Teaching My Son to Ride a Bike

We recently had pizza night with Noodle, her partner and her partner’s children.  The four children are a rare good match: two powerful gals who are willing to share their power for the sake of fun and two gawky boys with no (G) or low (friend) eye-rolling urges. (G’s friend is a lot younger, but G doesn’t give a hoot about age.)

After a brief – but non-cruel – period of incredulity over G’s inability ride a bike, G’s friend – wisely, I thought -- offered him his scooter. Friend rode his bike up and down the street while G attempted to scoot alongside. After trying the bike, very briefly (and, one might say, fruitlessly), G wondered if we might get a “bike like this one” instead of the larger one we have been using to try to teach him how to ride for the last several years. I had that quick sinking feeling of worrying about the cost of a new bike, but answered immediately that we would do so.

The very next day, we were driving along a country road and saw the perfect bike with a “free” sign propped up against it.  We popped that bike in the car faster than you can say “Our motor-challenged boy with aspergers is willing to try to learn to ride a bike and, goldang it, we are going to Do This!”

Pardner pumped up the tires and we were ready to start.

I have been trying to teach G to ride a bike since he was really little for so many social and physiological reasons. Bilateral movement, increased proprioception (a fancy word for self-awareness in space), basic balance-improvement, focus, self-esteem, not getting crap from other kids, and general fitness are just some of the likely benefits. I have been dismally unsuccessful.

When G gets on a bike, he gets distracted. He looks down, losing himself in the turning gears, or the patterns on the road. He leans all his weight on me, making no apparent effort to balance. He is incapable of steering and pedaling at the same time. He forgets to leave his feet on the pedals if I tell him to try his brake. In fact, there are way too many factors to take in when on a bike and – At The Same Time! -- on a street. For many years it seemed like he would never be able to ride a bike. I understand: in an earlier post, I mentioned that I didn’t really learn to drive until my late thirties, largely for similar reasons. Sensory overload and safe, direction-oriented navigation don’t necessarily go together.

Our first try on the new bike: G displayed all of the above while Mama tried to instruct. Not long after starting the lesson, Mama began to lose it. “Keep your eyes on the road. Please keep your eyes on the road. KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!” Also, “Feet on the pedals. Please keep your feet on the pedals. FEET ON THE PEDALS!” You get the drift.

“I think this is a good time to stop,” G kept suggesting; but noooooo: Mama pushed on until it became obvious that we were getting nowhere fast.

We veered gracelessly into the driveway. G’s little face was all crumpled up. I asked him why he looked so upset. “You were yelling at me every time I made a mistake!” he wailed, and then began to sob.

My stomach clenched. I tried to explain that I was raising my voice because he wasn’t listening and that I was sorry he felt hurt. And -  “Yes,” I had to finally admit,  “I was frustrated.” It’s just a bike. And yet it isn’t.

All the things that will be harder for him than they are for other people, all the extraordinary safety concerns one has for someone with zero common sense and oft-scattered attention, common and less-common fears...all are triggered in this bicycle-riding cycle.  Plus, there was me sticking my feet under his tires periodically, which was kind of annoying to both of us.

There we stood, both holding on to the offending object, a rusty, dirty, old black bike that still smelled for some reason like manure despite a good rinse. Both shaken.

Z, nimble and chock full of sense, watched us warily. She had been riding behind us on her bike, balancing alternately on each side of her broken training wheels just for the heck of it.  If there is a bike riding spectrum, once again we see a Wide Range in this family. She seemed confused by these clumsy, sappy people.

The good thing was, though, that after a recovery period he got back on that bike. And we are still trying.  It doesn’t seem like a “never” now, it seems like a “someday,” even if that someday is far away. Not only that, I dare say we have begun to have fun in the process!

Plenty of people don’t ride bikes. No biggie. But I very simply and not-so-simply want G to be able to ride a bike if he so chooses.

I would, quite frankly, prefer that he not ride a bike unless absolutely necessary (and only with me around) – much as Pardner feels about me and driving – but I want him to have the option.

Figure I – Rocket Boy

The text on this painting reads, “There was a person who could not walk to school so he invented a rocket and flyed to school.”

G knows that he is different – neurologically, physically – from the kids in his class and beyond. This painting gives me hope that he knows that for all the things he does differently or cannot do, there are things that he can do that are more magical and more wonderful than the ordinary. Even if G never does learn to ride, I know he will find ways to make his journey.

