Changes

MrD is now 15 years old. He is a big brother to a new baby in our home.  He is dabbling between the worlds of young teenager & physical adulthood.  We appreciate it is a tough place to be.  He remembers how it feels to be bullied, yet he enjoys dabbling in it himself at times.  This week has been tougher.  Spring is coming, but not quite flourished.  He is dabbling in interpersonal warfare.  Verbal banter/sparring is our latest vexation, coupled with negative attitude and ticks.  Relentless grunting and armpit fart noises are his normal.  Thankfully the forced air between his lips bellowing-like-an-elephant noise has subsided.  Ticks seem to relieve built up tension and drive us crazy, so no real reason for him to stop or control them, right?  The solution eludes us.  I am tortured with the usual mothering worries in between exhaustion:  Is he eating enough?  Is he getting enough nourishment?  Is he getting enough sleep?  Is he fatigued enough from daily exercise?  Is he getting enough love and attention?  How much is enough?

He messed with a girl on Monday, "set her off" so to speak.  She wasn't innocent either, blasting him that he has no friends & no-one likes him.  Who knows what MrD was doing to help stimulate her verbal blast.  Last year she blasted him for sitting in "her" chair.  Like it has her name on it (it doesn't).  He purposefully sat in her usual spot.  She ordered him to get out of her chair.  He replied, "woof"  which was taken as calling her a dog (bitch), which he did indeed mean to imply.  MrD does not swear, but he dances around it cleverly.  We talk about these events, thankfully he will give me the pieces & eventually I get to the bottom of the story.  I suspect she may have been blasting him this round because of his relentless armpit fart noises, but MrD wouldn't tell me.  Tuesday we talked about ways to get better communication.  Like if she is talking like that, he could tell her not to talk down to him.  He could go with the classic hands over ears lalalalalalalala to draw attention to her behaviour if an adult is near.  He told me on Wednesday he held out his hand & said, "truce" and she accepted.  I told him that was a great choice & I'm glad he thought of it.  Wednesday he waved his (stinky) shoe into another boy's face.  Sigh.  When asked why, he said he didn't know.  When pressed that he must know why, he admitted he just felt like it, it was funny.  I reminded him that the school does have an anti-bullying policy & it can & will be used against him if he keeps it up.  He said it was, he got detention.  I have asked at the school that the detention be altered to time with the counselor but agreed that he did earn himself a consequence.

My goal this year is to continue to use this blog as an unloading & thoughtful zone for positive & negative events.  There is a lot of positive forces in MrD's life which I am thankful.  He is still progressing in Taekwan-do & is over the half way to getting his black belt.  He is passing his courses for grade 9.  He is doing well at Sylvans & almost at grade level.  An adult male friend has expressed interest in a platonic friendship of sorts.  MrD can help with odd jobs and our friend can help model communication & problem solving while gently guiding better choices.  Like a big brother, with the flavour of Behaviour Interventionist.  I have had it as a goal for a few years to get a BI for MrD, but it just hasn't been panning out, at all.  I am grateful that we have a gentle compromise in that direction now.  When it is tough, I white knuckle it.  When it is nice, I just have to remind myself to enjoy it, not to take it for granted since those are such precious short time spans.

Tattletale-tattletale

MrD has a knack for turning almost every adult he encounters into a tattle-tale at some point or another.  Its frustrating, and occasionally amusing.  I learned in MrD's elementary days from a wise experienced teacher the sweet definitions.  A "tattletale" is someone who tells on another to get them into trouble and maybe make them-self look good too.  "Telling" is communicating because they don't know what to do but want to help the other person learn & not make the mistake anymore.  Its dumbfounding how many people forget this distinction!

So I get these stinking phone calls, usually when I've worked a night shift & need my sleep, or I'm working & can't leave the site, or I'm sick & dearly needing to rest.  "MrD did this", "MrD did that" says a teacher, a teachers-assistant, a vice principal, a counsellor, a principal...  So then I hear them out: he wouldn't do his work; he wouldn't sit down when told for the x'th time; he won't stop making annoying  noises; he won't climb out from under the desk; he won't stop fidgeting with paperclip/eraser/ruler/pen/pencil/mechanical pencil...; he had a tantrum & tipped over a desk (only happened once); he won't come down from the goal post.

Its okay to laugh now, we sometimes do after it passes.  Inevitably when we do the "back-chaining," "sleuthing," or "following the chain of events," (all the same don't you think?) an adult has been inconsistent or unfair.  Or a classmate has set him up, he took the fall, no one saw the starting sequence, so the overt/subvert bullying keeps happening.  Grrrrrrrrr!  So we talk through the Integrated Education Plan ( IEP ) and I remind said tattletale to send MrD to the counsellor, the IEP teacher, the office.  He's been going to the office for things since grade 3, it has no bite, its not scary.  Going to the office means giving him a chance to take his mood out of the classroom & hopefully an experienced "professional" adult will communicate with him and get to the bottom of it.

