forgiveness

Special Appearance

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

First, let me start by saying I’m kind of proud of myself. I let go today. For today, anyway. This is an internal struggle that rears its ugly head on a regular basis. I’m fighting the urge to engage in an un-winnable battle. A battle that shouldn’t be fought at all, really. The real victory in this particular conflict comes in letting go. This is becoming a theme for this year. Letting go. Just a couple years too late for the theme song. Oh, well!

When Maddie announced she had no intention of going to school, I simply closed her bedroom door and then proceeded to call the district’s transportation manager so he could cancel the cab stops for today. I was filled with both anxiety over yet another missed day of school and utter relief that I was able to just accept what was happening so much more readily than usual. Maybe I’m making progress.

I did require Maddie to accomplish a few things today, though. She took the morning off, and then later in the afternoon I announced she would have to read for 30 minutes, complete her science homework from the night before, and take a shower. In typical Maddie fashion, she said “okay,” but without a lot of commitment in her voice. I’m not stupid. I know she’s just saying what I want to hear. She didn’t mean it at all.

Since we were both hanging out in my room at the time, she willingly got out her book and read 30 pages. How relaxing! I asked her to do something, and she did it! I love it when that happens. Shortly after that I was scheduled to leave for a couple hours to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Just a short outing with some lady friends for a drink or two.

Then home again. Imagine my utter un-surprise when I got home to find Maddie scrunched down in my bed watching TV, with her backpack still zipped up by her side, and her hair an oily mess. Seven o’clock at night and no science homework completed. No shower taken. It’s amazing how I can be disappointed by the very thing I expect. Perhaps a part of me was secretly optimistic. I can’t imagine why.

I turned off the TV and she went in her room with her backpack where she settled in to pet her sweet cat Daisy. “Get started on your science NOW,” I said calmly and firmly. “I’m going to check on you in two minutes. You’d better be working.”

When I returned to make sure science homework was underway, Maddie asked me to stay. Her assignment was to read a chapter in her textbook and answer some questions. I thought perhaps I could speed things along if I took dictation. I read some news online while she read the chapter, and when she was ready to work, I opened Google Docs and began to type.

Maddie efficiently answered the first two questions, giving articulate, succinct explanations. I just typed. The third question was much trickier. We both looked over the material and couldn’t figure out exactly how to answer, but I made a general suggestion and she took it. Onto question four.

It was getting late, but I really wanted her to finish. By this time I had given up on the shower. Oh, well.

And then the unimaginable happened.

“I don’t think I can finish,” Maddie said.

“You only have three more questions,” I said. “We can do it.”

“No, I don’t think I can.”

“Are you too tired?”

“No, I’m worried about the time. I need to go to bed so I can get up in the morning.”

So who was the special guest this evening? The clock. My child looked at the clock, assigned significance to the time, and made a decision based on both the time and future consequences. My mind is officially blown. What. Is. Happening.

Tonight as we were getting ready for bed, I relayed this sequence of events to my husband Jake. He, of course, understood the momentous nature of this little anecdote. “Maybe she…” he began. And then he stopped. Maybe nothing. Maybe now she’ll start taking interest in time passing. Maybe she’s turning over a new leaf. Maybe she will prioritize and make good decisions.

Sure she will. Sometimes. Unpredictably. And mostly not. I know better than to think that one moment like this is a breakthrough.

“Light!” Jake reminded me. Yes, just like the time she said “light” and then nothing at all for six more months. Exactly. Sometimes Maddie does something so surprising and wonderful, and we can delight in it for a little while. But that’s where it stops. Appreciate those moments, and know if you expect the same thing next time, you will most likely be disappointed. So just don’t. Enjoy  now. Enjoy this. The end.

Occasionally people say such kind things to me after reading my blog. Even before I started writing, a common compliment to me was, “You’re so patient” or even “You’re an amazing mom.”

Well, all of us moms work hard at this parenting thing. And I have put–and continue to put–a tremendous amount of effort into honing both my skills as Maddie’s mom (and as mom to my son as well) but also, and perhaps even more so, my philosophy on life as a result. They are completely intertwined. How I look at life and the world and myself and people and kindness and love and forgiveness guide how I choose to be with Maddie. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, every single day it is a choice. It often does not come easily to me to be calm and loving and accepting. Often it takes every ounce of mental energy I have not to be angry, not to fight. I don’t always succeed. At all.

