomplishment delusions to "during my week off" or "when I go on sabbatical"...] of barely accomplishing anything outside of work and parenthood, and a lot of energy on imperceptibly returning to human status.

                                        Figure I – Time/Accomplishment Spectrum Graph

Lack of Accomplishment: as this Scientific Spectrum demonstrates, it’s just…normal.

A Clarification Spectrum

As just happened with PiMP’s prior post, sometimes I make jokes on this here blog and people on certain parts of the spectrum take them literally and worry about me/us and ask me if I/we are okay when I/we are really fine and dandy. Sometimes my funny, funny jokes make people on other parts of the spectrum take them at face value (literally) and assume I/we are all fine when in fact I/we are struggling.

Is this a metaphor?

A Cupcake Spectrum

More than one person explained what the kids’ new school would be like in terms of cupcakes.

One pal told me that whereas at X school one must bake gluten-free, not-too-sweet birthday cupcakes - say, nut-free banana muffins with lightly maple-syruped casein-free vegan cream cheese frosting - at our NEW school the ones from the grocery store with the day-glo frosting are more than acceptable.

Another said that while homemade cupcakes are de riguer at most area elementary schools, and especially at the private schools, at our larger, more urban school nobody even notices such [stuff].

Clearly, at G and Z’s new school, parents are relatively free to simply provide celebratory sugary treats of their choosing without judgment or condemnation! People with special dietary needs – well, I dunno. We have been a gluten-free and dairy-free household and now are mostly sugar-free, yet this felt super-liberating, as fall is a barrage of Full Spectrum Birthdays.

As a trained Sociologist, for what that’s worth, I was naturally* ruminating on the socioeconomic implications of cupcakes, when, come to find out, G being the least spectrum-y person on the spectrum in his class, he’s got classmates with dietary restrictions for the upcoming birthday event.  So here we go again with the gluten-free, casein-free, low-sugar (chocolate, though!) cupcakes.

In any case, the important question remains: where on the cupcake spectrum do “allergen-free,” “good for you” and “tastes good” meet?

Two Mess Spectra

Not only do the Full Spectrum children exhibit eclectic Mess styles, with Z’s messes shipshape and lined up and G’s…prodigious –

    Figure II – Z Room (Mess)                                         Figure III  - G Room (Mess)

 -- they also manifest a Cleaning Spectrum of remarkable breadth.  While both children’s messes may cover an equal area (area=entire surface area in room), one will take ten minutes to clean her room while the other will take ten hours.

Similarly…

A Tiny Expression of an Eating Pattern Spectrum

    Figure IV – Z Plate                                                     Figure V – G Plate

A Family Spectrum

Dennis and Jules had both come from families that hadn’t really felt good. This they’d shared and when they’d come together it was to make a home that did feel good, and even to say: Fuck you, disappointing families.

Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings, (p. 299)

                                              Figure VI – A Family Spectrum Bell Curve

We are just, kinda, on the tryna keep it in the warm color range plan.

A Hoochie Spectrum

A friend started giggling at my bemoaning Z’s back-to-school choices: “the flashiest, pinkest, cheapest-looking, hoochie mama-est item, every time!!!!” She said that her daughter chose her entire fall wardrobe from “The Hooker Line” and showed me some pretty great examples on her phone. And the thing is, these are smart, strong girls being raised by strong, feminist women, and, mostly, we are laughing about it.

Sure, this being Vermont, kids have no problem with second hand, and we get lots of hand-me-downs from fabulous young wimmin/womyn/womin/wymyn. But there are inevitably a very few things that we still have to buy in the Big Stores.

In that context, I can see pretty early in on this shopping-for-daughter thing that buying gear for Z is going to be a heck of a lot more tricky than it’s ever been with my son. It seems some children have strong tendencies toward what one might refer to as pizzazz. And some parents want their daughters to be making creative and satisfying choices that nonetheless skirt the safer boundaries of hoochie mama. Hoping for healthy self-esteem and body-awareness to trump mass culture and the sexualization of children and tweens.

And then there are those parents who maybe had a little too much pizzazz themselves and want to shelter their daughters from the dangers of pizzazz…and those who, lacking in pizzazz, encourage their daughters to new heights of pizzazzified self-expression…

Yeah, it’s a…Spectrum.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Spectrum, I am trying to get G to be more materialistic: “Isn’t this pretty rock n roll? Pretty punk rock?” I’ll ask…”Wanna buy it?”

As my best friend Lucy used to say, “Horrors!”

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Get it? Naturally?

Need…Help…

A year ago last month, we first sought refuge with our attachment disorder specialist therapist. Neither Progressive nor Old School nor any other parenting efforts with Z seemed to be working and home life had become nightmarish. Within days of our first session we were able to make significant changes and improvements to our actions, Z’s behavior and quality of life for our whole family.

The therapist’s most useful suggestion was to tell Z, at the very first sign of acting out, “You need help. It’s my job as your mother to help you.” I would take her into my lap and bundle her up into a snuggle position and say this, sometimes tailoring it to particular circumstances, i.e., “You need help right now with being a good listener,” or “…with doing safe things.”

In this way, I would stay in charge, thereby helping Z to feel safe, yet at the same time be nurturing and loving. This strategy nipped many a giant blowout in the bud, which saved lots of energy for Z to grow in more healthy ways.  It would not be hyperbole to say this plain phrase changed our lives considerably.