Righteous Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

At Home

I got A Dreaded Call the other day. We all know what those are for our particular family spectra, if sometimes only subconsciously. This was not The Dreaded Call but it was one I have been anticipating with trepidation since Z started kindergarten.

“Z has been taking food from the other children,” her teacher told me. “I have spoken with her and it hasn’t done any good. One time she said she was hungry and the other times she wouldn’t even answer me.”

“Taking.” What a nice word choice compared with “stealing.”

Filled with irrational shame, I mentally enumerated her lunchbox for the day (hard boiled egg, yoghurt, cheese stick, whole grain crackers, baby carrots, applesauce, clementine, small treat – all organic!). I then explained that Z (45 lbs.) gets the same lunch as her brother (95 lbs.) -- and that the hunger is emotional, not physical. I assured her teacher that I would look into solutions.

The next afternoon, Mrs. ___ happily told me that Z had a “good day.” I had given Z extra sweets in her lunchbox as a short-term solution to the “taking” of other kids’ food.  Mrs. ___ admitted that Z had tried to eat the sweets first thing in the morning, but had stopped when told to do so; then she “needed extra time at snack time because she wanted to first arrange the treats in an artistic pattern and then show everyone and then enjoy them very slowly…”

No, that was not a good day.

“Z needs to abide by the same rules as the rest of the class,” I explained. “When you give her special privileges she will feel that she is the one in control and will push – further and further.” This pushing promptly ensued.

In fact, Z’s behavior at school subsequently seemed to explode. I received calls or emails from the school nearly every day. Around the same time that a little girl was handcuffed in Florida  (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-six-year-old-handcuffed-20120417,0,765665.story) I had to pick Z up in the classroom because she was very upset. I counted myself lucky to have been available. At another pick up, I found her hunched over her Hello Kitty backpack shoveling stolen candy into her mouth with one hand, a handful of crumpled wrappers in the other.  She kicked her best friend and when she finally calmed down announced the whole thing was best friend’s fault for “making me upset” and “making me do it.” She pushed other students, continued to take food, ignored her teacher, lied flagrantly, and so on; she continues to do so.

Another teacher, who has fostered children with attachment disorders, suggested that Z’s behaviors are escalating because she has come to feel comfortable in the classroom. This made sense: at home, she feels most attached to me and therefore needs to constantly test me. Her kindergarten teacher, however, had never dealt with a child with an attachment disorder and was – quite understandably -- bewildered and overwhelmed. I tried to explain some of the underlying factors, but we were and are struggling with how to actually reach Z and create positive change.

Grandmother* (a gerontologist) and Grandfather (an educator, currently teaching fourth grade in a public school in CT) recommended that we consider the possibility that she might need a paraprofessional.

“Ma! Two kids in one tiny elementary school with paras???” I sputtered. “That’s like 12% of the school’s budget! No!”

I imagined myself in a meeting at school wherein this two-for-two issue might arise: assuming the voice of a Borscht Belt comedian from the ‘50s, I’d say, “You think this is bad? You should see us at home!” Ba dum bum!

The truth is, though, that our current educational paradigm holds that public education is for all.  Mainstreaming students with most educational and/or emotional and/or physical special needs is our goal. Ergo: IEPs (Individualized Education Programs; which is what G has) and 504 plans (accommodations, not necessarily special education services; which is what Z may need).  Please see also: http://specialchildren.about.com/od/504s/f/504faq2.htm.

Also true: things are not necessarily harder at home. In G’s case, his schools came to me with concerns over his development and social interactions. Had life consisted of just G and me (or G and me and Timson Hill) I never would have noticed a thing (please see aspergers, genetic links with biological parents…or if there are any websites about people who just want to read all the time with cats on their laps and a nice bowl of pudding).  In Z’s case, struggles at home had always far outweighed those at school.

I envisioned a spectrum in which some people were equally comfortable at home and at school, some were more at ease at school, and some at home. I had come to think of Z as more “at home” at school whereas G seemed more “at home” at home.

Z’s first preschool, which she attended just a few mornings a week, was a sweet, in-home joint, run by a mild, affable woman. Z was – gently but firmly -- asked to leave that preschool for monopolizing all of her teacher’s time and energy.

