And then the dog died

Here's our old dogs, Barney in the foreground, Ginger in the background wearing her winter sweater.  This is a picture from their younger years.  We know that animals help teach so very much, especially to children.  We all receive birthdays,  with that comes an unspoken knowledge of a "death day," some day.  Barney was 16 and getting quite senile with cataracts, hearing loss and even seemed to be losing his nose sense.  Barney was found as a pup, tied to a tree in a ravine, abandoned.  The neighborhood and SPCA were canvassed and no one claimed him so my (not yet) husband kept him.  Ginger has been a good friend to him being his eyes & ears assistance these last few years.  I got Ginger from the SPCA when she was about 2 years old.  MrD was about 2 years old at the time, he has grown up knowing these dogs friendship and oddities.  I have encouraged MrD to think of pets as people too, I believe the alternate that they are objects would be teaching possibly sociopath tendencies.  Everyone knows pets have their own special personalities, positive & negative.  With pets comes responsibilities, MrD learned to give them cookies in the morning, supper every day, water and defertilizinig the yard duties.  He had a ritual for awhile of giving them "special suppers" which became more and more complicated and lengthy.  Once we realized it was becoming more obsessive than practical, discussions and subtle changes in the routine enabled breaking the obsessive component.

The day Barney passed was not typical.  My husband had to go out, MrD was asked to let me rest to have a bit of a sleep in.  I heard the dog yelping but I knew they were up & didn't get up immediately, figuring they could handle it.  A short time later MrD came to me in tears, "Barney died."  My brave fellow watched the whole short event by himself and didn't call for me.  No one made him, but he knew it was important to be there & not leave the dog alone.  He told me that Barney seemed a bit scared so he made sure to stay right there & pet him & tell him he's okay.  I told him that he did the right thing, and that this was a special thing that Barney maybe wanted him there.  That poor old dog suffered anxiety and hated being alone for his whole life.

MrD understands that everyone has a death date since we've lost a cat and then my Dad in the last few years.  He has interprets death in his own way, that we go to heaven, to be the essence of life & love and that the spirit lives on, especially in our memory.  Everyone was lost for the day but it was most important that we be kind to each other and not spend the whole day moping.  Over lunch MrD & I talked about anxiety and grief, how similar they can be creeping in.  I told him I think of it like a wave.  If I stop and stare at it too long, it freezes, and I'm left staring at it and don't know what to do with it.  If I take a deep breath I can let it roll over me, through me, and let it pass as its meant to its not as bad.  MrD said for him its more like a wall.  I asked him what he meant.  He said that its like driving through town and hitting the pulp-mill wall of stench.  One moment the air is fine, then next moment its tortuous.  He said that there is no point stopping then and being stuck in that stench, that it is more important to keep going to get through it and away from it.  Nothing like a small town northern Canadian to have a perspective like that!

And then we learn again from our animals, routines change, we miss our friend and the day marches on.  Animals miss their lost friends, but they accept it and move on.  I think they are smarter than humans for this, they don't let it dominate them indefinitely.  Death doesn't define us, life does.  I have seen that the longer we fixate on hard feelings, the longer they change our brain chemistry to stay that way.  Depression, anxiety, fear, paranoia, even pain all grow this way because of the extra time thinking about them in our neural pathways.  Our memories are built of repetition and learning and it makes sense that mental health can grow or recede by our own will.  That's when we need the strength and support of our families & friends most.

Change is transition

September brings grade 8 into our lives for MrD.  Its exciting and scary.  I remember vividly certain things about grade 8, the chaos, the newness, the anticipation, then the eventual, "that's it?"  I'm a generation X gal, apathy was the flavour for everything.  Much Music, neon colours, Goth, heavy metal, bubble-gum-pop-music, and more advertising than any generation before.  This and a family with heavy influence in critical thinking and social games, not much was a surprise it seems.  Now I see it was full of so much extremes and contrast, but it was normal.

MrD doesn't always handle transition well.  "Front-loading" helps, in which we talk about what's coming up next, sometimes in great detail.  With enough preparation he does quite well.  If we're going to the mall, he knows that is  a big busy place with lots of people milling around.  It used to be I'd have to remind him of the environment, which stores we needed to go to, and what we needed to do or get while we were there.  With practice it is enough now to know, we're going to the mall.  Familiar transitions are almost always easier than new experiences, that seems to apply to everyone.  Strangely we have transitions every day to get out of our house to go out that have resistance attached.  I still haven't figured out if its anxiety fueled or control or rebellion.  Its getting to be the same way to get out of the car once we're home to go into the house.  Its a mystery to me.

