helping our kids become portable.....

There are a few sayings that have been passed down in our family. This is one of my favorites:

"you will always love your children. Now it is your job to train them to behave well so that other people will love them too".

Strong counsel in a time when emotionally stunted parents, in an effort to curry favor and avoid conflict, erroneously spend a great deal of time being "buddies" instead of doing actually parenting.

So. How does that translate to us special needs parents?

Needless to say my desire to train ALL my children to perform to that standard has been slapped down countless times in the last 12 years. Still, I snap back into auto pilot and catch myself holding up my handy dandy measuring stick of unrealistic expectations again and again.

But, I digress. The point of this exercise is to uncover how we can, in any small way, help our kids live more compatibly with the outside world. It is highly unlikely that my kids will grow out of their noisy verbal stimms or learn how to tolerate driving by a Wendy's without a meltdown. I can, however, figure out better ways to help them get through the day. And if I can figure out how they can make it through the day at home, it's possible to imagine them being able to get through the day elsewhere.

We are going to institute picture activity schedules at home.

We've been able to get by until now without them but the time has come for us to start. The idea is that if we can master some form of structure to their free time between school and bed-they will feel more supported and those skills will travel with them.

Just the other day, Spence was flipping through his after-school schedule that directs him to:
1. put away his bag
2. wash his hands
3. eat a snack
4. go to the restroom
5. wash his hands again.

After washing his hands I was ready for him to flip to the snack page and ask for "burrito-peez". Instead he flipped through the pictures and pointed to the bathroom picture. I asked him if he wanted to go, he said yes and promptly ran over, sat on the throne and produced a lovely offering. Normally he would have hung on and produced a skid mark and partially pooped his pants before we realized what he needed.

The schedule is something that is portable, generalizable and familiar. Getting them used to this routine will help them transition to whatever situation they will end up in. It is worth trying. In my head I'm even imagining putting together schedules to use at the various places they go like Target and the pool and Costco. The permanence and routine of the schedule might help them relax and enjoy their time and also help OTHERS enjoy my children better.

There are limits to what I can and should expect from Spence and Ty. But by pushing against those limits I find jewels of inspiration that end up giving me more confidence that the progress we are making is good.