Her second preschool (http://www.timsonhillpreschool.com/ -- may they live long and prosper) was one of the top-rated in the state and a most wonderful and accepting place. G had gone to Timson Hill in his final preschool year, and it was the one place where they never suggested he be evaluated (he had been evaluated by Essential Early Education [“Triple E”] services at his previous preschool, before we moved, and was subsequently evaluated in kindergarten).  G was relatively at ease in that utopian environment – and unconditionally loved. Likewise, the teachers at Timson Hill accepted his sister Z wholeheartedly and – I might add – effectively, as her behaviors improved in that context.

Sure, there were the several times I had to go get Z when she was “possibly catatonic” or “might be having a seizure of some sort” because she wouldn’t respond or speak to her teachers but once we were in the car she’d revive. Using her own words for what she was doing, I would ask, ”Were you just tricking your teachers?”  [Giggles…] “Yes.”

But they never minded! They were just glad to know she was okay! And, day-to-day, they celebrated her for Expressing Herself and Exploring her Power, just as they had celebrated G’s various quirks and peccadilloes as originality, pensiveness, brilliance…

Ah, would that the whole world were made of Timson Hill.

On the first day of kindergarten, Z -- alongside her big brother -- proudly walked into the school she’d been anticipating attending for years. Her pink Hello Kitty backpack was almost bigger than she was.  It was an exciting and happy event.

                                               Figure I – Backpack to Child Ratio: 4:5

 There were other idyllic moments, like when Pardner and I both elected to serve as “Mystery Readers” in the classroom. I bawled uncontrollably (though [I hope] subtly) throughout those simple and unspoiled occasions.  I had so much hope that Z would be able to self-regulate in positive ways at school.

Still, fairly early on, Z’s teacher had to move her cubby to a more visible place because of some sneaking behaviors. And she was having some dominance and conflict-resolution challenges too. Then again, Z could certainly be relied upon to “run circle time” if Mrs. ___ had a small group activity to attend to.  Overall, kindergarten seemed to be going relatively well.

One morning in November, after some small incident, we stopped to greet the principal at the front door. “Z is planning to be very well-behaved today,” I announced. Z’s face got flat and stormy. “Hey,” I told her as we walked into school, noticing her expression, “You need to behave – and we are all here to help you.”

On the way back out, I stopped again and said to the principal, “I hope that was okay…I just want to help Z do her best and her knowing that everybody is in on that seems like a good idea to me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much,” he assured me. “She’s only been down in to see me a couple of times.”

Um. A couple of times? It was November. And she’s in KINDERGARTEN??? G has been to the principal’s office once in five years; I’d been once: in fifth grade, for kicking Jamie Chickaverry in the braces. (I’d been aiming lower.)

After a weekend from h-e-double-toothpicks, and the above-mentioned calls and concerns from Z’s teacher, I scheduled an emergency phone appointment with the attachment disorder therapist. While I was on the phone, Pardner ran into the woman who had referred us to that therapist in the first place in town. She has a son about Z’s age who was also adopted and has similar issues with anger, among other things. “How’s it going?” she asked Pard. He told her a little about recent events.

She got it. Wasn’t any kind of, “Oh that’s ‘normal’’’ – she got the whole threatening-to-kill-Mama (and everyone else), house-destroying aspect of the situation. Apparently, her son calls her a “F-ing B___” On the regular. Sigh. My people.

Pardner said she then uttered the words, “support group.”

“I don’t really think FSM is the type for that…” Pardner ventured.

“Yeah,” she said, “I wasn’t either. It’s just that you get nuggets of information. AND you meet people who get it.”

This is why sometimes I cannot talk to people: I mentioned a bit about some current behaviors to someone. “Mavbe Z was having a rough day at school,” this innocent person suggested.

No, innocent person, Z was not “having a rough day at school.” Z was possessed. By the exorcist? Or – I mean – she was possessed by whatever the girl in that movie is possessed by – that’s my daughter when she’s mad? Which is a lot of the time? The clinical term is “shame rages”?

So…About that support group?

Our therapist differentiated for us between shame and guilt. Guilt is a pro-social emotion, which makes learning and progress possible. When children feel guilt, they naturally want to do better. In time more pro-social behavior becomes ingrained. Shame is a dead end, and children with that feeling see themselves as helpless and hopeless. They have, therefore, nothing to lose. Shame is an anti-social emotion.