Despite firmly reminding MrD that I'm sleeping today, to stay out of trouble, to not make the phone ring, I got a call from the vice principal.  He's been sent to the office multiple times last week & again today.  Sigh.  I make a point of calling each & every school professional by their first name to level the playing field.  I don' t lord my title over them unless they are being patronizing & inattentive.   Of course I've had 4 broken hours of sleep and now have to deal with this.  I listened patiently, then set in with quizzing what happened, where, when, who, what was done, has he spoken with the 2 professionals that are well versed in his communication style which is outlined in the IEP...  A kid last week has been bragging about masturbating during class & putting his thumb up his own rectum.  This disgusts MrD to no end, who wouldn't be disgusted by this?  Now all it takes is said kid to gesture to repulse MrD and derail his classroom experience.  After talking with MrVP I ask to talk with MrD.  I ask him bluntly & almost sternly what happened, what was done, when, why.  He diverts around with some excuses now, he missed the morning break & didn't get a snack; his knee hurts and the ibuprofen isn't working anymore (not quite true since I've observed it works well for up to 6 hours with him); masturbator kid upset him, BINGO.  I tell MrD that to him, that kid does not exist, he's invisible, to ignore him.  I ask to talk with MrVP again.  MrVP was writing down all MrD's responses.  I reminded MrVP that the masturbator kid  is bullying, and even though no one saw it (how convenient) kids know how to do things when adults aren't watching.  So I advised that he needs to get to the bottom of the now overt bullying going on.  MrD does not have any siblings to train him in the realities of "the set-up and the fall" game that most people are well versed in.  Even though this is grade 8 high-school, it still feels like the adults are doing the bullying at times like this.

Another day, another tantrum

 Hoarfrost looks almost dangerous, yet is incredibly fragile and temporary.  I don't believe Hell to always be hot, sometimes it is ever so bone-chillingly cold.  

Yesterday was tough.  Its always worst when I'm not feeling well, regardless of illness, shift-work or general overwhelming fatigue days.  I realize MrD is competing for attention, I know at 13 he still needs attention.  I have always tried to encourage him to amuse himself.  At times he just can't, currently its most awful when he's competing for "who feels worst" title.  That pisses me off.  I realize it is part of his self centric self and that he will always be young for his age.  That doesn't change the fact that he has no right to kick me when I'm down, or anyone for that matter.  He has a sore knee, which we will address at an upcoming doctor appointment.  He's been complaining of it for awhile now, but I have been allowing common sense to watch & wait to see if it settles down or gets worse.  I understand that pain is pain, and it is what the person says it is.  Pain also reduces his coping.  I struggle with the reality that at times its better & worse, and sometimes becomes an excuse to not do things he didn't want to do anyways.  Yet, in the midst of yet another tantrum, because he can't have his own way (computer time), he chose to hit his sore knee.  Somehow, he was trying to emphasize he is hurting more.  Immature coping, paired with Auspergers logic, how the hell do I figure this out?  Thankfully my husband took MrD for a drive, he saw MrD railing for attention I did not have to give, and that MrD had no right to be demanding in such a vicious way.  I had a chance to read this long article, Why French parents are superior.  I realize it is a commentary of social differences.  The gem was that children need to be taught patience, to wait, and to accept it.  That's a very real life skill.  I have worked for 13 years to teach this, but I still have to remind myself that MrD is a work in progress.  The proof is that MrD can do so many things independently already.  He can walk to & from school, safely ride his bicycle, use the telephone, electronics, washer/drier, dishwasher, feed the pets...  He just can't always cope as expected, that is why Auspergers autism is often known as an invisible disorder.  Every day we have another example of why adults have to adapt their thinking to the problem at hand of how to get forward movement out of this child.  He came home tearful and apologetic because he almost got himself an early ride all the way to his Dad's home.  Thankfully my husband realized my son was playing in bullying and manipulations, not just unmet needs of attention.  I suppose those are signs of MrD's advancing thinking modes, certainly not modes that we will ever encourage.

Sense of senses

Our internal environments are controlled by our senses.  Autism children seem to read their senses more acutely and more intuitively, but have difficulty communicating it.  Parents are the #1 authority on their autistic child's behavior and mood.  Yet we take a backseat to other people's opinions or get shoe-horned into a label of "overprotective parent." (negative labeling with judgmental overtones anyone?!?)  We all know of 5 senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.  Most people forget energy is like a sense, it dominates our mood, our spirit, and our physical presence.  If we are tired there are gradients of fatigue that influence how snappy or defensive we come across.   Animals are highly capable of reading energy levels and often make a natural pairing with autistic children.  

Most people are familiar with circadian rhythm fatigue that brings an afternoon lag.  Those are often morning people.  Some people are aware of "sundowning" on the dementia spectrum, where erratic & nasty behaviours appear in the late afternoon or early evening.  Hardly anyone knows about "sun-rising," which is also seen within the dementia spectrum when anytime of the morning erratic & nasty come out to play.  Sun-riser people are the ones historically that everyone knew to leave them alone until they've had their first cup of coffee & cigarette of the day.  I believe those are often the night owls and shift workers that prefer evening shift.  

Children need predictable routine for meals and sleep schedules. Teenagers are a different thing again.  They are in a huge growing spurt with hormone shifts and moods.   They flip to evening or night hours easily but often require more sleep than children.  That answers the morning zombie state of many teenagers.  I think the most interesting part is that we can and do change our rhythms but we seem to have a natural setting we gravitate to. We have a natural adult weight we gravitate to so it makes sense sleep/wake cycles do too.  When we travel across time zones and need to re-acclimate on return, we do it gradually if its at all possible to avoid a sleep deprivation hangover slam.  Over a few days going to bed one hour earlier & getting up a bit earlier the next day is the kindest way to re-adjust our sleep.  Its the same for children and teenagers.  BUT sometimes I have to be The Bad Mom and let MrD get to sleep when he does, and then get him up 30 minutes earlier than the usual time, just to force the bedtime clock back into adjustment.  Yes, it means a tired morning and a crabby supper hour, but the next day isn't quite as bad a repeat since bedtime is tired and less fight.

