When you have a child with disabilities–especially developmental disabilities, whether autism or something else–you want to do the absolute most for that child you can.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That child, you feel–or I felt–deserves–needs–a perfect parent.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That child, of all children, shouldn’t have to deal with parental imperfections–he has enough problems already.\u00a0\u00a0 He\/she is so fragile, so vulnerable, that any mistakes parents make are likely to be the tipping point that makes it impossible for the child to have a happy life.<\/p>\n
Then comes the day…you know the day.\u00a0 The day you lose your temper.\u00a0 The day you forget something vital.\u00a0\u00a0 The day you aren’t perfectly controlled, calm, supportive, firm enough and flexible enough,\u00a0 diligent in getting through his\/her therapies, the house isn’t clean enough, the vital paperwork goes missing.\u00a0 That day.<\/p>\n
Here’s the story of the day I contributed to stunting our son’s initiative.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I knew–I had read–that autistic children have little if any initiative.\u00a0 They have to be forced to do things, to try things–that’s what the books available 20-odd years ago said.\u00a0\u00a0 I picked him up from preschool, and was in the kitchen fixing supper, chopping vegetables.\u00a0 He was wandering, as he usually did when we got home, unwinding from preschool.\u00a0\u00a0 It took me a few minutes to register that he’d taken the damp sponge off the sink divider.<\/p>\n
He was in the living room, washing the piano.\u00a0\u00a0 The mahogany spinet I’d grown up with. \u00a0 It was a bit dusty,\u00a0 but water wasn’t improving it. \u00a0\u00a0 I said NO very firmly, said that we don’t wash pianos,\u00a0 removed him and the sponge from the living room, and gave him paper and crayons.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Usually he’d settle to drawing geometric figures.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I went back to fixing supper.<\/p>\n
And yes, he got hold of the sponge again and was back in the living room washing the piano.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I followed, really annoyed by then.\u00a0 He did understand “no” and wasn’t usually that stubborn about something as odd as washing the piano (he’d never wanted to wash anything.)\u00a0\u00a0 I snatched the sponge away.\u00a0 I yelled.\u00a0\u00a0 He cried.<\/p>\n
The next day,\u00a0 at the preschool, I found that the new teacher had been teaching the kids to sponge down the shelves on which toys were stored.\u00a0 To clean up.<\/p>\n
I had scolded him for showing initiative–for noticing the piano was dusty and trying to clean it himself.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And it was far too late to undo the damage–I had taught him that showing initiative, cleaning up, got him in trouble.\u00a0\u00a0 You can bet he didn’t show any initiative (especially about housework) for years after that.<\/p>\n
What I could have done–if I’d slowed down enough to think about it–was gently demonstrate, that first time, how to clean a piano.\u00a0\u00a0 But I was tired (my mother was sick at the time) and in a hurry to get supper done.<\/p>\n
I am not perfect.\u00a0\u00a0 Our son isn’t perfect.\u00a0 Nobody’s perfect.<\/p>\n
But on my good days, I did slow down to his pace and demonstrate and explain and let him lead where he could.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Slowly,\u00a0 in fits and starts, he began to show initiative, and this time we were alert enough to recognize the fumbling attempts as genuine.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He taught himself to swim.\u00a0 He taught himself to ride a bicycle.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He did that in spite of our mistakes\u00a0 (and that wasn’t the only mistake I made, or others in the family made, by a long shot!)<\/p>\n
We parents don’t have to be perfect.\u00a0\u00a0 We have to be good enough<\/em>, which is hard enough, too.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We have to be able to see our mistakes (even if too late for that particular teaching moment), admit them, \u00a0 and not repeat them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But one of the important things our kids (including our disabled kids learn)\u00a0 from parents is that parents can make mistakes, recognize mistakes, and correct themselves.<\/p>\n From that, they can learn that their own mistakes can be outlived–they, too, can learn to recognize when they’ve goofed,\u00a0 admit they’ve goofed to themselves and others, and not make that mistake again.\u00a0\u00a0 They can learn strategies for avoiding the really dire mistakes, tempering initiative with forethought,\u00a0 and ways to clean up the messes they make–physical and emotional.<\/p>\n I still wish I’d been (and was still) a perfect parent.\u00a0 But I’m not.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nobody’s perfect.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That isn’t an excuse for not trying to be better than I am now…but it’s a recognition of a basic human truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you have a child with disabilities–especially developmental disabilities, whether autism or something else–you want to do the absolute most for that child you can.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That child, you feel–or I felt–deserves–needs–a perfect parent.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That child, of all children, shouldn’t have to deal with parental imperfections–he has enough problems already.\u00a0\u00a0 He\/she is so fragile, so vulnerable, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,12,26],"tags":[3,13,27,50],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-life-on-the-spectrum","category-parenting","tag-autism","tag-communication","tag-initiative","tag-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}