The Art and Science of Discipline

  Let me start again by saying thank you for all the emails and feedback. Your questions make me look into my own process and organize my thoughts. That alone is very helpful.

   Discipline. Difficult to be consistent with under normal circumstances. How do we approach it with kids on the spectrum?

   Let me start with a little story about how this all started. I realized that my youngest sons understanding of the world was somehow "different" when he was about three. I was having all sorts of trouble disciplining him, where I had none with my older son. Being fairly academic, I bought a book. I decided that I needed another approach.  The book I bought and read was called "1-2-3 Magic". Very simply it is about classical conditioning. Don't talk a lot. They do something wrong, you immediately and quietly take them to their room for a time out equaling the number of years old they are ( minutes that is). So one Saturday that was what I did. All day. By the end of the day I was a weeping mess and so was he. There was absolutely no logic for him in this process.

    You see "  1-2-3 Magic assumes that children who are misbehaving have some idea what the right behavior looks like and just are choosing not to do it. Knowing my older son, I would say this is pretty accurate. For my youngest however, life is a series of random events. He was not born able to intuit social norms the way the rest of us seem to. They don't absorb through his skin. So each and every time he had a time out he would come down and try another totally random, equally wrong option. It was exasperating and there was no learning for either of us. It started me on my quest for a diagnosis.

    Within a year, we saw a psychologist who explained to me that he had a "social intuition disorder" which actually doesn't exist as a diagnosis. We know that now. It was Asperger's without the title. But the advice he gave me, worked. These kids have so much anxiety when they are small because nothing makes sense. It is all random. No rules, no patterns evolve for them. It is very, very hard.  "Start small," he said. "And always start with, I am not mad at you. That was just the wrong behaviour in this situation. This is what the right behaviour looks like. Let's practice that again." Patience is the key. And repetition. In my sessions with him, he explained that if their intellect is sufficient, and my son's was very high, they can learn all these rules like the rest of us learn times tables. It has been a process of stacking blocks of understanding , one upon the other until they begin to take shape in his mind. Don't look too far ahead. Stay in the moment. If you look to the future what you need to accomplish will look like trying to build a pyramid with a pair of tweezers. Just take one moment at a time and be kind to yourself. When your child suddenly understands that you see them, everything changes.

     I remember the first time he looked in my eyes and saw that I could really see into his world. It was like all the pain he was carrying around inside his little soul was released. He could breathe. His anxiety decreased almost immediately. It strengthened our bond beyond words. He trusts me absolutely. Don't get me wrong, we still have our struggles, but beneath that, we both know what is true.

     The other night he walked into the kitchen while I was cleaning up and he kind of nudged me and gave me a big smile. " You know, I am soooo a Momma's boy aren't I? "he said , "That's good right? "
I laughed. Your wife might feel differently I thought to myself, but we'll work with that when we get there.
"Yes" I said, "That's really good!" and I hugged him with all my might. Almost six feet tall now this Momma's boy.

    The irony of life is that he attends a social skills group once a week and the book that they follow is - You guessed it, "1-2-3 Magic". That knocked me on my ass laughing. I have come full circle. But now, there is a foundation and he is able to understand the way the rest of us do. The group is full of teenagers and has been helpful in learning to read the body language of other people. Teens are especially critical and especially cruel. We needed some help.

     The other thing that helped me was that these kids have "areas of special interest" otherwise known as obsessions! Things that are more important to them than anything else. You can very effectively start to use threat of withdrawing those things to mold behaviour once they are old enough to understand.

      I hope this is helpful! And thank you again for reaching out. Anything you are struggling with, any questions you have, if I don't have an answer I will find one for you. Thank you for reading and sharing my journey.

 In love and light,
Kathryn

Snowflakes

   Snowflakes. They are a symbol for me of perfection in the universe. Crystalline, clear, pure, and not two that are the same. ( Really, I am curious how they know that, but that is just my busy mind ).

   I am sitting here this cold winter morning, watching the snow fall out my window as the wind blows it around in my back yard. My mind and my heart are full.

   I received a short email this morning from a reader that touched my heart. She only wrote a few lines, a brief thank you for sharing this journey. Sarah, thank you for listening. I was checking my emails and didn't recognize your address. I sat for a few moments reading and then I put the phone down and just let the emotion flow through me. I forget sometimes that there is anyone reading this. It feels most nights like it is a conversation between myself and the divine. A way to check in and let anyone up there who is watching or listening know that we are here, and that we are okay. When I started this blog, it was a way for me to feel less alone in this experience. I couldn't stand the thought that even one family would have to survive what we had been through and end up feeling like there was no one out there who could understand.

    Children on the spectrum, of which I have two, are very much like snowflakes. Each unique in the challenges that they present with, pure in the sense that they are somehow different, set apart from this world in various ways. Clear in the sense that they often don't understand the ways the rest of us complicate things with language or white lies or omissions, or what we pass off as rules of social engagement. Each singular in the beauty they possess, and in their special gifts and talents.

    Those of us that have been asked to raise Indigo children are on a unique vision quest. For in the journey there is as much to learn about who we are as about who they are. We do not create children and what they become, even when they are not on the spectrum. We water a seed. We guide it's growth, but what that seed becomes is reliant upon what the seed knows it is. You cannot grow a watermelon from a rose seed. Nor can you tell from looking at a seed at the beginning what it's potential is or even what it will grow up to be. Thinking we know that is an illusion, even with neurotypical kids. So really what we are asked to do is stay present. Leave worrying about the past or the future behind. To live in the moment with open arms and surrender to what is. To acknowledge how we feel when we feel it, but not judge those emotions as good or bad.