Enter creative problem solving.  There's a schedule, and MrD does NOT want to cooperate, get up, or get on with the day.  Sigh.  Sometimes I start his day with tickling, that feeds attention and laughter which we all need. Then I give him a time limit to get up & dressed by, 5 minutes, or else he gets a splash of water tossed on him.  This is a graduation from a squirt gun which seems to have mysteriously gone missing.  I set the kitchen timer, when it beeps, he gets wet.  That helps set the action & consequence process.  I'm sure I won't win any parenting awards for it though.  It does work better than grabbing all the warm blankets and hauling them out of the room leaving him cold on the bed.  The next strategy is starting his morning earlier & earlier until he starts cooperating on his own, then I can back off a bit.  Good Morning!

Apologies & School of life

Good news, MrD apologized for his earlier lie about not having homework.  When another chance arrived, I asked him, "think carefully before you reply, Do you have homework?"  To which he immediately started to blurt an answer, stopped himself, and answered, "wait a minute" & went to check his backpack.  He proceeded to dig out his homework and do it, no problem.  He is concerned about being trustworthy and it bothers him to be considered anything less.  Hoorrayy for small miracles!

I recently wrote about natural consequences as a possible outcome for choices.  Recently MrD was schooled there.  He was (as usual) in his own little cloud, minding everyone else's business, the last kid out of a local sports group he goes to.  Somehow his jacket was missing, but another was left in its place.  He was very upset thinking that someone had stolen his jacket.  I'm not pleased either, but I'm not angry.  Losing a brand new $35 winter jacket, purchased just in the nick of time for cold weather is annoying.  I did send him right back in to check the lost & found bucket.  MrD was escalating his tantrum and in a nasty mood over it.  I had a hard time cutting through that to tell him to knock it off and listen to me.  We talked about the fact that someone probably took his jacket by mistake.  I told him that this is only one thing that can happen when you don't pay attention to the things going on around you and be on task, it could be worse.  If at long last he "gets-it" it will be a cheap lesson for his lifetime remembering.  Unfortunately his favorite toque was in the pocket and may be lost for good.  The most interesting thing about life lessons, they usually stick.  We talked through the fact that if someone really needed it, I would have preferred they ask rather than take it.  I am well aware that MrD is the one who needs the jacket, that is who it was purchased for.  It was important to revisit the concept of kindness and not vindictiveness over this mistake.  Teaching kindness is important, but I don't want him to be a "push-over" either.  That's life: Balance, imbalance, learn, repeat.

We had an event like this a few years ago where he insisted he had to take 3 brand new shirts to school to show the teacher on the last day of school.  He was really excited about those shirts as they had glow in the dark motifs on them.  He argued with me relentlessly that he had to bring them, that he promised.  He couldn't answer when I asked him what he would do if they went missing, other than to argue that they won't.  I relented and allowed him to make the mistake.  As predicted they were set aside and lost in the shuffle never to be seen again.  I didn't like being right but he needed to find out the hard way.  He still argues relentlessly about certain things.  It makes me curious what the life lesson will be that changes his mind about arguing extensively.

Transitions of change

My son commutes between our home & his fathers home.  It is not new or unusual, it is our normal since he was 10 months old.  Many children have to do this so it is normal when arranging play-dates with other families to navigate this.  I believe these transitions have helped to bring a level of flexibility to his life.  If he had the same home, same school, same rules, same same same, he would probably be a lot more ridged person.

It is not without struggles.  Mr.D has to follow different rules and keep track of them.  Life is like that.  There are different rules at a restaurant, at school, at the movie theatre, at friends homes...  Unfortunately our two households seem to follow different schedules for the basics of getting up eating, and bedtime.  These fundamental differences really show up in coping, or lack of coping.  I mentioned in the last post about dealing with challenges and negativity.  Mr.D is a lot more negative for awhile.  He describes it as a "black hole or a  void."  I work with dementia clients and one fellow transitioning through dementia described the it as "a blackness that creeps in and is heavy."  I found it interesting that as my son gets older and is able to think about things he came up with such a deep description.  So, its not my imagination that he is in a very negative place and it does change him.  Last year a psychologist recommended to me to limit transitions.  I can't see how that would ever be possible.  Life is full of transitions.  The meal ends, the movie ends, a car accident, a birth or a death, marriage, divorce, transition is part of life.  As much as I struggle with my son when he returns home, I love him no matter what.

When he was a small child and anxious about going to see his Dad, I would tell him that its okay, he's safe, no matter what he would come back to me and I would always come back to him.  I cried inside later but I kept it from him.  No one said that being a mother came with such complicated feelings.  I realize I am not here to be his friend, I am here to do the hard part, to get him through childhood to become a functional, kind, and independent man.  So, when he comes home he needs more hugs.  He needs a gentle pull back into routine with love.  He backtracks and delays and dawdles getting his jobs done, because he is remembering yet again how to get along in our home.  Sometimes there is lots of yelling too.  When we talk about it I remind him that if he followed through instead of just answering and not acting, the yelling would stop.  I can't stand over him to watch him get naked to get into the shower, he wants his privacy.  I can't stand by & crowd him to get his teeth done when he's standing in the mirror making faces or jumping just to see his bangs bounce.  Privacy vs taking responsibility vs owning responsibility.  One day these things won't be a big deal, but they've been ongoing for so many years now it feels like he'll never master them.  I know he can do his tasks, the trick is getting him to own them.

