Absolutely Alexander

Learning When To Not Help

18 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment

by caroljeangavin in Uncategorized

One of the hardest things for me to learn with my son has been when to help him with a task and when to, despite his often screaming frustration, to not help and let him figure out how to do it for himself.

It’s hard to refuse to help a child who is quiet and who is asking nicely, politely. But I don’t want to put his socks on his feet forever. And if he really wants to eat that packaged rice crispy treat, he can figure out how to get into the blue foil wrapper.

I am still bad a lot. I still do things that he can or should do for himself. Mostly it’s because I’m in a rush, or because I am just too tired to fight with him. It is easier to give in.

Luckily his kindergarten teacher does not give in. At the beginning of the school year, he had never tried to put his seat belt on himself before. There was frustration. There was a little kicking and screaming, but his teacher did not do it for him, and unless he heard the click of the buckle in the lock, the line of cars did not move. Now he belts himself up like a pro. It is no big deal. He could do it in his sleep.

There are tons of things that Alex still can’t/doesn’t do for himself. Mostly things I’m sure that are second nature to his classmates. He can brush his teeth, but he doesn’t focus in the tub, and I usually end up washing his body. This is embarrasing. He doesn’t eat with a fork. I, the enabler give him finger food and do not press the issue. There are so many ways I feel like I’m failing him.

Anything involving fine motor skills is particulary challenging and irritating for him. He doesn’t pay attention. He has no patience. He still wears elastc waisted pants he can just pull up without having to fuss with snaps or buttons.

This Valentine’s Day he wanted to hand out Angry Birds cards to his classmates. It took three different sessions, patience, bribes of Tootsie Rolls, but I made sure he wrote all his classmates names out himself. I helped with the spelling, but I erased letters that weren’t good. Letters that weren’t trying. Once I had to get out a separate piece of paper and let him write out as many “5″‘s as he could, because he just needed to write down the number and he was spelling everyone’s name with it instead of with letters. Mostly he didn’t like to do it, and mostly he wanted to be funny and write giant versions of the letters so that a whole name wouldn’t fit on the little card. In the end though, all were done, and I proudly sent him off to school with them.

When he came back from school with his bag of Valentine’s, we looked through them. First of all I noticed there were a lot of cards parents had addressed themselves. It took some time, but as unfocused as he often was, it was a much more engaging oppurtunity for him to write, than most of the things I try to get him to do, workbooks, etc. We had at least made an effort, and that was worth a bunch.

The second thing I noticed were that other kids wrote really big letters. Other kids ran out of space too, jamming letters all up together at the very end of the card, or continuing the name on a second line. One girl wrote the end of his name at top, the beginning name in a second line, and the middle of his name on a third. It was a jumbled mess, bless her heart. They’re only kindergarteners. It’s easy to forget. The pressures, and the autism, I’m always so confused about what I should expect, what I should shoot for, and what I can be easier on myself about.

He needs to do better at a lot of things, which means I need to do better at a lot of things.

I love Star Wars. I love Yoda. But he was wrong you know, there is such a thing as trying. Sometimes you have to try every day, fighting yourself, fighting a willfull, frustrated 5-year old. Sometimes you have to find a way to not throw up your hands. You just have to keep trying. If there is nothing else. Even your faith weakens, even if you are tired and there are never results. You have to try to be better every day, until little by little you are, until little by little a difference has occured.

Peter and The Wolf

02 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment

by caroljeangavin in Uncategorized

My son goes to an arts based charter school. Every year each grade puts on a production.

The kindergarteners get Peter and The Wolf. For it they learn about the instruments that represent the different characters. They learn the differences between real wolves and fairy tales wolves. They learn how to dance.

Musicians from the North Carolina School of the Arts play the instruments, and dancers from the School of the Arts choreograph dances for the children, and act as the main characters. Each character was followed by a troupe of little characters. I cannot tell you just how cute it was to watch all the Peters with feathers in their hats, all the wolves with their wolf hoods, all the ducks, and bright birds, and little black cats, and hunched over tiny grandparents, and hunters swooping nets march onto stage. I wanted to hug them all.

I was nervous. I was so nervous. The last time Alex tried to perform for a group of people, he was three-years-old at this art show/ auction his pre-school put on. His class sung a frog song and he wandered away from his group and into the audience where he sang his song to individuals and tried to crawl in people’s laps. I had to run out and catch him, bring him back into the fold, and just basically cling to him. I should be un-embarrassable by now. I should be ready for anything.

Alexander played a grandfather. I never thought I’d get to see my son as a grandparent. He walked onstage holding hands with the woman who played the main grandmother. That kind of thing used to mean that he required attention, supervision, but now, really he just likes to hold hands for some reason and will hold hands with any adult he knows that he’s walking close to. He followed his group and sat with them and watched the play.

When it was time for the grandparents to come out, they were handed sticks for canes, and they hobbled out, shook their fists at the Peters, and dragged them off by their ears. Alexander was a little off step, but it was so cute, and he was focused; he was doing what he was supposed to. He was absorbed in it, and not in what the audience was doing. It was all kinds of amazing.

My sister couldn’t make it, but my cousin filmed it, so she could watch it later. She pointed out to me that Alex was wearing shoes while all the other kids were barefoot. Alex can take his shoes off. Actually he can’t stand to wear them in the house and he’s started taking them off in the car now, but he cannot for a minute go sock-less. He screams, fidgets, his toes curl. It’s a sensory thing. It’s just too much for him, so in school when they dance because it’s too slippery for socks, he wears shoes. It hasn’t really caused any problems with the other students, and his dance teacher lets him wear them, even though she wishes he could feel the freedom of bare feet.

Alex has come so far from where he was when he first started OT. He still has a lot of challenges, and a lot of those are sensory issues. I’d love for him to be able to go barefoot, eventually, when he’s ready, if he becomes ready, not because I care about what other people think, but because I love seeing him grow. But for now I am so proud and so happy that he blended in with the group, and stayed focused, still and calm, when he was supposed to. He was so awesome! I will take that. I will definitely take that. And I can hardly wait to see what he does next year.