24/7

Our eldest boy is almost twelve. At age eleven, I was babysitting most weekend nights for other families with small children. Parenting a child on the spectrum, I am finding you cannot leave them alone or unsupervised for even thirty minutes. In the past month, our child has made horrible decisions about how to handle any time left unsupervised.

Balancing Act

So...question of the day? would you rather have your child survive in a mainstream school or thrive in a school setting designed for how they think and act? Trick question. There is no right answer.

His Bark is Much Worse Than His Bite

So if you are parenting a child on the autism spectrum, you know your child perceives minor wounds as extremely serious and major wounds as insignificant. Well, parenting the Asperger’s child, you might also know they perceive minor insults as astronomical and major insults as nothing.
Example: your child smashes into doorway head first, gashing open head, remains calm and is fine. Your child accidentally trips on rug, no injury, and is devastated, crying hysterically. As the children get older, it is even more mind-boggling. Nope, the bloody wipe out on the skateboard didn’t hurt; but the imaginary bee sting he didn’t really get is killing him.
As a parent of such child of conundrums, I prepare. He loves bandages, band aids, and medical tape. He often sports medical aids found at Walgreens including ankle supports, wrist bands, and the occasional eye patch.
I am always on a first name basis with the school nurse. I know he uses her office as a refuge from the assault of school life. My little sister always did when she was younger . Apparently she needed the support and break from the classroom. For me, a germaphobe, I would really rather die, than lie on one of those scary cots in a room with no windows. Not my son, I fully expect the daily 10am call. Sure, He can have an Advil, Benedryl, and Calamine. It is the ABCs of nursing a needy child.
However, last week, he actually gave me cause for concern. Almost. He was skateboarding at a nearby park. Within minutes he had returned, crying, yelling, and swearing. A dog had bitten his wrist while skateboarding. Scary, right? Except he was wearing a fleece jacket. And when I checked “the bite” there wasn’t one. But he was very upset. He told me he swore at the dog and told the dog he was going to tear its ears off if he bites him again. He also told me he swore at the owner who had let the dog off leash.
I remained calm. I asked if he was OK first of all. Second, I checked the non-wound and acknowledged its alleged presence. Next, I asked if he truly said those things to the owner of the dog. I admit I crossed my fingers behind my back and thought, “surely not.” He replied, “No, but I thought them.” Hallelujah. Progress.
Progress. Therefore, I felt a need to make sure the dog had no rabies, had its shots, even though there was no wound. I wanted to acknowledge Builder’s obviously scary event. But not build it up or give the incident too much power. On the condition, Builder would stay in the car, we found the owner, or actually the owner’s friends and all the facts were cleared up. Including the bite and the bark.

Summer

We are three days away from summer. I am looking forward to it. No more homework, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks. Because this year was pretty lame academically, I definitely did not make any new lasting friendships with the school personnel as I normally do most years. However, the unstructured nature of summer leaves me happy and unnerved. The good news is I just got a great post from www.parentingmyaspergerschild.com (one of the best websites for all of us parenting children on the spectrum. The blog offers concrete activites and advice about how to entertain the Asperger's child. I already know my husband and I are his main BFFs this summer. Because the few friends he has, most likely will not be around or at camp. But this summer, I think Builder needs more. He needs more. More skills, more support in so many ways, socially, academically, self-esteem wise, and interests. He needs much more than we can give him. He has gone to overnight camp before and loved it. But he didn't come home feeling any better about himself or more socially adept. He actually came home more stressed out and defiant. This year we are going to try a camp designed to help children with Asperger's, ADHD, and NVLD. Money well spent? We will see.

ABCs and IEPs

Just hopped off my broom from my recent IEP meeting with Builder's school. I haven't been too pleased with this year. His teacher interpreted accommodations to mean lowered expectations and in general his teaching philosophy is "whatever." The lack of accountability coupled with my tween's attitude of "whatever" meant no one cared, except my husband and I. And on the really bad nights where numero uno son did not want to do any homework, had thrown his math workbook in the trash, or lied again about the school website homework information being wrong, we too were at "whatever." It is so easy to go there. I really want to, I know he will still pass. Kinda easily, if he never does one more minute of homework at home. (What a glorious thought that is!) But, it isn't O.K., although in my own heart of hearts, I want to free every parent from homework across the nation.
Yes. I could so easily be elected president.
Yes. We want to teach him responsibility. But does it have to be about homework?
Yes. We want him to want to achieve. But does that mean via his homework?
Do we want him to have good study habits? Yes. But can't that be about topics he cares about?
And finally, do I want him to not take a foreign language or band and have two study halls? Yes. We want our tax dollars at work. Homework.

"Mom, does Chris have friends?" my younger son whispered to me tonight as he was going to bed.
"He has a few," I sighed. "Why are you asking about that?"
"Because I saw him sitting alone at recess today," he replied.

I assured Bounce we would talk about more later. He nodded because he knows the conversation might take more than a few minutes. I am also sure Bounce cannot fathom what it might be like to not have friends. He has many friends. He gets invited to birthday parties and play dates. He has many kids to call on the weekend. Builder does not.
Middle achool has been rough. Builder is bullied and not fitting in with

New Year, New game plan

1. I can't believe my last post was in November.
2. But really I can. It seems like the boys haven't been to school very much in the past 8 weeks with all the vacation days and holidays.
3. I don't really like to write about when things are challenging to me. Who wants to just complain and rant?
4. Things have been challenging around here.

I have decide there is a definite ebb and flow to my Builder's mood swings and behavior. But that is as far as I have gotten. Does it correlate with the moon stages? Does it more correlate with his diet and increased wheat intake? Is he just a terrible tween right now? Is the pressure of behaving at school too much for him that he comes home and we all who love him unconditionally get to be sprayed with his frustrations with life in general? Either way it isn't pretty and doesn't make good copy.
Luckily, I have been taking care of myself and reading lots of books for me. I love memoirs of any sort and read them by the truckload. Because the secret of a good memoir is your life has been hard and full of characters who really were selfish. Plus, these authors have made it out of their life trenches and gained wisdom they are now freely passing on to you! It is a beautiful thing.
This month I have learned, the less you control others, the more control you get and you are responsible for your own happiness. Pretty powerful statements. And the best thing about them, these tidbits of advice are pretty easy to implement into your own life. I do not need to depend on the moon stage, my diet, my students' lack of turning in homework, I just need to breathe and realize my child is who he is. He can go to school looking like Pee Wee Herman (a botched attempt at a home made Mohawk) and still live amid the taunts of his classmates. He can swear at me when he is angry and I cannot take it personally and realize he is frustrated by not understanding his world. I can hold him accountable when he is less angry hours later. I can also give myself credit for being the best mom I can be even if I don't always deserve the title.