Who knew?

The newest & greatest book in our home is such a source of conflict.  In the evening it blocks out all other thinking, its full obsession love.  Must. read. another. page. can't. put. book. down.  We all fall prey to this occasionally so I understand completely.  In the morning for school it became a full out house hunt, where's the book?!?  I put it away last night knowing it would be a source of struggle in the morning.  That and I really want him to finish the Percy Jackson book he's halfway through.  Once he starts the new one, Percy is doomed to never be completed.  I also understand ditching a book if it no longer holds interest, but he was interested & needs to be pushed to finish it for the sake of finishing it.  Thats a life skill too.

Mr D wants to look up the author at school.  I wrote it down on a piece of paper to refer to.  No Mom, I need the book, the author has an exclusive blog that is only listed in his book.  Despite assurances that this published author would have a public blog that should be easy to find with a simple online search engine, the house was rummaged.  Ahhhggg! He found it, now I have to wrestle it away, threatening to rip the pages to keep it away.  I was already engaged, if I lost this battle he would not do any schoolwork today, fixating entirely on this new book.  So with grim resistance he concedes he didn't want the book ripped.  Minutes from the impending school bus time, he goes into the backyard!  He's looking for his bug carrier that is full of 50 caterpillars that he collected from the school on Friday.  The bug carrier was Friday's obsession, I just didn't blog it.  He had a really intelligent insight on Friday.  Why can't they teach about human reproduction alongside the caterpillar life cycle instead of these boring nasty class lectures about how our bodies grow.  I told him that I didn't know, but he's right, it would be more interesting.  Switch back to today, I'm screaming out the back door, GET TO THE BUS!  to which I get the reply, Okaaayyyy.  Thankfully we do not have the previous school busdriver who was a stickler for being on time all the time or you get the warning reports.  Three warning reports & you have to have a bus meeting before riding the bus privileges are reinstated.  This busdriver is a little more casual about time & is not perfectly on time, whew!  My poor neighbors will be glad this school year is done too.  On the positive side, Mr D apologized for being so difficult & stressing me out this morning.

Score keeping?

Often we struggle the same way, day after day, week after week.  Occasionally I have an idea or a friend triggers something I have learned & forgotten in my "bag of tricks" to being a mom.  I have been thinking on our current particular cycle of horrible.  My son's father & I have been split up since Mr D was very small.  It is normal in our family for Mr D to commute in the car every other weekend at the halfway meeting point.  Mr D is an excellent car traveller because of this.  He's great at sleepovers too.  I have always told him that no matter what he is loved. He will always come back to me, and I will always come back to him.  This has immensely helped with transitions when he was small.  Now that he's a big 13 year old, the rules change.

There are definitely differences in rules between Mom & Dad's homes.  MrD's happy to go to Dad's house.  He comes back and is usually all discombobulated.  He's been allowed to stay up later, doesn't take his vitamins, different eating schedule & different foods...  Its just different.  He also hides his autism from his father, knowing Dad doesn't understand his need to be annoying, to do things repetitively, to have rituals.  My husband & I do understand, and we put up with a lot, within reason.  "Pick your Battles" is the old adage of advice that filters through.

So he comes back tired, smelly, caffeinated, and wide awake.  This is no fun to wrestle with school looming the next day.  I developed a new rule recently & it helps, but not on Mondays.  By 8pm MrD needs to be in the tub or shower (his choice), 830pm out & drying off, snacking if needed & teeth done.  This is a tall order, even with reminders to a kid with a poor sense of time.  We know this & are not too ridged about the exact time, the goal is to get  him to be responsible and independent for his jobs.  If he's ready before 830pm he can have "Boomer time," and take the cat (Boomer) to bed to cuddle while reading.   9pm is the end of Boomer time.  If he's dragging along, it cuts into his time.  If he's still not ready for bed by 9pm, fines start.  25cents/5minutes until 915pm, then after 915pm it doubles to 50cents/5minutes.  He's starting to see money has value so this works.  He whines & complains & argues every minute of the way, but as long as he's still getting ready for bed, no big deal.  A little melatonin (1.5mg) also helps on these evenings.

Monday comes, he's tired, slow to wake up, & dragging along every step of the way to get to school.  He gets out the door, but its his choice to eat or not.  Its his choice to get dressed or go to school in his pyjamas. Its his choice to grab his lunch, watch & key.  To be fair, I do remind him some but I'm trying to back off on that.  If he doesn't eat his lunch, I usually get phone calls from the school that he's being defiant somehow.  After school, I figured out that I need to work him, to not allow him much "down time."  I've noticed if I allow him too much down time on a Monday, he drifts along & fights me all afternoon, and all evening.  So I set the timer for 15 minutes and told him to be ready to go to help me get groceries.  That gets us out of the house.  About 2 minutes before I was leaving I hollered, BYE!  I was almost backing out the driveway before he came barreling out of the house to join me.  I told him to go back & wash his hands, then lock the door.  His hands were filthy & he didn't do it afterschool like I'd asked.  Automatic car locks helped reinforce the point.  He complied & away we went.  It was a big grocery haul, he enjoyed helping pick & lift groceries, visiting the sample ladies helps too.  When we got home he was great helping unload groceries, feed the dogs their supper (his job), cleaned a carpet mess, and helped haul the mega load of laundry back upstairs to the bedrooms.  He's just got enough time to preview the book he paid half for, "Survive, the ultimate Edition." by Les Stroud host of Survivorman.  Out the door again to TaeKwanDo, just in time.

