GAMING FOR PARENTS

Dear Persons,

Let's play a game, and in that game the rule is, everything I say is annoying and wrong. 

This game is called…The Teenager Game. 

Here’s a brief round from just the other morning:

FSAM* [cheerful and encouraging]: G,  if you have to stay the whole period for your test but are done,  why not use that time as a chance to bring up your grades? You know, work longer on the test after giving your brain a little break. Or ask your teacher what other work you can do! 

G [ultra-sullen/condescending]:…Do you have to talk to me? 

FSAM [caring, thoughtful, respectful]: Z, The writing program ends in April, right? How is your writing going?  

Z [side eye]: We will send it in in April. 

FSAM [confused and/or correct]: Well…doesn’t that mean it’s over?

Z: [shrug].

The Teenager Game is pretty exhausting. Like any parent with teens, I often wonder how to get through to them. Almost everything I say to them is, quite typically, met with disgust and dismissal. 

By the way, how did they get this “grownup,” anyway? 

When I was pregnant and had begun the long process of worry that is a big part of parenthood, an experienced mother of three grown boys told me something that really helped me through my first few years as a parent: “The odds are with them.” 

It was such a simple phrase, but it truly carried me through some rough moments. One kid would get croup and I’d be up at 3am holding him or her, listening to what sounded like a death rattle in a steamy bathroom and I’d be scared out of my wits. Then  I’d think, “Jill told me the odds are with them! How many babies have croup right now? Lots! S/he’s gonna live!” With each wee bit of independence or separation, too, I would start to spiral. Then I would remember: “The odds are with them!” It was such a comfort. 

But there’s a catch now. The things is, with autistic kids — my son, G, is on the spectrum — the odds aren't with them. Without getting into the precise (very daunting) statistics, people on the spectrum are significantly less likely to achieve all sorts of things that typical people mostly take for granted, like independence, employment, academic accomplishments, romantic relationships, parenthood, health. And kids with behavioral and emotional issues, like those my daughter has struggled with due to her attachment disorder, do so much better in the long term when those issues are addressed in their younger years. 

So in this “game” of teenage disaffection, the stakes feel higher in the Full Spectrum household, as they would in any household with differences and disabilities. I have to get through to my teens, since the things most people take for granted will eventually happen for their kids - independence, mental health - are not a given. I have to tread a fine line between accepting that my children are beastly teens, while remaining alert for any signs of impending disastrophes. At the same time, I have to not have a nervous breakdown?! 

So how do we improve the odds? Ideally, while not having nervous breakdowns, not breaking the kids, without the kids breaking themselves, and while presuming competence for all, we will also be able to encourage them and help them flourish as the unique, irreplaceable, precious beings they are. 

And this isn't a zero-sum game. The more our loved ones with differences are uplifted, the more they succeed, the more progress, acceptance, and awareness for all, right? After all, that’s the whole point of this here blog. 

Stay tuned/bear with me as I approach this transition phase, along with my Meeting Friend, and a few other loving yet terrified parents of teens. I will share input from parents and guardians and individuals who have been there as well. 

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Full Spectrum ANNOYING Mama

P.S. FSM has received some good press and stuff lately, and readership continues to climb (at 175,000+ as I write!). I was interviewed, about, among other things, activism, advocacy, and parenting a neurodiverse child as a neurodiverse parent here, at this great site that recommends asking real live autistic people about how they feel and what they want in their lives. Also, I am so honored and excited to have been named a "Top Autism Blog for 2018" - Oooh, I just have to share: "Full Spectrum Mama writes in a refreshingly honest style with beautiful rainbow illustrations that accompany her posts. It’s one of the most unique autism blogs on our list."

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

Our Spectrum Through a Lens of Rules

Do you obey rules?

Why or why not?

What about the children you know – yours or others’?

Continuing on the trajectory that began in my next-to-last post about boundaries, we now turn to those more concrete, explicit boundaries known as “rules.”

Figure I: Chart of Obedience

This chart describes some of the main ways individuals react to rules.

People may obey rules out of a sense of justice or fear or respect. They may do so for the sake of appearances -- or because it has not occurred to them to do otherwise. People may disobey rules because they are not aware of them – or are aware and simply do not care. Or they may do so because they are rebellious and see rules as made to be broken. They may enjoy being sneaky, or feel that they need to be sneaky in order to do what they want to do.  In this chart, the motives of justice and injustice meet on the spectrum, as do two expressions of apathy.

Finding ways to help my Full Spectrum household follow those rules I deem important has been an ongoing challenge. In fact, when I consider getting my children to obey rules, the classic notion of “herding cats” comes to mind. G cares deeply about justice and will sometimes follow rules for this reason, but he tends toward the “Lack of Awareness/Who Cares?” quadrant of my chart.  Z typically obeys rules for the sake of appearances or out of fear or respect, while having a very strong propensity toward sneakiness and rebellion. I’ve yet to determine if, for Z, defiance is based on a feeling of injustice. 

In basic societal terms, it seems that G wants to be “good,” and is sometimes unable to figure out how, while Z seems to want to be “bad,” and is only sometimes successful due to constrictions which force her to act “good.” Obviously this is an oversimplification, and not language I would ever actively use in parenting, but it does reflect how I often feel as we try to navigate the world of rules as a family.

I was fortunate to encounter my parenting idol, Xiao Chuan Ayi (Auntie [given Chinese name]), when G was but a lad of two.  Xiao Chuan Ayi is unflappable, serene, as stable as I have always been high strung.  And she has two brilliant, active sons.

Her standard admonition is very simple: “You know what? That is not safe [or kind or polite or…],” said with great poise and tranquility and authority. Her boys could be breaking all sorts of rules -- swinging from a chandelier with machetes, making war cries and sprinkling those below with water balloons -- and, with a word and a Special Look from their mother, they are standing at attention. On the ground! She would surely argue that they don’t get off the chandelier immediately 100% of the time but, trust me, they listen more than most.

 Following the admirable Xiao Chuan Ayi, “You know what? “ became my earliest go-to phrase. “You know what? That is not safe/kind/polite/[fill-in-the-blank]…” was a relatively effective way to at least communicate rules and boundaries. if not to actually enact them in each instance.

The problem was and remains that I have neither what Xiao Chuan Ayi terms, “The Chinese Look of Death,” nor its Whitey McWhiterson equivalent.

“What if I got angry?” my demeanor and past conduct seem to say to my kids, “Oh yeah? Well…What if I-I-I…raised my voice to a fairly loud volume and then told you, um, you couldn’t have any dessert but, uh, you could certainly have some blueberries with a teensy bit of Hershey’s syrup on them? Huh? Huh??? What then!”

Very threatening.

“You know what?” Infractions in areas I really care about – kindness, respect, safety – may call my Full Spectrum of Doom down upon my chilluns. In those instances I am able to invoke a fearsome aspect of myself without, indeed, really even trying. I just – some stuff I just don’t care about, even though I am supposed to.  Sure, I would like my children to know how to properly set a table.  I have a hard time, however, mustering obedience-ensuring wrath over a fork in the wrong place.

But I should not imply that my friend rules through fear. To be clear, Xiao Chuan Ayi’s Chinese Look of Death may be most remarkable in how unnecessary it is -- because the woman just exudes calm. To wit, G, Z and I were recently at her house on a lovely summer morning and, through a series of stomach-related mishaps, managed to cover her entire bathroom floor (heck, her entire bathroom) in diarrhea. After cracking up big time (now that’s a good friend), she whisked G and Z away so I could deal with the disastrophe at hand.

While I scrubbed away upstairs, the children – those same children who had not stopped flapping their jibs for the first three weeks of July -- stayed downstairs with their Ayi, quietly entertaining themselves.  As I attempted at length to restore my dear friend’s bathroom to some semblance of cleanliness, not a peep was to be heard. Meanwhile, Xiao Chuan Ayi was…accomplishing things!

Or consider G’s kindergarten teacher, Mrs S.* Mrs. S is of small stature and looks like a stereotypical blonde angel. She is gentle, kind and quiet. Yet she was in complete control of a classroom that consisted of eleven rambunctious boys and two girls. Imagine the boy-filled, first-time-in-school chaos, and the tiny teacher in its midst. Yet: “Now girls and boys,” she would say softly, and the Entire Room would Instantly hush!

News flash: that type of gentle admonition leading to thrall does not often happen in our household, despite a much more favorable child-to-adult ratio.

Sometimes kids don’t listen. As parents, we must choose our battles. One task, then, is deciding which rules matter to us. The second is figuring out how to convey their importance in a way that makes sense, so that our rules are clear, just, fair and compelling.  Then we try to follow through with consistency and regularity.  If we can begin to do so with the inner authority and peaceful mien of a Xiao Chuan Ayi or a Mrs. S, so much the better.

I’ve heard tell my paternal grandmother (who taught first grade) had this gift, but such subtleties do not come naturally to me. From where I stand on the spectrum, rules that are just and good are meant to be followed and those that are not just and good are to be disregarded. Simple. Explaining why this is so feels alien.

Modes of enforcing rules seem either mysteriously subtle or ham-handed or violent.  Also, ineffective: yelling, exhortation, protracted explanations and dire consequences all have little impact given Z and G’s Spectrum locales. The way they handle rules could ultimately affect their overall well-being and chances of success in life, ergo, the need to cultivate new approaches.

The gentle authority of teachers like Xiao Chuan Ayi, Mrs. S, and my Grammy seems a tricky, elusive, extremely worthwhile art, and certainly one to which I aspire. 

Subtly!!!

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Mrs. S will be Z’s first grade teacher in the fall, and her placid, earthy solidity promises to be a great match for X’s mountain-moving attempts.