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.

Tackling weighty  problems like autism causes, treatments, health care, education and employment is a big job, and thank goodness we have teams of scientists, legislators, economists and the entire autism community to help.  But in the meantime, I think we could use a mom think tank to weigh in  on issues related to the Everyday Parenting Challenges of Autism (EPCA).   

In theory, the EPCA think tank would have its own identity.  Maybe we’d even have our own flag.  And, we’d align ourselves with key sponsors, preferably those that specialize in skincare and designer handbags!  And we’d meet someplace interesting and have a big summit to brainstorm solutions to EPCA challenges. I’d want  topics to include things like:

 How to effectively let your spouse know how to contact you and where to find food while you are away.  It is not easy for the poor dear to forage for dinner while being a single parent to an over-stimulated child in full meltdown mode.  Posting this information on the refrigerator simply isn’t sufficient when reason and logic  leave the building.

Songs to sing over the phone while traveling to calm the aforementioned child-in-meltdown, thus giving the aforementioned spouse the time  to call, eat or sit down.  My favorite is TEENY, TINY Valentine, but it is losing its effectiveness, and I’ve had to resort to Fergie’s Fergalicious.  I could use some new material.

How not to get impatient when in a hurry, and a child refuses to walk faster than a snail on Valium. I hear mothers of neurotypicalchildren wail against dawdling.   Dawdling would be an amazing improvement at our house.  I’m tempted to carry my son to speed things along, but then all my in-home parent training would collapse and I’d have to start all over again.

How to teach a child to trust that his body will float in the water; or that getting on a horse isn’t horrible or that eating a grape won’t kill him.  Swimming, horse and nutritional therapies don’t cover fear.

But most of all, I’d like to brainstorm ideas for how to motivate a child with autism to keep going and not give up. Reading, speaking, socializing and studying can be very hard work.  Therapy, tutoring and other interventions can help, but when society throws that tantalizing excuse of low expectations at our kiddos, I want to scream.  I would like to learn how other moms instill in their children an unshakable belief in themselves and a desire to do their best.

Must get kids off to school.  Must get paperwork finished for triennial evaluation.  Must learn about assistive technology for screening next week.  Must schedule conference call, business trip and finish presentation for consulting client(s). Must blog, vlog, mentor, report. Must get birthday card, work out,  participate in subdivision garage sale, do laundry/housework/yard work/grocery shopping, take dog to vet.  Must…keep going…. (more…)

My husband and I have  been trying to engage our son in Cub Scouts for the past two years.  Sometimes we think we are making progress, and other times, like today, we ask ourselves What were we thinking?  Everyone involved with the den – the scoutmaster, his wife (a parent educator),  the scouts and the other parents have bent over backward to support us, so we continue to have high hopes that Connor will find a place to develop friendships with peers.

This afternoon’s festivities were supposed to include a  ceremony whereby our son and the other scouts were to  graduate to Bear Cub status.  Connor had finished his requirements ages ago,  and we planned carefully to ensure that the event would be successful.  We decided  to arrive a little later to avoid the pre-ceremony commotion that always precedes a Pack meeting.  We gave Connor advanced notice of how the ceremony would be followed by a picnic and then a hayride, and we also agreed to allow him to take off his scouting uniform and  replace it with his customary pull-on  pants and tag-less, button-less shirt, immediately after the ceremony was finished.

Perhaps it was the garage sale the day before, or perhaps unstructured activity just isn’t in the stars right now, but for whatever the reason, Connor took one look at the picnic area and another look at the playground where other scouts were playing noisily on a life-sized pirate ship, and decided to go home. NOW. And so back home we went. 

We’ve left the scene hundreds of times before, forestalling many other social outings that were supposed to be fun, but for Connor, were torture.  Still, I really thought he was ready for this one.   And I blamed myself, Should we have arrived earlier rather than later? Timing is so important for these things. Should I have forced Connor to stay and accept responsibility? Perhaps I should’ve signed him up for that social skills course last summer, instead of waiting for next summer as planned.  Maybe he’d be further along socially if he weren’t an only child. Maybe he doesn’t feel welcome or worthy because he hasn’t been able practice conversation skills with a sibling.

When we came home, I started preparing dinner.  Before I knew it, I began to cry.  I was failing my son. So I hid my tears the best I could behind a simmering pot of spaghetti, Connor’s favorite Sunday dish. But Connor doesn’t miss a thing.  As I was sniffling around the kitchen, Connor came up to me and said, “Don’t Cry, Mom.  I’m With You.”  I felt as though I was staring into the eyes of Christ himself.  My petty worries were meaningless. My son knew better than anyone else his difficulties, his travails, and yet, as he told me in his next sentence “Mom, I’m  happy. Don’t worry so much.”