This was sooooo much better than the usual argue, whine, yell-a-thon we usually do.  Draining his energy & keeping him busy in a positive way is the key.  I wish I'd figured it out sooner.  I also wish schools would take a lesson from this and exercise children right at the start of the day, maybe there would be a bit less behaviour problems overall.  Mr D was happy, busy, and helping, just the person he was on Friday before he had his weekend.

You will have to turn your head to view this, I still don't know how to rotate pictures in picassa to get it right to post.  There's also a giant pile of "waiting to be washed" on the floor, but this was about a 7 load backlog.  Hooray for young legs to haul it all back up the stairs.  That counts as "helping when asked" for his weekly allowance!

“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Albert Einstein

One day, 3 views

Mr Teacher's view:
Its grade 7, the program is sugar babies.  Students must pack a round a 5lb bag of sugar for a week and journal about their responsibilities and daily routine as if the sugar sack were a baby.  Some students were allowed to use a realistic baby doll that makes baby noises and similar to baby needs.  Mr Teacher is lecturing the class about something or other, (my son) Mr. D gets up & is examining the babies.  Mr D is somehow activating the  baby dolls which entertains the class & derails the program, making the class curious about the unusual sounds.  Mr Teacher is getting annoyed and asks Mr D to please sit down.  As is often usual Mr D doesn't comply with the direction for unknown reasons.  Mr D has been a real challenge to Mr & Mrs Teachers all year for this particular selective listening.  Mr Teacher is getting frustrated & again asks Mr D to sit down, to which Mr D replies with some sort of perky attitude, "Bad Phill," (Phil is Mr Teachers first name) but does not sit down.  Mr Teacher is now fed up & orders Mr D to sit down, Mr D replies, "Okaaaaayyyy Mr Screw-driver."   Now Mr Principal has been summoned.  Mr Principal takes his turn asking Mr D to leave the classroom, but Mr D is getting quite angry.  Mr D doesn't leave the classroom immediately which brings out Mr Principal's stern authoritative voice.  Eventually Mr D does leave the classroom after being grabbed by the arm & lead to another room.

Mr D's view:
Another boring day of Gr 7.  Yap yap yap, Mr Teacher talks too much.  Mr D was busy examining a doll, trying to stick things in its mouth.  Mr Teacher says "Mr D please go sit down."  Mr. D put a magnet in the dolls mouth, which activated it to make noises.  "suck suck suck, Whaaaaaa!!!" says the doll.  Mr Teacher firmly said, "Mr D, you have to leave Now."  Mr D didn't really hear the instruction.  Mr Teacher is getting frustrated & again asks Mr D to leave, to which Mr D replies with perky attitude, "Bad Phill."  Mr Teacher is now fed up and orders Mr D to leave, now.  Mr D replies, "Okaaaaayyyy Mr Screw-driver."   On later discussion this was Mr D's clever play on words, Phill~Phillip~Phillips head screwdriver.  Mr Principal appears.  Mr Principal takes his turn asking Mr D to leave the classroom, but Mr D is getting quite angry & resentful of all this attention and bossy orders.   Mr D doesn't leave the classroom immediately which brings out Mr Principal's wrath, Mr D thinks he's having an aneurism.  Eventually Mr D does leave the classroom after being grabbed by the arm & lead to another room.  Mr D is angry, blames it all on the TV being on in the morning & rotting his brain too early in the day.

Mom's view:
My first 12hour dayshift during a week day in almost a year.  My husband is off work for the day, he can run the show in the morning and get Mr D off to school.  Normally we don't both work dayshift since I know that if we are both out the door before Mr D, he will very likely not get on the school bus to get to school in the morning; something to do with time perception & distractions.  10am & there's a message on my cell phone from the school to please call back.  Great.  I call back, get the answering machine at the school and leave a message.  I phone home and my husband's cell phone to find out whats going on but he's busy & not answering.  The school secretary phones me back to tell me Mr D is being unsafe, he's not following direction,  its a school safety issue, I need to come pick him up.  I ask what is going on but she doesn't really know.  I ask to speak to my son and find out he's been disruptive somehow. He was asked to leave the classroom but was refusing.  I already know that sometimes Mr D doesn't comply because he didn't hear the direction; sometimes he doesn't understand the direction; sometimes he just doesn't want to follow the direction.  Also Mr D has never responded well when people give him negative attitude, he throws it back instinctively. I put on my Mom voice & read Mr D the riot act: that he knows better; that he needs to stay out of trouble at school; that he owes everyone involved an apology; that he needs to think about what he's done. I talk with Mr Vice Principal who usually deals with Mr D's antics.  I let him know that I am at work and unable to come collect Mr D.  Mr D can write 50 lines of " I am sorry for disrupting Mr Teacher's class & will not do it again."  and 50 lines of "I will try harder to be respectful towards all staff members."  The lines were to be done neatly and if Mr D refused or did a sloppy job, photocopies would be sent to his father.  Ironically a few days later he doesn't remember the lines, but he clearly remembers the sequence of events.  He ate his lunch at school, finished his lines & was playing Scrabble with a learning assistance teacher when my husband picked him up.  I asked that there be no video games, computer or TV time.  Mr D had so much energy he needed to be put to work.  Mr D mowed the front & backyard; dug out some plastic yard trim; found protective eye goggles & helped break out a rock to remove from the yard; dog doodie pick up.  He was kept busy helping, and he enjoyed it.