Z, however, is far too smart for such a simple approach. It took a few months, but it was not very long before, in inimitable Z fashion, she wrangled control of these words of wisdom.  If, by some chance, I missed her signals that she was decompensating, or if I was just too dang tired or busy to drop everything and get down on the floor and “help” her, and, if, then, things degenerated and she began a ginormous tantrum she would often begin screaming at me along the following lines: “YOU BETTER HELP ME! I HATE YOU! YOU WON”T HELP ME AND I TOLD YOU TO HELP ME!” and so forth.

One might well argue that a parent’s duty is to help their child, no matter how distasteful the prospect might seem at a given moment.  Z’s attitude in this context is certainly not conducive to cuddly, helpful helping, but FSM is a big girl and usually able to transcend such reactions. The larger issue is the fact that Z is able to wrest control of the situation, and put Mama in a position of being unable to do the very thing she needs to do (“help her”) because allowing Z to be in charge would be destabilizing and frightening for her, especially in meltdown mode.

I have a WROE (wide range of emotions) when stuff like this happens. Somewhere, rather deep down at the moment, I feel love and empathy for my child. I partly feel the way I felt when Z was little and would cry in this jagged, angry way that made me feel like running away from an enraged spitfire, rather than mothering a small and helpless baby. An aunt told me these sounds are known as  “non-attachment-promoting crying,” because parents do not naturally respond to such sounds in positive, nurturing ways. Also, I am confused: I have no idea what to say instead of “You need help,” and the phrases I do come up with in the moment are either unprintable or saccharine. I want to mean what I say.

In addition to never going anywhere again (please see http://fullspectrummama.blogspot.com/2012/06/diet-i-diarrhea.html) I am also never going to a party again. Invariably, I find myself flying solo at parties (Pardner is a chef and is essentially gone from Thursday morning early until late Sunday evening) with two hopped up kids, feeling overwhelmed before the sweat beads even form on my single margarita.

G starts to get anxious days in advance: “Will there be anyone there I know?” “What if there is no one for me to play with?” I try to give him strategies for socializing, but by the time we arrive he is in full needy force, hitting the ground running, armed with his customary, hand-extended, no-eye-contact “Hello-my-name-is-G–I-like-Legos” introductory act. When this falls flat, he usually follows me around saying, “There is no one here I know,” and “No one wants to play with me.”

Z, falling as she does on the high social acuity slice of the spectrum, makes friends immediately. At this particular party, her new friends helped her climb about ten feet up in a tree and then removed the ladder and left her there. She asked a passerby to let me know that she had climbed high up in a tree, and to please come look… Neither passersby nor little friends seemed to notice the potential danger in a small child being several times her height in a tree with no way to get down. She comes across as that capable, after all.

Post-rescue, while I was cheering G on in a race, in which he would come in near last but not notice (go G! Seriously!) I happened to look inside to the drinks table, where Z had a two-liter bottle of cola in two hands and was pouring what remained of it down her gullet.

I ran inside.

“What are you doing?” I asked, aghast. (This is exactly what one is not supposed to do: children with attachment disorders need surety from their parents.)

“You said I could have a drink,” she replied in a saucy tone. Several admiring girls a bit younger than Z stood around watching wide-eyed.

“Didn’t you know that I did not mean coke? That children don’t drink caffeine?” (Wrong question: see above.)

“Yes.” (Reluctantly, with sulkface.)

“I guess right now you need help with making healthy choices,” I told her, pulling her to my side and taking the empty bottle. ”You are going to stick with me for awhile.”

I thought she would like being doted upon. Apparently, at this particular juncture, doting was humiliating.

What next ensued can only be described as a major, whomping, shame rage tantrum. After offering clear guidelines in a deceptively calm voice as to the consequence of being removed from the party if she could not stop raging, I carried her kicking and screaming to the car. I shut her in while she flailed and shouted and tore anything in the car she could get her hands on. 

Having previously childproofed the car, I had only to remove G’s precious “Complete Pokemon Guide” as a precaution. I sat down on the hood with that large, well-worn book in my lap, and tried to wave cheerily to the faraway people enjoying themselves in a variety of pastimes on the lawn. G had given up on the party kids and followed me to the car. He lounged companionably next to me. We watched the festivities with mixed feelings: it would have been fun to be casually part of it all…But was that really a realistic option?

Inside the car, the screams raged on, punctuated by punches to windows and seats.  G and I tried to be positive, chatting about what a lovely, green day it was. When I turned my attention to the sounds I could hear Z shouting, over and over, “I! NEED! HELP! YOU! STUPID! MAMA!”

A sort of funny thing about all this – funniness being, I suppose, relative and contextual – is Z’s miraculous resilience. Once she decides she is done with a tantrum, she appears to be immediately 100% fine…Unlike the rest of us, who are still reeling hours later.

I returned to my perch on the trunk to wait for that eventuality. G is, unfortunately, accustomed to Z losing her temper and was, fortunately, unphased by the state of affairs. “Hey,” he said, noting the Pokemon guidebook, “This seems like a great time for a Pokemon battle!”

“It sure is,” I sighed, and mustered a smile. “Sounds fun!”

I meant it. Sure to be better’n the parenting battle I had just lost to a gaggle of little girls and a large bottle of soda.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama