Surrendering to motherhood is important for all mothers. Those of us with special needs children have a different calling, I strongly feel that even more so than with non-spectrum children, we are called to step up and really understand ourselves before we can fully understand them. Many families have spent years with their ASD child in different therapies, I see so much coming from this - especially if moms and dads can surrender to the realization that this child is not broken, they have just incarnated differently.
Our journey with Harry has been a humbling one. The years between about 6yrs and about 10yrs were the hardest, we had tantruming and outbursts regularly, some severe and some not so traumatic. Moms are asking me all the time "how do I get through XYZ?" My answer... you pray, you stay centered and you pray some more. When this important step of being centered and staying connected God, Source is neglected, then you can't possibly be connected to your child. Being centered is always important, as with all children, but I found when I am not on my game, Harry is the first one to notice. When he was younger, my scattered energy would feed into his already struggling sense of security, his young self didn't know how to handle all that he was feeling. Now that Harry is grown up and we have worked daily on reading each other's signals, he is the first one to comfort me if he feels my energy is scattered. How did we get here? It has been a long walk.
Where to begin? Even though I could tell at 2yrs that something was different about my son, the real work with him didn't begin until he was near 6yrs old. We began with food elimination, for him it was wheat and dairy, later we included dyes and preservatives. What happened immediately was improved communication and attention span. For nearly a year, we worked on meditation and observation together. As he neared age 7, his behavior began to change again and the food elmination was not enough. Now I will say that during this time, I was preparing for a divorce and so the energies in my home were not anywhere near ideal. Harry lost his ability to meditate and I don't know if it was the turmoil of our home at the time, or if it was the 6/7 yr change. We did have some amazing discoveries around this time though - he began to use the term "wiggly" to describe how he was feeling. About this age, 7yrs, the tantrums became more severe and disrupting, while he had small ones almost daily, usually from minor frustrations like school work or sensory issues, he had large ones a few times a month.
There is a lonely time when you are going through this and no one wants to believe just how hard it is to be Mom - even Dad often doesn't see the worst of it and has a hard time understanding just what it looks like. I can remember my mother not believing me until she had to help me hold him down during one holiday visit to her home when Harry was nearly 8. After the tantrum, she was worn out and couldn't believe what had occurred. I was relieved that someone else finally understood what I was going through. The coming months would see more changes in his behavior, some good, some frustrating. All the while, my job was to stay centered. Now I will say I am not a perfect mother! I lost it at times and spanked out of frustration more than once, those are not proud parenting moments, but I feel like being honest about the raw emotions that come with learning to understand these children is far more important than me preserving perfection status to anyone! lol. Understanding myself and my own triggers was SO important to me staying balanced as a mother. These times also allowed me to be a much better mother to with my other children - I had been through the ultimate refining with Harry and just about anything was easy after that! I learned quickly that spanking out of frustration did nothing for my relationship with Harry. I had to be the authority in a proper way I could not take it by force.
When I really understood the role of proper authority, many things began to change for me and for my children. Getting out of my stressful marriage was one step, but with that step, I lost a lot of control, Harry's diet was no longer mine to control and he had access to something he did not before - video games. Listen to me mamas... gaming is about the worst thing you can allow a child with these needs to have access to before age 9. I am not a big fan of gaming anyway, but before age 9, the addictive/OCD parts of their brain go on overload. Harry would spend 12-18 hours of gaming time on his visitations with his father and it would pose such a problem when he came home. His tantrums went from frustration to bouts of anger without a full blown tantrum. I began to really watch everything he had access to and working hard on having a very peaceful environment. This required even more inner work on my part.
Once through the 9yr change, Harry began to be easier to work with. It got even better by 12yrs. At this point he knew that feeling "wiggly" was not what he wanted, he began to understand what eating the wrong things would do to him and he didn't like how he felt. We began to be able to work on consequences that he helped us lay down. He began to tell us what things he knew would work as a deterrent. His social skills really began to blossom when we did exercises like requiring that he make 5 contacts with non family members when we went out - whether it be talking to a store attendant or refilling his drink at a restaurant. When he was a Boy Scout, the leaders Harry had over the last two years introduced him to the value of having a mentor - the leaders set the other boys aside and talked to them about Harry's strengths and they are constantly amazed at what Harry can contribute. When he started on a robotics team. He always had an interest in the subject - in fact keeping this boy out of his head was always a challenge! I watched him among his "normal" counterparts and others on the spectrum and I was amazed at his confidence, his poise and his ability to work as a team - I know this came from years of work together, sometimes great, sometimes a disaster, but we always found a way. There were days when I cried out, asking God if he would live with me forever, but now I know, all those struggles were worth it.
My best advice is to work on YOU, then preserve your relationship but also really work to have proper authority, you will parent these children much differently than you will your others. They need your firmness much more as they live in a very black and white world, helping them to see the colors and the gray. When you are frustrated, know that others have been where you are, you can get through this, God doesn't give us more than we can handle. Get connected, stay connected and learn what this child has to teach you.
