This post has been ruminating in my head for a couple days now. I'm not sure it'll all come out the way I want it to, as my thoughts are moving so quickly and in so many directions.
When I became a mother, I had a set idea of how things were going to be. Yes, those of you who are parents are smiling right now. Of course, things with children do not always go the way we think they should. Children are not blank slates, waiting for their parents to write on them and make them the people they are going to be. Does nurture play a role? Of course. But I think we're all pretty genetically set on the day of our births.
My first child taught me to be an "attached parent". With babies, that means wearing your baby, sleeping with your baby, breastfeeding on cue, and some other things. You can google Attachment Parenting if you are interested in knowing more. Did I plan to be this way? No, actually, I didn't. I had full plans to put my baby to sleep in his crib every night. I had plans to only nurse him for the first year of his life. I bought a lovely stroller to push him around in. He screamed in the crib, he screamed in the stroller, he screamed if I wasn't holding him, or near him, or ready to feed him at a moment's notice. Some might say I "catered" to him and made him this way. But no. I did all the things I was "supposed" to do. And it made my baby miserable. I held him more. He was happy. I bought a baby carrier and he was tickled pink! I gave up dragging myself out of bed and across the hall 6 times a night, and put him in bed with me. And, hey, we BOTH slept! I ended up taking the path of least resistance, and suddenly, I had a content baby. And I was a happier mama! Win-win!
But he was still different. I didn't know what or how or why, but he seemed different. He was very serious. I had a group of mums and babies I got together with regularly, and one mum once said he was like a "wise old soul". While all the other babies interacted and got interested in each other, he was happy to crawl around and examine all their toys. It was good, though. He was happy. I didn't think much of it.
He was resistant to solid food. He was uncoordinated, and very gaggy. The first time he ate rice, he had a whole body reaction, shuddering from head to toe and couldn't get himself far enough away from the offending food or the bowl or spoon that might come near his mouth again. As he got older, this physical reaction to certain foods became more pronounced. I had no other child to compare him to, but it seemed to me that he was more than just picky. His body would react to certain textures or tastes in his mouth. The books/other people all say, "If he's hungry enough, he'll eat." I struggled so much with that because, as a mother, my gut told me to put food in my child. Was I willing to starve him to prove that theory?
One night, after a particularly frustrating argument with someone who will never understand my parenting approach, I did it. I put our family's meal down in front of my son. He was 2.5. It was a child friendly meal; something most children would eat. He wouldn't. After awhile, I allowed him to get down from the table. When he came to me an hour later, complaining he was hungry, I heated it up and put it in front of him. He wouldn't eat it. He cried. I did it again. And again. 3 hours later, he was near hysterics. He was so hungry. He needed food, and I, his mother, the person he trusted most in the world, wasn't giving him what he needed. I gave up the "experiment". It was more important to feed my child, to not have dinnertime drama, to retain the trust he had in me, than to starve him out. Never again would I withhold food from my child.
As he's gotten older, the whole "they'll eat if they're hungry" "children won't starve themselves" became more and more of a thorn in my side; because I knew my kid. I knew, that if he found a certain food offensive in any way, he WOULD starve himself. He would absolutely make himself SICK before he would ever eat a food he didn't like or couldn't tolerate in some way.
By the time he was 3, there were other things I noticed about him. He didn't jump. He didn't like the feeling of his body suspended in midair. He wouldn't slide down the slide or swing on the swings. He moved carefully and cautiously at all times, but could be awkward and clumsy. He not only didn't like to eat certain textures, but also didn't like to feel them, with his hands or his feet. He wouldn't touch playdoh, he wouldn't walk barefoot on grass or sand, he freaked out if anything wet touched his hands or body (if it wasn't supposed to. Baths were fine).
I learned of Sensory Integration Dysfunction (you can google that one, too), and had him assessed. He came out "borderline", but enough that it was recommended he get some occupational therapy. We got 6 weeks and he really enjoyed it. He started doing some things, like jumping, or hanging from a bar, or feeling things he wasn't used to. As for the eating, nothing changed, but at that point, I was at peace. It was more important to have a peaceful dinnertime than it was to have him eat what was prepared for the rest of the family. It was who he was.
As he grew, I thought of him as "quirky". I thought of him as "hyper-sensitive". He was often easily frustrated. He didn't transition well from one activity or place to the next, but I learned techniques to help him. I knew he needed a strict routine when it came to meals, bedtime, how we went about our days. I knew he needed plenty of warning if something was going to change. The two transitions he had when each of his siblings were born were HUGE. I learned ways of adapting, the same way I did when he was a baby.
At 6, his father abandoned him and our family. He internalized it, mostly, but was clearly struggling. The tantrums were insane. He was out of sorts, even if I couldn't put my finger on it or put it into words. Clearly, a parent leaving the family is traumatic, for any child! I took him to counsellors, we talked and talked and talked about feelings, about not bottling them up, about everything. Not being a particularly huggy kid, he didn't seem to gain comfort from hugs and snuggles. He was SO sad.
