spectrum – Tenn Ben Says

I read an email today. One of my son’s teachers said “I don’t think he belongs in accelerated math”. I read it over and over. I felt as if I’d been stabbed in the chest. The words echoed in my head. You don’t belong. You don’t belong. You don’t belong.

I’ve spent years erasing the tape in my head that says I am not enough. The old conditioned beliefs creep up on me from time to time. Being present while parenting challenges the old beliefs all the time. I know the emotions when I see them. They are directly tied to my own insecurities. My loss of breath was not about my son. I took a breath. And another. My eyes stung. My heart ached. I took another breath. And then the initial emotion passed.

I’ve learned to look deeper within when moments like this happen. Reacting to the teacher or to Benji when I’m in these places is not productive. I usually receive a mirror image response to the vibe I put off. That isn’t helpful and it usually isn’t true. Being angry isn’t helpful. Responding to this teacher at this point in the year isn’t helpful. Why did that line in an email make me feel this way?

It took me about 5 minutes to see it clearly. I want my son to achieve as much as he can. He has already done more than many expected of him. He is very smart. That isn’t the issue. His bigger issue is his ability to organize himself and his thoughts, follow along in class without zoning out, and remember all the details of his assignments. Remember to show up for tutoring or finish a retest. He works slower than most because he is so easily distracted. Completing his work without prompting is an issue. I know what his challenges are. I know he is jumping hurdles every time he shows up. Reading that email felt like an indictment. A decree that he isn’t good enough . By extension, I am not good enough. I felt 12 again.

I’ve experienced this moment more than once directly related to my special needs child. He is different, honestly much harder to parent. I know for a fact he is harder to teach. The fact that people see him and make judgment calls about who he is and what he can do, it just bothers me. I don’t like it. When I moved through the emotion, I decided. Is it possible that he doesn’t belong in accelerated math? Yes, it is possible. Is this statement true? I asked him what he thought. He said he’d prefer to take a more challenging class and struggle rather than take an easier class and be bored. Ok. Do any of the other professionals on his team agree with this statement? I’m waiting on an answer to that question. Am I willing to provide additional support to help him be successful? Absolutely.

By the time I got through the deep dive into my feelings, I realized I don’t have to carry this as an affront to me or a failure on my part. We are all still good enough. He is enough, whether he takes advanced math or the basics. He is fine. We are fine. This teacher is not evil. She is entitled to her opinion. We are entitled to ours. This is not the end of the world. We are still fine. Just Breathe.

Our school system takes a break every 6 weeks. It took some time getting used to these breaks because more traditional school systems do breaks a little differently with longer summers and holiday breaks. We’ve come to enjoy these more regular breaks through out the year.

I imagine these breaks are difficult for parents who have to work and find affordable child care for their littles when school is out at times when no other schools are out. You’d be surprised how hard this is. Our city recreation system does a pretty good job of offering camps to cover these times. They aren’t free, but they are affordable and there is assistance when needed so that is great. Ideally we’d travel during every break, but we aren’t balling like that right now.

While I appreciate the downtime in the boys constant schedule, I must admit that breaks with THING 1 (without traveling) suck. He wants to do absolutely nothing on these breaks. He has defined a break as a suspension of all activity, from sports to basic hygiene. He is resistant to doing anything. He doesn’t want to go to therapy or piano practice. He wants to play video games and watch youtube videos about developing video games. I

I’d totally accommodate his desires if I knew it wouldn’t be absolute hell getting him back on schedule. A total shutdown sounds great until I remember that my kid is on the spectrum. It takes him exactly one day to undo a habit that took years to develop. The lack of structure and routine is overwhelming for him. Pulling him out of the video game vortex is an agonizing interaction, as is getting him back on track enough to go to school Monday. Getting his sleep schedule back together takes weeks. While we’d all love nothing more than to go off the rails for a week, we just don’t have the luxury of that option. It’s too hard!

I will say, I’m pretty sure “typical” kids go through similar withdrawals. I believe what is so special about Spectrum kids is their ability to feel right on the surface, everything that most of us experience deep down. We lie to ourselves about it. We have bad attitudes and smart mouths in response to things that are unrelated to whatever we are pissed about. With THING 1, you can’t mistake what you did to piss him off. He is happy to let you know.

It is Friday of a weeklong break and I had to drag him out of the house for track. He mumbled about it the entire way. I’m sure my poor husband is on the receiving end of some rearview mirror eye rolls and under the breath comments about how horrible it all is. When track practice is over, he will behave as if he is dying of pollen inhalation and he will blame us with his eyes and judge us with snarky comments. We will stare at each other, and shake our heads. We know it is coming and we know he can’t help it.

He wants to go to track. It sounds like he doesn’t, right? But he does. He wants to get better and compete successfully. He wants to see his friends. But all of this is contrary to his prior definition of Break. Suggesting that he redefine it for himself has gone over like a lead balloon. Pointing out how much fun he has is irrelevant. Reminding him that he actually enjoys this activity is a moot point. Because a break means cessation of all activity. So what do we do? We keep the schedule going, because no one can actually break from everything. And he should learn that now. We push him out the door and ignore the eye rolls and mumblings. We talk as if we don’t notice his reactions. Then we pick him up from whatever activity and we move on. We do it every day of every 6th week, and for 8 weeks of summer. We just do it.