Forward and Back, I Can’t Keep Track
I wrote last week about my 5yo son Drake, and our struggles with some of his behaviors that are typical of kids on the autism spectrum. At that time, I tallied three steps forward and two steps back. I might have known I was jinxing myself.
The day after, Drake found one of his digital watches and spent most of an hour singing tuneless nonsense words while he timed himself. I was surprised at this not because it’s a new behavior, but because it’s been gone for months; he used to do it frequently at home and at preschool. Additionally, he’s having more extreme outbursts of temper. If I tell him no, he will sometimes throw himself to the ground, crying and screaming at full voice, at home and in public. These are both regressions, and disheartening after the cautious optimism about progress.
When we saw one of his teachers the other day, he smiled, but would not speak to her. Later, though, he said, unprompted to a friend, “Hey, I want to introduce you to one of my friends. I don’t know if you know him.” Then today I got a progress report from school. He overcame some problems he was having in music class. But he never initiated play with another kid. It feels like every step forward is negated by one step back.
It’s silly to keep score, even if events were quantifiable. And it’s hardly useful for me to pin hope and despair on fluctuations in his behavior–he’s growing and changing all the time. So I’ll celebrate any progress, and remember it usually comes with a regression in something else, so I shouldn’t be alarmed. That approach typifies my sense of parenting, one I’m not always able to enact, though I do keep trying: Enjoy things when they’re good, and don’t flip out when they’re bad. Or, in the newly fashionable phrase, “Keep calm and carry on.”
June 10th, 2009 at 4:44 am
and maybe (hopefully?) the regressions that accompany forward progression are slightly smaller steps backward then they used to be.
June 10th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I didn’t reply after your first post–mostly because my brain is so stupid right now everything I wrote sounded stupid–but take care. It does seem to be such a wide spectrum of behaviors–more than half of what you write about Drake causes me to nod my head about the Little Guy. At the same time, I know we’re not dealing with the same larger issues (we don’t have the temper issues, and he is progressing socially, finally). Regardless, I’m thinking of you, and parenting.
See? I can’t seem to get any of my thoughts across in a coherent manner nowadays. I hope my point does, though.