There's no backtracking or problem solving that would've fixed this school day.  It seems it was doomed as a sequence of events.  I find out later that my husband did break the no-TV-in-the-morning-rule. TV is too distracting, everything stops when the TV is on, just square eye goggles remain.  My son was exempt from the sugar baby assignment, thankfully he was given an alternate assignment.  I had visions of him poking holes & eating the sugar; dipping the sugar sack in water to make sugar syrup or deformed gory sticky sugar baby; or poking a tiny hole to make sugar trails to encourage ant infestation throughout the school...  Mr D was determined to not take responsibility for his actions, he's still learning about that.  Journalling all this I realize, he resented being ordered about.  Resentment is a nasty contender if paired with Angry.  Mr Teacher is human & prone to frustration, he expects obedience from children.  If he had challenged Mr D socially, by asking him why he is so interested in a baby doll, instead of ordering compliance he may have gotten better results.  If Mr Principal had asked Mr D to please come help him do something, the resistance to leave the classroom wouldn't be a conflict.  The operative goal of getting him out of the classroom was the goal, appealing to Mr D's genuine desire to please and be helpful would've been a smarter approach.

Mr D is very good at reflecting attitude he is given from others.  If an adult is inconsistent, insensitive, rude, or bullying in authority, the testing ensues.  If an adult is really unfair, he will get angry too.  Mr D's testing is intuitive, maddening, and repetitive.  He needs consistency, continuity, and intelligent problem solving objective fair adults leading him.  Unfortunately no one is capable of filling his needs consistently all the time.  Humans are like that, and judgmental too.  Mr D admits later that in the morning he was bored.  Now, finally after all the examination and discussion we have a real root of the day's problem.  Teachers love to go on-and-on, its their job to teach.  We all forget that audiences have a saturation point.  Was the school system bullying Mr D with rules saying he's being unsafe, creating a school safety issue?  That depends entirely who's telling the story.  Its been a full school year and we keep having these these type of events, sometimes several in a week.  Mr D was sorry for getting in trouble at school that day.   And so, we strive forward, this was typical of a bad day.  A bonus of banning all electronics for the week is that Mr D is busy reading a novel, "The Lightening Thief" by Rick Riordan and enjoying it.  As for boredom, we keep discussing that if Mr D is bored, he needs to work harder, anyone who has worked hard in a day can attest, they were not bored.

Literal thinking

I love the sense of humor my son is developing.  He's enjoying literal humor and sarcasm, sometimes we even enjoy it too.  Digging out of overflow laundry situation means putting my workhorse huge front loading washer & drier to work.  I think every family should skip the heavy duty machines & invest in proper super sized machines, they are sooooo worth it.  I have to remember to check pockets carefully or it means those machines become tumblers for rocks, paper clips, super stubby pencils, candy wrappers, sticks, and all other manner of flotsam.  I picked up his jacket & thought it was surprisingly heavy, better check everything.  Once I started I couldn't seem to get to the end of it.  On second inspection, I find a jacket AND a vest, each zipped to the other in  a continuous garment!  They were arranged to seem as if the vest was over the jacket because the jacket was inside out.  Another one of his arrangements, smile!

After dinner in front of the TV it was my son's turn to take the dishes & load them into the dishwasher.  He starts pushing the TV table to the kitchen.  I asked why would he do that.  His reply was to put it in the dishwasher.  He was really thinking to put the TV table into the dishwasher!  He was embarrassed when teased that the table won't fit once he realized his goof.

Next phase of the evening, shower time.  Usual obnoxious dancing around, delaying, not on task performance.  Pet the cat, read some Calvin & Hobbes, dance around some, jump & touch every door frame in his path...  Bellowing erupts, to "GET YOUR ASS INTO THE SHOWER, NOW!"   Naked & bouncing, he hops into the bathroom, butt first.

Evidence of thinking

Every day there is interesting little findings of some sort or another in (sometimes) surprising places.  Yesterday I asked my son to bring the laundry hamper downstairs.  My belt was on the floor & I asked him to pick it up but not to put it into the laundry.  Because I didn't specify where the belt should go, this was what I found.

I have no idea why my belt was arranged like this.  Go ahead, I dare ya to open any of those drawers.  The only one you would be able to access is the top one, unless you have to removed the arranged belt.  I find similar arrangements, often more complicated than this one, fairly regularly.  Its especially maddening when I need to be somewhere at a certain time & I find these snarls in the way.  I don't know why these complicated arrangements appear.  When my boy was very young it used to be a nuclear meltdown situation if I messed with one.  Then as he grew older, he would just re-arrange & make it again.  I've been mostly lucky that sometimes now he forgets why he's done this & if the arrangement vanishes its not a big deal.  Mostly now I laugh when I find these arrangements, because they are evidence of my son's imaginative thinking.

Life is in the details

If my son's eagle eye hadn't spotted it & he wasn't about to pick it up, would you have spotted the agget?  This is spring gravel from winter icy road sand, waiting for the sweeper machine to collect it.  He spotted this one in about a minute.  He has trained his eye to look for the different light reflecting in the sunshine.

 I love details, yet at times they drive me crazy.  An interesting piece of artwork has slightly skewed & usually not quite perfect details.  This forces the eye to keep coming back & studying it in a pleasing way, looking for pattern or sense or simply a relating point.  As the viewer it is my choice to accept or reject what I see, or to just interpret what suits me.  We learn to do this by experience.  

