A few years ago Xave, taught me a lesson. Well, actually he has taught me many lessons. Some I already knew, but had forgotten or did not apply them. But this is about one particular lesson – the lesson of the t-shirt. One thing about having a special needs child is that one becomes used to doing for them. There are the gross motor skills, the fine motor skills and other skills which need to be developed and while these are being remediated, a parent assists where they need to. It’s what we do.
There is a trap though and it is the inertia of doing. It becomes a habit and one does not pause, step back and see if the capabilities have improved. One morning, I think perhaps four years ago, when he was five, I was dressing Xavier and picked up his t-shirt for the day. He quite literally grabbed it from me, with a look that implied he was thinking words no five year old should no, and put the garment on himself, deftly and the correct way around.
I told him how impressed I was, but I was mortified. How long had I held him back through my own inertia? I have always believed that in order for people to succeed, they need the space to try and if necessary fail. In raising a special needs child, I had somehow forgotten that principle. Xave is now allowed to fumble, to make mistakes, and to try again, with mom and dad providing direction and/or assistance should it be needed, but letting him continue to work until he succeeds.
Xavier, without saying a word, reminded me that he needed room to try and fail, if he was to develop and succeed. So many time my son is my teacher. I hope I am a good pupil.
It was just over a year ago that I decided to let my son (who was then 15) have a go at tying his own laces, and he did it quite well. He does still have problems sometimes, but I wondered then how long he has been able to do it. It was my daughter (13 at the time) who said to me to let him try. As it is just me and my kids (the kids mother went off with someone else) I rely on my to let me know things that I don’t expect from my son as she spends a lot of time with him. I try to, but he is 16 with the mental age of between 8 and 12.
I think that because we wrap them up so much, we want to look after them as much as we can and protect them ridicule as much as we can. Only we forget sometimes.
Thank you for sharing this.
Travis also shocked me recently by putting two-and-two together in a situation, so to speak – when I didn’t think he was capable. I was equally mortified! I should really allow more fumbling, too.
I think that over the years allowing fumbling and failure has much been a function of how the rest of the day or week has gone. My son rarely learns from failure, and often the failure will be the last overload he can stand, and the meltdowns ensued. Because he doesn’t learn from failure, and rarely through visible repetition because he tends to practice in his head, sometimes all night, we didn’t know when he finally ‘got’ something. Like the shoe tying thing
— we bought shoes that didn’t tie, so how would we know. (I think it was ribbon tying when gift wrapping that clued us in to that one.)
After awhile he accepted that there were times that the family couldn’t afford avoidable meltdowns, and got pretty good at being able to tell when to do things himself, or when to let me. I must have found a balance. He describes my parenting (I supposed that I should add here that he’s a third year psych major) as having allowed him to freedom to test the waters that his ‘friends’ complain they did not have. He also add that I always was there to catch him, and without that he would not have tried at all.
So I guess, Hilary, that most of the time I waited for that venomous look, and accepted that it was going to be part of our communications.
Instinctively I had known just when to do what.
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