Many moms go through a tipping point around the time their children reach elementary school. It is the dawning realization that, “It’s not about what I want. It’s about my child having a life of self-determination and fulfillment based upon his own unique talents and preferences.” Slowly, we learn to accept our children for the wonderful people they are, and not the ones we expect them to be from our own narrow set of experiences. For some of us, it can be a hard lesson to learn, and I’m still learning.
As an example, last year I felt the need to apologize to Connor because I bungled I prime opportunity to show my support for him. Instead, that support came from two of his classmates. These two very special people, Katie and Quentin, partnered with my son to make a new and frightening experience much more tolerable. In karate class, Katie never protested when Connor kept touching her hair and trying to draw her into conversation during class exercises. When the instructor, a stranger, attempted to put a martial arts belt on him, Connor ran to the back of the gym and Quentin followed him to bring him back to the activities.
I, on the other hand, kept signalling Connor to shh, don’t-do-that, pay-attention, stop-touching-her-hair and put-your-belt-on-right-now. Me bad. I should have picked a better time, a time when my son wasn’t so frightened.
As parents, we need to learn to expect kindness and courtesy from other children, and to trust in their value as peer mentors. What I found so wonderful about Katie and Quentin’s actions were that they were also true friends of Connor, just the way he was – autism and all. In the scary world where bullying is an all-too-frequent occurrence, it was a healthy reminder that most children are kind, considerate, and understand/accept our kiddos far more than we realize.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. The need for Connor to comply with social norms is very important and it is our job to make sure our children learn that. On the other hand, acceptance by his peers, until he learns those lessons, is also very important. In tandem this was a good lesson. He was being shown the right way to fuction while kindness and acceptance were still given. I’d surmize that Connor learned some very good lessons having very little to do with karate but life effecting nontheless.