I find its strange how people can be so judgmental about obsessions/passions.  An obsession owns you, but you own your passion.  People are interested in all sorts of things all over the world, this should be celebrated.  Interests make people interesting, it doesn't matter if they collect shoes, stamps, antique tools, or movie trivia.  What we like changes throughout our lives.  The best question to ask a teenage person is not "what are you going to do when you graduate grade 12?" but "What do you really like to do?"  Its a good question among new acquaintances too.

This is a whole spring of my son's rock collecting.  He automatically does this, he loves it.  The thrill of the hunt, the pride of the find, it makes him happy.  I am happy he has learned to direct his focus & energy this way.  The challenge is getting him to understand this focus has to be applied to many things, pleasant & unpleasant.  

He collected this jar with repetition; learning & relearning is often the same way.

One step forward

Today was a beautiful sunny day.  My son had a happy weekend morning ignoring cartoons in favor of Nintendo DS in his jammies & blanket nest in the living room.  He ate brunch in a reasonable amount of time, got dressed when he was asked to.  The difference is there was no timeline to pressure him.  He had the option to go out for a co-ride on the back of a motorcycle or help me dig out the front yard.  He chose to stay home & help dig, he loves to dig.  It got too hot mid-day to dig so that was postponed.  He went into the backyard & was inspecting the well overgrown lawn & yard.  He took it upon himself to dig out the push mower & started mowing down that grass.  Without my asking him to.  I'm still reeling from the sequences of gifts from my son today.  No arguing.  No whining.  He saw a problem he could fix, and he went at it.  If I could do cartwheels, I would!

After about 5 minutes I asked him to let me put some sun lotion on him, which he narrowly allowed.  Skin cancer is a serious thing & worthy of prevention.  I sweetened the effort by telling him how proud I am he chose to do this job himself, without my asking.  When the job was done I would pay him $10, which is very pleasing to a kid.  He allowed me to get him his hat to keep the sun off & he wore it.  Every 5-10 minutes or so he would stop & need a drink of water or iced tea.  Or he would stop & investigate something or arrange something in the yard.  He found a dead mouse that our old dog killed.  He called out & told me about it, but didn't touch it.  He scooped it up with the dog doodie scooper & asked me to get a bag so I could put it directly into the garbage can, which I did.  About 40 minutes into this yard project, he started getting frustrated, the job is only half done.  Some sunlotion had melted into his eye with sweat.  He was frustrated with his hair being in his eyes & wanted to chop a bunch of it away himself.  He whined and sniveled about his hair being too long & why did I make him wear the stupid sunlotion.  To the point that if I make him wear sunlotion again he would like to chop off his head.  Now we're talkin', here comes the extreme language, a proper meltdown was imminent.  I suggested to stop rubbing his eye with his sweaty shirt since that will not help.  I suggested to go wash his hands & face & try a damp cool  washcloth, which he did eventually.  Much milling through the house ensued, sans shirt, eye rubbing in progress via tissue.  I suggested a tissue may have powder lint that may not help as well as a damp washcloth.

Once the eye was rinsed with saline the meltdown averted briefly, until annoyance with his hair resumed.  I said to leave it, & we can jump in the car & go get it cut properly so no one will make fun of any self barbering later at school.  He struggled with this, he really dearly wanted to chop it away himself.  Finally we got out of the house to the barber.  Where we waited for an hour & I had to keep reminding to leave the eye alone, amidst his squirming, & fidgeting.    Home again, a cold drink, & the mowing resumes, YIPEEE!!!  Considering the push mower isn't exactly easy to use, its warm out, and the lawn looks choppy now.  I have to go & check & praise his progress every 10-15 minutes at his request, but its done.  Another cold drink, & he's raking, on his own, without request or prompting.  I'm not sure if this is my son, he looks, sounds and smells like him.  Okay, the rake he picked isn't working & he's getting frustrated again.  I told him to hold on, I think there's a better rake, to let me get it for him.  He finished the raking, stuffed the rakings into a garbage pail, then stuffed them into the compost bin.  He's hopping inside the garbage pail stuffed in the composter to pack it down!  I let it ride.  We later patiently explained that squashing the contents of a composter means it won't decompose & it will have to be dug out again.  My son took it well, with a simple, "oh" response.

This could've been a complete nuclear event, with a smashed rake & mowed un-identifiable dog toys all over the lawn.  I was nearby, but not interfering.  Its almost like there's an invisible bungee cord between us.  When I am feeling well, and he is having success with an idea, it is a wonderful thing.  My son is happiest outside so I was fairly certain this would be a success.  We don't have a whole lot of stellar days, but this counts!  The happiness held on right through bedtime & on into the next morning.  A bright light in our home, I am thankful.

Listening

My son's selective hearing is very frustrating to our family.  We had his hearing tested & it's normal.  He can hear conversations that are none of his business.  He can hear crinkling in the kitchen that inspire him to investigate.  He can purposefully hear some silly  musical twists that make lyrics of songs hysterical & distorted from the original interpretation (I do that too!).  "You can call Me Al" is an old 80's song, can't think of the band right now, but I've always heard it as, "You can call MEEE--owww!"  Lots of people do this to lyrics, it makes life more fun.

When it comes to everyday jobs of getting ready for school, the bus, bed...  Well, I can ask him, did he brush his teeth?  He will either reply, "Okay"  or "In a minute." & continue reading comic books or building Lego.  He has done the social pattern of answering the question, but skirted compliance.  Let me tell you, this is really maddening when pushing 10pm & school the next day.  Time doesn't stop or wait, jobs still have to be done.  We've done all the parent tricks:  asking, repetition, yelling, begging, pleading, guilting, removing privileges, swearing...  Do not pass Go, do not collect any dollars.  Hold that thought, meaningful tangent coming.