When Z clams up and refuses to respond to teachers and family it is with shame. Her “shame rages” are the tantrums of someone who believes all is already lost, which is the main reason they are so extreme.

Our therapist said one of the most important gifts one can give a child with an attachment disorder is to create the chance to “do a repair.” A repair can make a child feel more safe, more at home, wherever he or she is. It is not too much of a stretch to hope that a child who feels at home (whether in a place or a relationship) would lose the need to attempt to destroy their surroundings or companions.

When one has been dealing with relentless testing and pushing and tantrums all day where does that energy – the energy to not only come up with an idea for a repair but to then carry through -- come from?  What if the one who might be able to “do a repair” is a teacher with twenty other students to worry about?

Better go get some chocolate. It’s for the sake of my child.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* I should note this is the same Grandmother who – despite being Liberal and by and large Left-leaning -- is convinced that Z must be descended from royalty due to her great beauty, intelligence and imperiousness.

Tripping

We visited Great Gram in North Carolina for school vacation week. Although my beloved Gram looks to me like the most beautiful person on earth, the children were naturally wary of the old, bony lady lying in a “rest home” bed. G had grown up knowing her well, but in more vital times; she’d been declining since Z’s arrival home. After adjourning to the hallway for a wee chat – to wit, FSM hissing, “I know she looks a bit scary but she is your ancestor and neither of you would be here if not for her and she loves you even if she doesn’t always know who you and this will probably be the last time you see her so get in there and give her a hug!” – a decent amount of sugar ensued, after which we set out to explore the area.

Traveling with G and Z seems to exaggerate some of their atypical ways of coping, simultaneously highlighting their anxieties and differences while drawing out their remarkable dual propensities for joy. I kept noticing how -- despite Pardner’s and my sometimes near-constant admonitions (to “not hug strangers,” to “not take your clothes off here,” to “listen and allow the tour guide to speak…” (at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum - http://www.sitinmovement.org/)  -- both children possess a huge capacity for laughter and making things fun. 

Of course, being my Full Spectrum babies, they express this in their own special ways. In an unfamiliar environment, G copes with total pokemon immersion, embodying different personae for each situation.  Self-regulation in terms of appetite, sleep and so forth go out the window, and parental regulation becomes more crucial. He rises above largely by crafting pokemon-based jokes at every turn.

Z copes via incessant planning, especially of destinations and menus, as well as by recruiting any likely candidates (candidate pool: anyone who thinks little girls are cute) for unbridled, extensive conversation and free samples. Regulation of environments – social, internal, spatial – becomes paramount. She lightens up, though, with abandon -- and a scurvy belly chuckle for her brother’s every pokemon joke. 

This tendency toward enjoyment – heck, let’s call it Play -- was delightful to see. It functioned, too, as a counterbalance for my realization that my children have a great deal to learn if they are ever to function well outside of their comfort zones.

In our Full Spectrum, strengths and weaknesses are integrally connected. Case in point: We are driving around and realize we have gone the wrong way. Pardner announces that he will have to make a U-turn. Z announces, in her inimitably regal way,  “I don’t want to make a U-turn. I want to take a ME turn.” We – all of us -- laughed about this for the rest of the trip, even though the fact that it was actually true for Z was mildly disconcerting.

Now that both children are in school, spending twenty-four hours a day together was freshly grueling and amazing. Each late night would find Full Spectrum Mama and Pardner lying on the bed staring vacantly at the Holiday Inn television with mouths agape, shell-shocked, knowing full well that G and Z would start their preliminary grunting and fidgeting around at five in the morning…yet nonetheless unable to sleep.

This experience has confirmed my long-standing hunch that traveling with kids should henceforward be referred to not as vacation, per se, but as “tripping.”

The day we got home, I was thrilled to see an article in the local paper about a child in a neighboring town with autism who was graduating from high school and exploring his next steps. I expected to learn about resources in our community and people with whom I might connect. I began to feel sick to my stomach as some of the language in the piece sank in: “trying to determine what was wrong with her son” was the phrase I still cannot shake.

Language around disability is so loaded. Labeling and differentiating language may be useful in accessing services and, in some contexts, increasing understanding. But great care must be used. Although all those involved in the article must have meant well, I remain disappointed by the overall implication that there is something about people with autism that needs to be “fixed.” Such language might fittingly be used in some cases of attachment disorder, an often dis-abling condition that results from difficult circumstances and which may, with luck, ultimately be healed. Autism, in contrast, involves – among other things -- different ways of perceiving, processing and interacting with the world. These modes may well be held as equally valid to those of neurotypical individuals.

Maybe this is not the current mainstream, on-the-streets perspective? After all, there is a vast spectrum of variety in perceiver and perceived...especially with children who are remarkably hard to miss. 

Two new spectra coalesced from watching G and Z interact with strangers during our trip.  For G, a spectrum of tolerance emerged; for Z, one of engagement.

Figure I – Reaction Spectrum: Tolerance                    Figure II – Reaction Spectrum: Engagement

Adults tend to be engaged and/or charmed by Z. It can take quite some time before they realize – if they ever do – that they have been embroiled in a long, in-depth discourse with someone barely three feet tall and six (“six and a half, Mama!”) years old. This stage we will refer to as “disbelief.” Her relentlessness sporadically results in annoyance and more or less successful attempts at extrication. More frequently she is adored, even worshipped, for the tiny deity that she is. Obeisances are offered and accepted. Thanks will be proffered by Herself…if prompted.

The attachment disorder specialist with whom we are working recently told me that it is “harder for the really charming children to get the help they need because they get away with so much.” Z presents a scintillating exterior that diverts her adoring audiences’ gaze from her inner pain and her external transgressions. With inner healing, perhaps her dazzling shine will become more of a comfortable glow. 

The general adult-stranger reaction to my aspergian son seems to be one of tolerance. More negative reactions to his sometimes over-friendly or otherwise inappropriate behaviors include confusion and even anger. On the other hand, a decent proportion of people will go slightly out of their way to accommodate him – and a select few seem to truly appreciate his openheartedness and originality. There are even those who seem to celebrate his free spirit and flailing body.

The spectrum of stances taken by his fellow children, they of lesser patience and knowledge, veers slightly more toward perplexity and annoyance. With both adults and children, however, I get a lot of questioning glances, raised eyebrows and rolled eyes. I try to deflect such unspoken queries both because (this is one of many things I have learned about myself in parenting a child with autism) most direct eye contact makes me uncomfortable and because I demand that G be accepted on his own terms.

After one particularly stressful day in North Carolina, Pardner wondered whether “everybody has to, in some sense accommodate G.”

I disagreed: “I think the people who get G really get him!  If everybody were like G, the world would be a much better place. But,” I conceded, “much, much messier.”

I suppose I fit into the celebratory faction. Unlike the mother quoted above, I have never thought for a millisecond that there was anything “wrong” with my son. Calling someone “differently-abled” may be a cliché, but it is also deep truth.  The gifts of truth and heart and generosity that come with G could never be compensated for by “normality.”

One of Rudolph Steiner’s first students was a boy with autism. Steiner came to believe that people with autism were partly still in the angelic realm. That is, their engagement with the mundane world was limited because of an ongoing partial immersion in another dimension, one closer to source/truth. Thus the calculations and deceptions of ordinary people are alien to those with autism.

Steiner remains a controversial figure. I both agree and disagree with Steiner’s stance on autism: for one thing, the word “angel” can be a polarizing one; for another, people with autism are as varied as those without it…Yet there is something to be said for such a positive view of this “disability.” Stay tuned: perhaps another spectrum or two is called for.

Whatever their religious, philosophical or personal status, those people who wholeheartedly accept all children are angels to us. Neutrality is fine too, though surprisingly rare.

Love – and never colluding with the eye rollers,

Full Spectrum Mama

Tools

…In which I expound, dear readers, upon a small spectrum of handy-to-la famiglia FSM tools that might be useful and/or laughable in your rainbows.

The “My Bad”

We all aspire to the wielding of copious quantities of positive tools like respect, patience, unconditional love and consistency.

My favorite progressive tool, though, is more negative.

My mother’s generation – whether traditional or hippie-mama – often felt pressure to act as if mothering felt happy and easy at all times, as if motherhood was totally fulfilling and came naturally to all mothers. Parents, especially fathers, were deemed omnipotent and all-knowing.

As our culture has become – however incrementally – more open and less sexist, we have gained some additional tools at our disposal. We are now free to admit to each other that parenting is sometimes hard, and often baffling, and that – even as we fiercely, fully love them Every Second -- we sometimes don’t entirely like our kids at a given moment.

It may be even more important that we are able to admit to our children (friends, family, partners…) that we ourselves are human. So, I celebrate the following three phrases:

“I don’t know.”
“I messed up.”
“I ‘m sorry.”

The use of these phrases demonstrates that parents (friends, family, partners…) are fallible human beings who will try to figure stuff out and do better next time. Just like kids can be – if shown the possibility.

The “My Bad” is liberating, but by no means a license to ill. At its best, though, it offers possibilities of redemption, learning, healing.

The “Locked” Door

Among other things, Z’s agenda includes using the stovetop and oven at 2am. Because of this, I have had to confine her to her room until I officially get her up in the morning. This involves keeping a chamber pot in her room and my “locking”[closing] the door every night after I put her to bed. Somewhat paradoxically for Miss Independence – but well within guidelines set by the aforementioned therapist -- this has been a very comforting process for Z herself.

The first (initially) unknown-to-me reader of FSM -- and someone I think of as a real live guardian angel -- has degrees in Education of Young Children, Child Assessment and Development, and Psychiatric Social Work (with specialty in the field of children and families).  She also has decades of experience working with children. She keeps me on track and within the bounds of my knowledge while still tolerating, even celebrating, my flights of fancy. Any errors, of course, are all mine.

She recently asked me,  “How do you as a mother create a safe home for Z while still feeling your home is as you want it to be?” My answer was…I don’t. I used to wear a lot of jewelry, for example, until some of my most precious pieces disappeared. Some did reappear, only in different and unsalvageable forms.  Now my jewelry is so hidden away that just getting to it is way too much trouble for a busy mama.

Some other nighttime concerns, besides stove on-house fire-gas explosion and jewelry-ruined-gone include:

food-hoarded-infestations-grody stuff-smears-rot-botulism

lotions/creams/polishes-ingested-poisoning thereby

pets-tied up-enslaved

Z has her own jewelry and creams and an array of dolls and stuffies, but they are never quite enough. Her night machinations made this very clear. Admittedly, with her high level of competence we might teach her how to use the stove, etc. in the not-so-distant future.  Until then, we say that Z “isn’t ready to get up on her own.” We try to meet her where she is on the developmental spectrum, protecting and nurturing the baby inside, while allowing for her exceptionally high acumen on mental and physical spectra by essentially baby-proofing the house for a really, really advanced baby.

Oppressing Z was a concern, but her “locked” door liberated her from her compulsion to do verboten “projects” in the night and allowed her to sleep soundly, thereby enabling her to not only feel better but to feel better about herself.

Humor

Also from my children’s therapist-angel reader came the suggestion to use humor. She reasoned that with all the progress Z had been making I might begin to use wit in our interactions. Instead of sticking firm and strong to my “put the dish in the sink” order, for instance, I might -- according to therapist-angel -- say, ”Put the dish on the floor.” Essentially, I should continue to contain Z's actions -- but with a light touch.

Yeah, I am not ready for that yet. The therapist Pardner and I go to who specializes in attachment disorders suggested the same thing. He thought, for example, that when Z looks at one of her adoring aunties and haughtily points to her plate to indicate that more food must be provided I should say “Oh…is that a plate?” I told him,  “Please. Just tell me one thing to say for all situations. Funny is too confusing. In those moments I can’t remember more than that.” Someday I do very much want to be funny. For now, I aim for functional.

Ripping Bag

Z likes to rip. She likes to rip Everything. She rips paper into tiny strips, all of a size. She rips clothing -- seam from seam, or expanding upon a pinhole or snag.  She rips horns off beloved childhood unicorns saved especially for my some-day daughter. (I’m not bitter about that one.)

One day, after yet another ripping disastrophe, it occurred to me to fill a bag with stuff that Z not only could but Should rip. It was a great success and has substantially reduced free-form ripping.

Feel free to riff on this: what about a smashing bag? A coloring-on box? A food-hoarding bunker?

One Battle a Day

G has the typical aspergian penchant for obsession. Pokemon has been a focus for almost six years.  In order to make time for other activities and foci, such as eating and sleeping, we have devised a system in which we have one extended, all-out Pokemon battle a day, after which we have some time for discussion. A potential additional benefit to this system is that G begins to get the notion that other people have interests of their own.

When he raises the subject I can say, “Is this Pokemon time? Oh, you want to talk about Gyarados’s hit points? Good. We’ll talk about that during Pokemon time.” Ideally in this context, I don’t squish G’s interests, just corral them.

