Sunday Digest 37

So much to share with you this time around that it may not all fit into one digest. There has been a lot of amazing stuff on my favorite blogs to visit lately...

1) My fellow 5 Minutes for Special Needs contributor, Suzanne, shared her inward (at least) response to a person who left an anonymous note on her car window. I hope the person read it, somehow. Just another reminder that not every disability is visible, even the physical ones. Let us be kind to one another, please.

2) My "down under" blogging friend Autism &Oughtisms shared a touching post about her autistic son and his imaginary friend. In addition to exploring various theories of imaginary friends, she explains how she views this as a positive step in her son's development. I distinctly remember my own joy when my daughter at more than four years old pretended to use an invisible object in her play for the first time. I was ecstatic and nearly burst into tears.

3) Tammy over at Praying for Parker expressed one of my darkest fears. Statistics estimate that 90% of unborn babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted. Tammy points out that some view this as a way of preventing Down Syndrome. What happens when we can test for autism prenatally? I have no doubt there are people working toward this. I can't quote statistics, but my general sense is that the average joe (or jane) has a more positive view of Down Syndrome than they do of autism. Interestingly, both disorders can have a whole range of effects on the developing child, so termination ends a life that isn't fully understood. I think I am particularly sensitive to this topic right now because an acquaintance of mine is expecting the birth of her third child in the next few weeks. According to some prenatal screening her unborn son has a higher than normal risk of Down Syndrome. She already has one child with special needs...and has gathered a whole pack of people around her to pray, not necessarily that the test will be wrong, but that their family will be able to celebrate the birth of their son no matter what the future holds.

4) I continue to enjoy the Special Needs Siblings Saturday posts at The Squashed Bologna. Mid-October, Varda's guest blogger was Michaela Seafoorce. I ready her SNSS post, but also followed Varda's advice and read two of her posts on her own blog here and here. I have been thinking a lot lately about peer advocates and how to find them, how to teach them, what to say. Michaela is just one example I've looked at. More on this in the weeks to come as I get my thoughts together...

5) I am kind of shaking my head these days in disbelief that I'm the mom of a second grader. It's all going by so fast. Laura Shumaker's post at City Brights about the transition to adulthood was a wake up call...time will continue to fly by and one day the child will be the adult. What then? The only thing I can do at this point is to continue to try to build in the skills and support that she will need when we get there a dozen years or so from now.

I hope you will enjoy all the links as much as I did, and if you visit do let them know you found them through The Simple Life.

Book Review - Parenting with Love and Logic

It is hard reviewing parenting classics. Last time I tried this I could not give a glowing review. This time around I'm a little more positive. I had heard a lot about "Love and Logic" parenting, but I had never read the book, so when I saw this goodie sitting in our preschool's parent library I snatched it up. It turns out that I do a lot of their recommendations already: giving children limited choices to help them learn to think for themselves, setting limits, and sometimes allowing for natural consequences. What I am perhaps missing is the calm finesse the authors characterize as "consultant parenting." I tend more toward their "drill sergeant" mode, so I've been working on that with some success. One key point that I've taken away and that seems to be helping the general flow of life around here is that I should not allow my kids' problems to be my problems, unless they are truly too big for the child to handle on their own. Lately when the twins come with their latest "tattle tale report" instead of dropping everything to go sort out the situation I say, "Did you use your words? Tell them you don't like that," and I offer a kiss to help them find their nice strong voice. Unless there is a safety issue in question this keeps me out of the fray and lets them learn to handle hard situations, which they will eventually need to do on their own anyway. Wouldn't you like your child to be able to say,"I don't like that!" when another child is picking on them? There are a few things I really liked about this book:

• First, they present their overall philosophy and then they provide a ton of real life situations (48) where their principles can be applied. Everything from pacifiers to internet use is covered at least briefly. It helps you see that this is not pie in the sky parenting advice, but really can work in a variety of situations. One of those 48 suggestions covers when to get professional help. I wish I had read that page about four years ago. It might have saved us a few months of heartache.
• Second, their view of spanking is not that it is "wrong" per se, but that it is ineffective compared with other techniques they say leave children "wishing for a spanking." Considering that some of the natural consequences they suggest include the child paying for their own babysitter...um, yeah. Around here that could bankrupt a kid pretty fast. This is much more in line with my current thinking on this hot button topic. We avoid spankings almost entirely around here and have replaced them with several more effective techniques.
• Third, they actually mention special needs children. Once. On page 130. It is presented in the context of how to help children handle bullies. If I have a beef with this book it is that they don't address special needs children and their parenting more, but at least they recognize we exist, briefly. I think a lot of the ideas in this book can be applied to special needs children directly - with developmental age taken into consideration - but it would be nice to hear the authors thoughts on this community. Not everything will work. The extended heart to heart discussions of a child's behavior post facto would probably spiral us back into the situation, and even if they didn't would not result in the "aha" moments described in the book. Language is just too much of a barrier for this to be effective for us.