The elementary teacher-aid & high-school counsellor have done a phenomenal job of front-loading the high school experience.  MrD has had numerous tours of the high school at different times of day, seen the layout, walked the halls and learned what he will be navigating.  There have also been discussions about crowded hallways, awareness of body space, how much space a backpack takes & not to club people with it accidentally.  There have been giggling conversations about farting in busy halls, so there's definitely an awareness of noxious odors!  Then there's the daily schedule, students go to the teachers, opposite to how most elementary school programming is.  Time also has to be measured and judged.  "I forgot" or "I got lost" aren't excusable for very long.  MrD accepts these new big transitions quite well.  I suspect it is because he has not had a traditional one family upbringing with the same friends in elementary school and high school that I was so bored with during my education.  Then there's the interesting remixing of friendships & enemies, strange alliances that aren't obvious, and the ever present hormone soup swirling around.  That there is the monkey in the system, the mystery to why locker slammings, stuffings and bullying in general appear.  Kids know the rules, so they're subtle, they do things when adults don't generally catch them.  That's the big dread of grade 8.  Unpleasant events once, or repeatedly are enough to make anyone snap.  I'm hopeful the grade 8 year will be a success, yet I do not have much faith in the school system after all the subtle bullying episodes from elementary school.

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.

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

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.

Behaviours

I've been struggling with my son's behaviours for thirteen years.  Some are cute, others are downright obnoxious.  The problem is they are often the same behaviour.  So a behavior that was cute or even funny, like hiding homework behind the class book shelf in grade 1, is now a longstanding problem in different variations.  It was silly, even smart at the time, now its a lousy habit.  That microsecond that I was human & approved the inappropriate behaviour with a small smile, well, now its entrenched.  yay.  It doesn't seem to matter which adult micro-approves, thats what sets it in place.  I can repeat myself, clearly, concisely, loud or quiet, threaten, bribe, or fine, yet we still struggle with everyday basic sequences.  I'm talking getting ready for school, getting ready for bed, getting out the door to get to an appointment...  Something is messed up with the transitions.  I know that to get through these trials I need to set the expectation that he will reach for independence.  The problem is the every day implementation of it.

Factor in that his behaviour & response are emotion driven, its not rational, just full on maddening.

Problem solving is like this, the theories are all well and good.  Not so helpful in practice.  I have to be lock & key with every move until its mastered before I back off.  Then we have a setback, or he forgets, & we start up again.  Every day is sort of like the movie "Groundhogs Day" with Bill Murray.  The day starts out about the same, repeatedly, and seem familiar but they're not.  Its nice in a way that if yesterday was a bad day, it doesn't taint the new day.  Its awful to every day be reminding of basic functional patterns like making sure he's got his lunch, backpack, planner, and house-key before bombing out of the house at the last possible second to the school bus.  It takes a looooonnnnnnngggggg time, but eventually he masters a sequence.  Occasionally he masters it quick.  Of course, we have setbacks & the sequence has to be rebuilt because it doesn't fit anymore.

Okay, here's a current functional problem solving in progress.  Getting out the door.  Thats what is understood to be a "transition."  Life is full of transitions, there's no avoiding it.  Going out, coming home, the movie ends, getting ready for the day, getting ready for bed, a car crash, losing a job, being late...  How do you teach "transitioning" when there is  a gap in daily memory?  We have lists to help give the responsibility, they're only good if referenced to.  Comic books, Leggo, TV, the cat, an itchy back, and more can all derail transitions.  So every day I am there to keep the reminders flowing to get out the door with everything needed to succeed the day.  Occasionally I am inconsistent.  Shift work does that & so does life.  Hiding human inconsistencies doesn't help an auspie solve everyday challenges, real life isn't consistent & neither are people.  When I back off & am less insistent on the everyday preparations for each day, he goes off into his own orbit.  I like his happy place, there's lots of interesting things going on there, I wish I could go there too.  But when the clock is running out, and its getting more pressure based, things get worse.  Bring on the Mom voice, asking, reminding, nagging, yelling, threatening, bribing...  Mostly none of that bag of tricks works.  Backing off & allowing natural consequences isn't always an option.  If he misses the school bus, well, now I have to drive him or he walks.  Driving him is kinda what he's after, more time with me.  I'm all about getting him independent in his life skills.  I have already said that if I have to drive because he missed the bus I will go in my housecoat, jammies & slippers and walk him to the front door, a public deterrent I hope.  He's still not quite on top of the whole strangers & interacting to let him walk alone regularly.  That would be better if he had another kid to walk with, but he's excluded a lot.  Thats another post later.