One battle a day is enough for anybody.

You flick, I tick

From time to time, G begins to develop a tick. The latest has been a sort of flicking of his fingers that seems to happen when he gets excited or anxious. Hoping to help him (and not his neurological hiccups) be the one in charge of his body I started a policy of “you flick, I tick[le].” That is, whenever he starts flicking his fingers, I tickle him. 

It is probably somewhat annoying, although he tolerates me.

“You flick, I tick” is also related to my “you flap, I clap” policy, for when G starts flapping his hands compulsively. These are intended as neither punitive nor judgmental; they should be merely observational. And, as I tell him, hey, if you love to flap, just keep on flapping…and I will keep on clapping. I like to clap -- and I love to tickle.

Tickling seems to be a good tool, also, when either child gets Stuck in a mood or thought process. Of course, this assumes a certain base level of receptivity to being tickled at a given moment.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could tickle ourselves out of being stuck?

 

And, finally…

The “Mombulance” (also available in “Dad” and “Person” models)

“Wheee-oooh, Whee-oooh…” You hear the siren in the distance. It approaches…closer and closer. To your surprise, it pulls up outside of your door! You venture onto your stoop. A hunky paramedic steps out (gender – up to you).

“Ma’am,” s/he orders, “Step away from the residence. Put down the crayon, computer, dishcloth, phone and banana peel.”

Several other paramedics roll a stretcher toward you. As you climb onto it you note that a nanny and several fun, inclusive kids are headed toward your house, loaded with healthy, delicious snacks, games and educational yet entertaining dvds.  You see a special caddy full of trashy magazines affixed to the side of the stretcher. You wave sweetly to your children, who don’t even notice you are leaving. As you are rolled into the ambulance you see that you are surrounded by clean, uncluttered, chic-yet-soothing décor.

Hunky Paramedic hands you a beverage, informs you that en-route massage is available by request, and closes the back doors of the Mombulance.

You are All. Alone. Ahhh.

Ok, I made that one up.

If anyone has suggestions about moderating random sounds that seem to sound good to G Inside his head but sound really bad to those Outside his head and/or on curbing jewelry appropriation and repurposing please to inform.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Being True

G loves “aminals.” He also has some balance and large-motor impairments that we are tackling from various angles. Therapeutic riding seemed a good way to combine these factors. At the Southern Vermont Therapeutic Riding Institute (http://www.winchesterstables.com/therapeutic.html), Lorna Young and other amazing people (staff and volunteers) work with children and horses to the joy and benefit of all involved.

One time, we were milling about waiting for G’s lesson to begin and we saw the cutest jolie-laide shaggy old donkey kinda loitering a few feet away, all “Just hangin’ out. Nothin’ goin’ on here, folks.”

G and Z were entranced by the motley creature and asked Lorna about it. “That’s Frances,’ she informed them. She pointed to one of the stable hands, who was sweeping the floor a few yards away. “That’s his mother over there.”

G looked over at the woman, and then at the nonchalant donkey.

“I will take that as a joke,” said my boy, with a totally straight face.

Being literal, G often thinks people are lying when the “liar” in question might feel he or she is doing nothing of the sort.  He will say, “___ lied to me today. He said he would play with me at recess and then he played basketball instead.” It is so hard for him to be flexible and see incidents like this as change rather than betrayal. Having, also, an encyclopedic memory, he notes inconsistencies and reads them as untruths as well.  Therefore, among other things, he finds it profoundly disjunctive when people act differently in different situations, and with -- or toward -- different people. Your dork-kid who rejects his dork friends when the in-crowd comes around, your customer who is polite in a fancy restaurant and rude to a cashier at the 7-11, your parent who tells a child s/he is eating “nothing” when s/he has just shoved a piece of candy in her/his mouth…these “normal” people are disturbing to G.

I rather know where he gets all of this –the literality, the trash-can memory, the perceptions of dishonesty. As an adult, though, I am able to choose to associate mostly with people who present fewer such conundra. G doesn’t yet have that discernment – or that luxury.  He gets confused, hurt and angry in commonplace contexts.

Nonetheless I will never advise him to be untrue to himself. I’ve never forgotten learning the literal definition of integrity in graduate school: it comes from a coin that is, on the inside, what it purports to be on the outside. G’s inside is pure gold, but that integral and external softness is going to get him a bit scuffed.