Not that long ago he liked singing a really annoying song, repeatedly.  Did I mention repeatedly, in a horrible falsetto voice?  regardless of telephone conversations in progress, headaches, parent fatigue, REPEATEDLY.  The song was, "chicken wing, chicken wing, hot-dog and balognee, chicken & macaroni"  With the addendum of "Hanging with my homies" later on when he understood what a homie was (slang for a friend).  I have a really high tolerance for all things annoying.  I learned a long time ago that if I ignore the annoying current trick, it fizzles out because it has no effect. Didn't work this time, drats.  So, after putting up with this for a few weeks, it occurred to me, he needs to sing, he needs music, he needs reaction & attention.  I have never been great at playing by dictator rules, I usually duck & navigate my own way until the tyranny abates.  I finally had a "duh" moment, and thought, I can fix this, change the lyrics to words he doesn't like.  Well now, here's the new & improved lyrics: "Sexy things, sexy things, penis and vagina, boobies & _I forget the last word_."  We have a winner!!!  Every time the chicken wings song came out we would chime in with the new lyrics right over top, louder.  It took about 2 days, but it worked!

Back to the selective hearing topic.  My son was having trouble with stopping his preferred task of reading Calvin & Hobbes to get on task.  Who doesn't like Calvin & Hobbes? Thats great reading, normally a parents job is to encourage reading.  Its also somewhere in the unwritten job list to get children to comply on their own, to take ownership & responsibility for everyday tasks.  Now when I get the dreaded reply, "in a minute" or "Okay" I ask him again, with really syrupy sweet names.  "Honey Bunny, are your teeth done yet?" "C'mon sweetheart, its time to go!"  "Sweet'ums, get out of the tub please."  The more saccharin the better!  Now its a challenge to come up with sweeter & sweeter phrases with the added ante of saying, would you like me to open the front door for the whole neighborhood to hear?  Compliance achieved!  He got quite mad about this until I explained it to him this way.  He's dabbling between little kid & teenage independence worlds.  If he chooses to behave like a little kid, then I have to treat him that way.  If he wants his independence, then he should prove it by cooperating with these basic everyday jobs.

Prepared

I try very hard to keep prepared & to teach my son this skill.  It affects everything, from cleaning up after yourself, to having everything ready to go to get out the door.  As we all know, if you don't put away your breakfast dishes, they will be there waiting for you later.  "I'll do it later," is the common thought right.  Well, then later comes, you have other chores to do, and other commitments to run off to.  Later never comes.  Next thing you know its tomorrow morning & there's the stinking dishes from yesterday, still sitting there.  This is typical action & consequence in real life.  Being prepared to get out the door has its own obstacles.  I have found that I have to break it down, every day, to the essentials.  If I leave it open to guess, stuff gets missed, like lunch.  The natural consequence for that is to go hungry and to play on your friends generosity to share their lunches.  When there's a lack of friends because of exclusion practices in play, who's going to share their lunch?  Then it snowballs into a hungry morning since there's nothing to snack on.  Then a hungry grumpy lunch time with nothing to do or eat while everyone eats their lunches.  Other kids can sense he's on the brink of not coping, so they tease his last nerve because thats what kids do (and its kinda fun to push him around a bit, power play stuff).  Then the afternoon is where the struggle really shines.  Being outside on the playground is usually okay, outside is nice, there's other things to think of and do.  Class starts again & the hungries set in.  This wouldn't bother a regular kid the same way because they would've mootched of their friends lunches.  My auspie kid didn't.  So now there is learning to do, behaviours to keep in check.  Again with other kids zeroing in on this, they quietly but steadily take turns bugging the last nerve.  It doesn't take long for a full on Mad to erupt, this ends the learning, the concentration, and the coping that was on thin ice anyway.  Off to the school office, where the Mad is out of the classroom, but needs to be vetted somehow.  No adult seems to know how to communicate or address the Mad, or defuse it.   Enter Yelling, and what looks like Uncooperative arm & arm with Defiant.  Or thats what it looks like to any adult that has no knowledge or comprehension of the backstory.  See, autism is invisible now.  My son has been punished like this multiple times every school year.  Despite multiple communications, extra snacks stashed in the backpack, and repeated occurrences, it keeps happening from time to time.  Sometimes it happens if he was busy minding the social interactions in play during lunch between his classmates.  Sometimes he's way off task & no one was around to check & cue him to get on with it, eat your lunch.  The fallout overflows to the school bus ride home, where other kids, even much younger ones, enjoy poking the last shreds of nerves.  Then if he's really lucky, he can't communicate it to the bus driver because he's so overwhelmed & fed up, HE gets punished by the bus driver with a disciplinary warning bus note.  Next transition is coming home, bang the front door, with Mad & Unpleasant in full power.  The cats know to hide.  I know that he needs to calm down but there's no way he's gonna snack at this point.  On goes happy cartoons, with my direction, "
on the next commercial, go wash your hands & face so you can snack."

This is just one day, that can happen several times a week.  I've seen it happen enough to know the whole sequence.  I've done the "sleuthing" the "planning" and the "problem solving."  It doesn't do any good to hide him from daily interactions or events.  Life isn't fair, or easy.  If an auspie kid is never made to go through the everyday challenges, how will they ever learn to figure it out themselves?  We've had lots & lots of problem days, similar & different to the one described today.  Sometimes all the planning & preparedness just goes out the window.  Thats life isn't it.