    My children are very high functioning. I do not have children that struggled with language skills or basic living skills. My hearts go out to those of you who have.  Any time a parent realizes they have a child that has some sort of challenge, the grief and suffering is the same. All any of us knows is our own experience, what we have had to confront ourselves on our own journey. To have a child labelled as "other" or " challenged " is very difficult. We must remind ourselves that no one knows the future for their child, special or not. We must be careful not to limit them with our labels. And then confront the absurdity that we needed those very labels to get them help. I try very hard to explain to my boys that there are no limits. That we simply need to find different doors. If one doesn't open we will just keep walking until we find one that opens for them. We just need to be creative, that is all. To be open and willing. To allow their lives to unfold without resistance. To approach what comes to us from a place of growth and love, instead of reaction.

     Our quest in each moment is to have faith that we are on the right path. That if we stop struggling so hard, the people we need will simply show up when we need them. That if we keep walking forward, we will arrive where we are supposed to arrive. Hope lives in this house. Hope lives in my heart.

      Thank you Sarah for the gift. You planted a small seed in my heart today.

In love and light,
Kathryn

Gratitude

    Just an update on where we are since it has been a while since I have been compelled to blog on this topic. I am sitting quietly by the fire tonight after an evening of laughter and discussion with one of my dearest friends and I am filled with gratitude for all that I have in my life. Especially my wonderful boys.

    I think of the path we have walked in the past year and a half since diagnosis, and really, the path that has been ours since their birth, and I am quietly overcome with the significance of their having been given to me in this life.  Not a day has passed that I have not questioned whether I will be able to do enough, to teach them what they need to learn to survive. The importance of the roll I have been chosen to play sometimes feels overwhelming and there are moments I feel very ill equiped.
   
    They are both in private school now doing exceptionally well. We had on the last report card six honours subjects each. But that doesn't really tell the whole story. The fact that moving my youngest up a grade because there was no grade six class and they felt academically he was up to the challenge ended up putting him in classes with his older brother part time due to the small class sizes. That this changed his status in our house from odd little brother with "challenges" to "peer" and even "friend". How a lonely little boy who had trouble fitting in, had his world dramatically change because his older brother's best friend took a "big brother" interest in him and never left him out. Both of my boys are walking taller, wrestling each other, sharing jokes and interests. They are quietly best friends ( though both would deny it if asked! Just like brothers!).  When they come in at the end of the day joking and laughing about what happened at school my heart squeezes in my chest as I watch them together.

      My oldest is tall and gentle with a sharp sense of humour and an incredible kindness to him. He stalks me around the kitchen as I am trying to make dinner saying "hugs". Normally I am ducking and weaving shooting comments like "come on buddy or we are never going to eat! " But I am reading a book right now that is reminding me to stay in the moment and in the car on the way home the other day I looked at him and I told him that one of the things I love the most about him is how affectionate he was. I promised that from that moment on I would stand still when he needed a hug, not try to wiggle out of it and just enjoy the fact that I was lucky enough to have a 14 year old son who actually wants to hug me!!!! He couldn't stop smiling and he reminds me now several times a day I promised to stand still!

      At Halloween, they both went out, but it is my youngest that is still big on trick or treating. My parents love to see them dressed up so we closed it down at home when the kids stopped coming and headed out to their acreage. My dad and my youngest disappeared and were gone for an hour and showed up with an entire pillow case full of candy giggling like a couple of kids who had just pulled off the greatest caper in history. They had a ball together. On the way home, he said from the backseat how he was almost too old to trick or treat anymore, but he really couldn't help it because Grandma and Grandpa make it so darn fun. He asked if he could use my phone to text them to tell them that. In the darkness that filled the car, with tears in my eyes that he couldn't see I handed him my phone and thought about how very far we have come. He is starting to think about the feelings of other people. For a person with Asperger's, this is huge progress. He is learning how important it is to tell people that what they do makes a difference to him. He is learning more of these things everyday. I realize I want to be better at doing the same. We are not so very different. It takes courage to share with the people you love exactly how you feel in the moment without feeling shy about that.

        I remember early on feeling very hopeless and very alone. I don't feel that way anymore. In fact I feel blessed and lucky. The lessons these boys teach me every day make me so very grateful to have been given such compassionate teachers. Such gentle souls. We are in a good place, and we have each other. I look forward to the future as I have never been able to before where they are concerned, not as an enemy or something to be fought through, but instead as a bringer of mystery, of possibility and finally of hope. We speak openly and honestly with one another and we work through issues when they come up the best we can. And as they get older the possibilities and understanding get deeper and wider and the relationships we are building stronger with every moment we share, every difficulty we manouever through.

        A dear friend who was doing a reading for me, said something that affected me profoundly. She said you feel tremendous guilt about what these boys deal with, as though it were your fault. They both chose their incarnations, as do we all, because there were things they wanted to learn. And the truth of that is, then so did I choose this incarnation, because it was what I needed to learn as well.

         Gratitude is about being grateful for all you have been given, and I can honestly say that I truly am. My cup runeth over and my hands are full of blessings. I wish you all the same.

In love and light,
Kathryn