So I’m going to suggest to him that the next time someone “lies” to him he might tell himself, “I will take that as a joke.” The next time he asks Z to play and she says, “Ask me again later and I will say yes,” and, later, she doesn’t [whole ‘nother post]: ”I will take that as a joke.” When someone utters a small white lie that to him feels like a violation: “I will take that as a joke.”

Perhaps that’s not such a bad idea for all of us. 

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

High Five!

I was driving with G and a sleeping Z the other day and the Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun” came on and I told G, “You have to know this song. It’s one of the songs of our people.” The internal litany of my fears for his teenage-period drenched my brain instantaneously. As I sometimes do -- since my stated position vis-à-vis worrying is Against -- I proactively reviewed my mental checklist of the tribes that might protectively accompany G through his teen years: Dungeons and Dragons and other gaming groups, dorky smart kids, lonely Goths, Drama Club, the Society for Creative Anachronism folks (sensing some overlap here?)…Then I started to actually listen to the long-familiar lyrics of the song I had instructed him to follow (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/v/violent+femmes/blister+in+the+sun_20144625.html).

Wha-a-at?

“Never mind the song, buddy,” I said, hitting the scan button pronto. Anyway, who am I to decide which people my son will affiliate with? Maybe I am erroneously offering him the signifiers for particular alternative tribes while he is or will be drawn to a completely different subgroup. Still, I hope he will be able to discern and master those actions and items that we use to recognize others “like us” – whatever and whoever they may be.

For now, he’s really digging on “The Black Sabbaths.” One of his signature communiqués involves growling, especially if he thinks anyone is teasing him. Another is his jig of joy, hands and feet flapping, a big goofy grin on his face. Sometimes, during the latter, he trips himself.

I’m not sure I ever quite got the signals just right…but I still have some friends. One time my dear friend Bob  (bobparkswriter.com) was out on a run and passed by my house and I happened to be outside. We had a nice long conversation about aspergers syndrome and how both of us identify as neurologically different and aspergian although we remain undiagnosed. Then, when he was about to leave, we tried to high five…and missed.

Z will have her choice of tribe. She will wear a glitter sock with a thrifted ‘70s hiking boot (real-life example) and the cool kids will think it is cool and the anti-cool kids will think it is anti-cool. My urge with her is more to de-commercialize/de-massify, to offer choices that allow her to go inside and see who she is -- not in-relation but in Herself. 

As things stand, she prefers to be surrounded by acolytes at all times.  The phrase, “I need space” feels useful to many of us because it has a certain neutrality. It sounds better than, say, “I don’t want to play with you,” or “I don’t like you.”

Not to Z.

Recently, my resilient girl was uncharacteristically devastated by two different friends using this phrase with her to, well, get some space.  When, after the second incident, we had a talk about “needing space,” she shared that being told someone “needs space” felt very hurtful, but she also said it was “hard to understand.” Because of the latter, she found the request difficult to honor and exacerbated both situations.

Not knowing what else to do -- and aware I was not being entirely truthful -- I told her, “Mama will never need space from you;” I grabbed her and made her walk around clutched (by me) to my leg for an afternoon, much to her delight.

These “need space” incidents notwithstanding, Z will undoubtedly be able to attract an endless stream of people to her side and she will understand and manipulate their diverse cultural signals and signifiers with ease.  My hope is that she will feel fully worthwhile when alone. I hope she will learn to take “I need space” – in whatever form it is expressed – as, if not a totally positive thing, something that she can at least comprehend...and respect.

Another beloved friend – always a teacher, and variously a dean, headmaster, and minister -- once asked me if I thought that perhaps G and Z in some sense constitute and intensify one another’s differences. He wrote, “I wonder if Z's most challenging explorations to the left sometimes encourage G to the right, sort of like a couple that can afford for either [one] to have a tantrum or ‘break down’ but not both simultaneously.” At times, it does seem to happen in this way; other times, the opposite seems true and they seem to symbiotically draw one another closer.

Despite their seeming to occupy very different spots on a Full Spectrum I have to allow room for these two children to grow in their own unique ways, perhaps even to grow closer to “normal,” and therefore also more similar to each other.

I have to let my children be themselves. But one of them – guess which -- will probably miss high fives a lot of the time.

Most adults, at least, know the proper response to such goofiness: So what?

High five!

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

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