His behaviour was grief, I told myself. And, I'm certain it was. Partly. But I could sense, years later, that he was no longer grieving, so why did he still have some of those behaviours? How come counselling seemed ineffective?
We homeschooled. With his quirky approach to life and learning, and being 110% set on doing things ONLY when HE decided he should do them, homeschooling fit very well. And he WAS interested in learning, but in his own way, as always. As a solo parent, I grew exhausted and was quickly burning out. I put him in school. He did well, but the adjustment was huge. At this point, his anger was also negatively impacting those of us who lived with him. I took him to a pediatrician, who casually did an ADHD assessment (which didn't exactly fit), offered me medication for him (for an ADHD diagnosis that wasn't really a true diagnosis!) and who, after I told her that he gets angry enough that he sometimes hits and hurts his brother, turned to my 8 year old son and said, "Well, you know that it's wrong to hurt someone, right?" And that was kind of it. So very not helpful.
He was anxious and fearful about many things. We talked and prayed extensively about his fears. I signed him up for a class called "Worry Dragons" with a local family oriented center.
I still felt lost. I felt lost dealing with tantrums, anger, not knowing what would set him off. I felt lost with his seeming inability to "get" what I said sometimes. Misinterpreting words and situations happened often, leading him to behaviours that didn't match what was going on. Something small would become something very, very big in his mind. He didn't seem to show empathy if someone was hurt. In fact, it didn't seem like he could even recognize when someone was hurt until it was pointed out to him ("E, he's crying, he's upset, he's hurt"). His giant sense of entitlement and that everything must be done his way or else, was upsetting balance in our lives. I couldn't excuse it as young child behaviour anymore. I couldn't say it was the grief over his father leaving anymore. And he was almost 10. I needed answers!!
In the course of the last year or so, two people mentioned "Aspergers" to me. I dismissed it. One of the characteristics is that a child doesn't make friends easily, and my son seemed to make friends just fine. But I started watching him interact with his friends and I saw something different. Sure, he made friends, but was not always catching the cues he needed to have conflict-free play. I noticed other things, too. He played in prescribed ways. He played mostly with younger children and in more immature ways. He couldn't tolerate his friends changing the course of the game. I started reading. I read online, I read library books, I talked to other people with experience with autistic spectrum disorders. And it fit him. The more I read, the more I felt this was maybe the answer I had been looking for for years. I needed to know. I was lost for parenting strategies and this was definitely going to affect him more and more into adolescence.
After many months of advocating, this week we saw a child psychiatrist, who did an almost 4 hour assessment with me and my boy. She was refreshing in seeing the positives in his quirks. She was encouraging in telling me these kids are so challenging to raise, especially as a single mother. She called me "super human". I jokingly asked if I could say that was her psychiatric opinion. (She said I could.)
And she said my son has Aspergers. I knew it, in my gut. The same gut that knew I needed to "attach" to my baby, the same gut that knew how to weave our life to suit my preschooler, the same gut that knew he needed to learn at home. I had almost hoped for the diagnosis, simply because it would explain so much. It would validate so much. My years of telling people that my son was just "different" could finally be substantiated. I wasn't simply excusing him all these years. It's not my fault!
And still, in the midst of it, I felt a wave of sadness sweep over me. He won't grow out of this. He can be taught to cope and learn what he needs to, but so much of what we take for granted in our everyday interactions with people will never come naturally to him.
It makes me re-process the last 10 years of my son's life. As much as I knew he was "different", I parented most of the time as if he was a neuro-typical child. My frustrations were huge at times. And now I'm looking at our interactions over the years and seeing them differently. I told the psychiatrist that when E was a little guy, he would mirror my moods. I often said to people, "If I'm happy, he's happy. If I'm not, then he's not settled." I look at those statements in a completely different light now. I think of all the movie scripts he plays out. I think of him as a 4 year old, quoting lines from plays his father directed, much to people's great amusement. I think of the hours and hours of "conversations" we have where he tells me all about something he's just read or learned. We don't have conversations about people or feelings. We have conversations about movies and characters and Lego sets.
My son has Asperger Syndrome. He is an interesting, funny, intelligent child. I love him so much it hurts. He's an incredible challenge to raise. I hope to find helps and strategies along the way. I pray I will be able to teach him all the tools he will need to be successful in his life. It's intimidating doing it all alone. I have quite a few thoughts about that, but I'll save that for another post.
I have an answer. The puzzle of my son is showing a clearer picture than I've ever seen. I am relieved. I am comforted. I am and have done EXACTLY what my son needs me to do. He didn't come as a blank slate. He came this way. He's been teaching ME all along.
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