One thing that I'm going to have to watch out for as I practice more of these techniques is that I maintain the right "voice" as I deliver the various parental  messages they endorse. The calm component is a big challenge with my short fuse temper. Providing choices just doesn't come across the same when offered at drill sergeant volume by a beet red face. The empathy component of delivering consequences is also hard to remember for the same reason. It would be easy to slip into either anger or sarcasm (which is lost on the child anyway) instead of the shared sadness the authors advocate.

Finding Empathy for your Child

This may not be the most "practical" of my practical tips, but it is important, and it is fresh in my brain not to mention begging to be redeemed, so here goes...

This afternoon I set out on my weekly adventure to run errands, this time accompanied by my oldest daughter. We have a nice little errand routine that has made it almost pleasant, though exceedingly slow, to run errands. Today we needed to visit the library (to return a book at the drive through book drop), the bank, and the grocery store. Sounds simple enough, right?

As I was preparing to turn left into the library book drop lane I noticed an elderly woman driving the opposite direction and decided that though she was proceeding slowly I needed to yield right of way. It's a tight turn and I didn't want to cut her off. I stopped in my lane, so I had plenty of time to see her equally elderly passenger and figured they were having a nice chat as they putted along. As I negotiated the turn into the library I noticed another older woman pedestrian hot on my trail on the passenger side of my van. She was close enough that I was a bit worried I might hit her while also trying to line up with the book drop. She tapped on my passenger side front window. I thought maybe she needed directions or was confused about where the entrance to the library is, so I rolled down that window, but she crossed right in front of my van(!) and came around to the driver's side window. By now I could see she was angry, but I rolled down my window and asked nicely if I could help her. She started yelling at me about stopping so long and letting my exhaust fumes get in her face. I sat there, fully aware that my daughter was hearing every word and watching every response on my part, hoping my face had an appropriate response, angry for the tongue lashing when I hadn't done anything wrong, trying to figure out what to say to make this irritating person leave so I could complete my errand. I said something to the effect of, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't realize that had happened," and instead of accepting my apology or leaving in a huff the woman threatened to call the police next time it happened. (I was not aware that exhaust fumes had ACTUALLY been outlawed, YET.) She then proceeded to call me a crude name as she fumed (sorry, couldn't resist) off into the parking garage. I lamely yelled after her that she shouldn't swear in front of my daughter... (Oh, good comeback, me!)

As I then struggled to return my soon to be overdue video a kind pedestrian who had evidently witnessed the exchange offered to help me, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. I probably responded somewhat rudely to her out of my shock...and drove off in a fog to the bank. My daughter was peppering me with questions. Why did that woman yell at you? What did you not want her to say in front of me? Why should she not say that in front of me? What did you do? etc. etc. Fortunately my continued confusion, embarrassment and shock kept my answers short, to the point, and flat in effect. Somewhere in the middle of the produce aisle I could finally function without constantly thinking about this emotional attack from an absolute stranger. It still makes my stomach twitch just to recount it here.

Part of what helped me move beyond the nastiness of that moment, was a still small voice that said,

"Imagine how your daughter feels when you yell at her."

It gave some meaning to the experience. I've learned a lot in the last couple of years to help keep my temper under better control, but I still have my moments. I'm told that everyone does. It's been a while since someone older than me gave me a tongue lashing that they thought I deserved. No matter how undeserved it was in this instance, I imagine that my visceral responses were fairly similar to what my daughter, and any child, must experience when they're being loudly scolded:

confusion

embarrassment

shock

anger

how do I make this person go away

loss of social functioning

There is one really significant difference in the experience. I have no idea who this woman is. Even though we live in a small town, I will likely never see her again (I can hope!) After all my processing it was pretty easy to brush off her opinion of my driving ability, and whatever else she chose to judge in me. When I yell at my kids, they have to live with me the rest of that moment, that day, and beyond. They value my opinion (a little I think) and some piece of their self-image is built upon my responses to them.

I wish I could say I'll never yell at my kids again...that is unrealistic. It did help me keep my cool as I handled bedtime solo tonight. I hope, however, that this experience will give me a little more empathy for what they are feeling when I'm angry with them and will modify my own responses. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. How do you find empathy for your child?