But every day I learn. Every day I am getting better at this. Every day I am working toward something, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder if what I’m working toward is just as much a better me as it is a better Maddie.

I don’t know when our special guest, the clock, will make a second appearance. I’m not even going to think about it. I’m going to feel happy it happened today. I’m going to feel good about myself for staying calm and being loving. I’m going to feel grateful that at least Maddie got some of her science work done and then still got a good night’s sleep, even though she ran out of time to shower. I am going to hold onto the feeling of snuggling with her in bed, of her loving hug, of her forehead on my lips because she still lets me kiss her goodnight.

The Reason I Write

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

Recently I was thinking, after posting the story of yet another challenge with my daughter, about the content of my blog. I started this project as (1) an avenue for sharpening my writing skills and (2) a way to express myself in the face of some difficult circumstances. Once I decided to write, the subject was obvious. This is the thing I have to talk about.

It just to happens that the subject of my blog–parenting my Asperger’s kid–is fraught with a tremendous amount of emotion. Much of that emotion is sadness, frustration, and anger. Some of it is also hope (as you know, I’m focusing on that), admiration, and gratitude. My days are unpredictable. I think a lot, I feel a lot, but mostly I just cope. And I try to be optimistic. And I often fail at both.

This is definitely the story of my daughter and me, but I hope it’s much more. Because once this blog got rolling, I found my true purpose. And that is to speak for all of us parents of autistic kids. Or parents of special needs kids in general. And sometimes even just parents.

What I hope to do is be honest and open about this aspect of my life, to share my victories and defeats, my successes and failures, my moments of genius as well as all the times I royally screw up. I want you all to feel less alone in your struggle. I want the rest of my readers to have more insight into the life of a special needs parent.

So when I tell the story of a particularly terrible morning, it’s not to get your sympathy (although that’s a nice side benefit). It’s to illuminate the kind of struggles the parents of autistic kids might face, to lay bare our frustrations and fears.

I also realize that kids on the autism spectrum are individuals, and that our stories are unique to us. Some kids on the spectrum are very motivated but have social anxiety, the opposite of my daughter. Some kids are rigid and angry. Some kids are emotionally fragile. Maddie is easy-going and happy, stubborn and impossible to motivate. Some parents are more organized than I am, some have been ferociously fighting for their kids since they were toddlers, some have yet to fully recognize what they are dealing with.

But the overarching story is the same: Our kids reside at least in some ways outside of our society’s expectations, and they struggle to fit in. And we as parents have anxiety over how to help them now, and what their lives will look like in the future–next week, next month, next year, next decade. We love them fiercely, we want to both push them and protect them, we feel their pain and rejoice in the tiniest of victories. We feel alone much of the time, as if a chasm exists between us and other parents with only typical kids. We know they don’t know what our lives are like. We know they can’t. It’s a unique experience, parenting an autistic kid. Those of us who do it need each other. And this is why I write.

But something else miraculous has happened in the process of writing my blog: I am better able to clarify my own thoughts and feelings in a way I really hadn’t before. When you write things down (hello, journaling!), you take what might be murky ideas and emotions and put them into words. And it turns out words are really helpful! I might start a blog entry feeling defeated and sad, and by the end I’ve decided to forgive myself and be happy, to focus on gratitude and hope. What a gift!

The truth is that every day that I write, I am finding those things anew. I wish I could say these little daily epiphanies stick with me and that I am suddenly transformed. Nope. It’s a journey, a process, a lifetime project to figure out what to do and how to do it and how to find happiness and joy and cope with fear and hopelessness and frustration. And each day I work on those things. I write them down here, hoping the writing will help all my mental lightbulbs stay illuminated at least a little bit. Maybe a bunch of little lightbulbs will accumulate and eventually light my path so that eventually I can see very clearly where I’m going. We shall see.

In the meantime, I hope my blog is helping some of you. It is certainly helping me.