The Frame Goes Out The Window

A few days ago I purchased a print from an artist on Etsy.  It was a gift for a dear friend of mine and I wanted it to go in a beautiful frame. I went to the store and purchased a standard sized frame.  I had the print with me and although I didn't measure, it looked like it would fit.   Once I got home and attempted to place the print in the frame I found it was just a little too tight.   Now I had a choice to make.  Return the frame and go searching for another one, maybe even custom made as it was now clear to me that this was not a standard size print.  My other option was to trim away at the edges, lose a little bit of the picture, nobody would notice or ever know.  I could make it fit in the standard size frame, the easiest solution. I had the scrapbooking tools to make it happen.  However, I knew that if I cut away at the picture I would be loosing part of the beauty that the artist put there.   The work she so lovingly created would be destroyed.  Perhaps it would still look good sitting there in that frame, but something would be missing, it would be a broken image, less than what it should have been.  The picture had been perfectly made, every drop of color and tiny marking meant to be there.  Who was I to say it had to go in a standard sized frame?  

During that time of framing the print and considering cutting away at it I thought about the latest decison for the education of my son. I thought of all the time we spend telling him to just sit still and try harder. Wiggle a little less and for goodness sake stop doing cartwheels when you are supposed to be in line waiting with the rest of the children! This is what we had been doing.  Trying to make him fit into a educational system that is standard size.  The problem is that he wasn't created to be in a standard frame.  We can trim away at him, put him in the hallway, explain that he must do what the rest of the class is doing.  We can make him feel like he isn't good at school and destroy his joy in learning....or we can throw the frame out the window and see where the exploding ball of excitement would like to bounce to!

Just where did this standard size education come from anyway?  It came from the industrial revolution.  We needed people who could stand still, focus, and do one job very well all day long.  They needed to be strong in self control and imagination and movement were frowned upon.  We also had the farmers, planning the crops, daily repetition of caring for the crops, careful examination of soil conditions and waiting patiently for the harvest.  We needed those farmers, we still do.  We need those people in the factories.  The trouble is not everyone was created to be a farmer or factory worker.  Some are wild hunters, always on there guard, ready to run, climb, and swing to reach their prey. They must be clever and quick to react in danger. They are on the move and rarely settling in one place for long. They belonged in the wild, but there isn't very much wild left in today's world and so they are left to be looked at as trouble makers.   Thom Hartman writes about this in The Edison Gene.  The book goes trailing into some genetics that I skipped over but the heart of the book is that American socieity, and schools were created for the farmers type, they work very well for most children but for the hunter child they are a nightmare. Those children deserve something different.  Something more than a label and time in the corner wearing a dunce cap.  

Even if you think Thom Hartman is a loony (and some people certainly do) there is other research out there with the same message about school and kids like my son.  

 I've done a lot of reading on kinesthetic learners (Learning by doing/moving) and kids who have been diagnosed with ADHD.  Studies have been done showing that children who were diagnosed with ADHD and medicated so that they could be successful in school no longer needed medication to learn once they switched to learning at home.  Here is the catch though, if the parent used a traditional curriculum the child would still have trouble learning and the parent would feel they needed medication.  If however, the parent  did not follow a curriculum or educate in an environment like that of a traditional school the child no longer needed medication to learn.  This means not homeschool in the way of "whatever school does, but at home." Instead it must be child lead learning.  The child picks what they want to learn and the parent facilitates getting them to the information they need.  You can check out the study in Psychology Today (because that is the kind of stuff I read in my spare time.)   The idea of no curriculum and following whatever he wanted to do sounded a bit scary and possibly a terrible idea so whenever I began to doubt my decision I would look back at this study.

I am not doubting it anymore.  My intuition has been screaming all along that this whole "school" thing wasn't best for him and about a month ago the decision was made final.

  "You can learn ANYTHING you want!" I told him.  

"Remember you took Spanish at school and didn't like it, what language would you like to learn?" 

 Without a moments pause he replied, "Ancient Egyptian." 

Since then my husband has taken him to the library, he checked out a book on hieroglyphs, learned about the Rosetta stone (the real one, not the learning program) and has began his journey in unschooling.    

There are some tricks you can use as a parent and one of them is called strewing.  Basically  it means putting things out there that you think would interest your child.  You don't tell them  they must look/play/study the item and if they never pick it up that is fine.  Although secretly you might be wanting to beg them to look at it.   I did this a couple weeks ago with cursive.   I knew that my son was interested in cursive because last year he dissected writings until he discovered how to sign his name in cursive.  I was at Barnes and Noble and saw a cursive practice book, the kind with the arrows that tell you how to make the letter.   I brought it home, and showed him, I simply said, if you decide to check it out be sure to look at the little arrows as they will guide you on how to move the pencil.    I left it on the kitchen table that evening and went to bed.   The next morning, before I had even woken up he had already finished the entire cursive alphabet. I was actually strewing before I knew the term existed.  The year between 1st and 2nd grade he wasn't feeling like a strong reader.  I started writing notes back and forth with my daughter intentinally leaving them where he would find them, and of course he would want to read them to spy on his sister and mom.  His reading confidence improved greatly that summer.   That is strewing at it's best... at it's worst they ignore it and learn something they are more interested in.   

This method of learning doesn't have to be done only at home, schools can certainly do it too. Montessori gets very close and there is Sudbury, and Reggio schools using this method throughout the world.   There is one school in Mexico that was previously using the traditional method of teaching and switched it up and now the kids are one of the top schools in the country.   You may have heard of the computers given to children in India.  No instructions, just a computer.   Driven by their curiosity they figured out how to boot it up and much more.  The article on both of those stories and more can be found on Wired.

The initial thought I had was that this way of education will not be convenient for me.  Next I thought of all that we had put into making regular school work for him.  The emotional energy that was drained from hearing the latest news from the classroom of what he had done wrong that day. His own feeling of failure, or his defensiveness as he told me that he wasn't being "bad" but just had to sit in the hallway.   The nervousness when I would volunteer in the classroom as I would try to somehow telepathically control him into sitting still and not making a sarcastic comment.   I actually stopped volunteering in his classroom because it was bringing me so much anxiety.  So perhaps, mentally and emotionally this is not inconvenient at all.   I feel very lucky that our family can make this choice.  I do not have to work a 40 hour work week and  I know that not everyone has the luxury of taking their child out of school, or the choices nearby of alternative education styles.

Looking forward I am excited and hopeful.  I'm seeing the potential in my son rather than what he is lacking.  I wish more kids like him had the options to learn in their own way.  I imagine we would have many more Da Vincis, Einsteins, and Newtons if they were only allowed the time and space to explore.

Getting it ALL wrong

What if all the instincts and impulses that you had inside of you were considered socially unacceptable. Now imagine that your mind and body didn't yet have enough self control to stop you from doing them. Your neurotransmitters just couldn't send things fast enough to tell yourself to stop.   Everywhere you went people would tell you that you were doing it wrong. " Nope, not that way."  "Oh careful, not that." "SLOW DOWN!"  "Oooh you messed up AGAIN!"
 
How long would it be until you broke.  How many times could you hear your name in THAT tone of voice that says "you screwed up!"  before you either stopped caring or just lost your joy all together?   I fear for my little guy that we are dangerously close to this place, if not already arriving.  I have been witnessing the joy dwindle from him, first in small amounts, and now in a way that seems at times like despair has set in.

  Last week I  talked with his teacher (who is amazing and wonderfully gentle in his corrections.) I got  advice from the school counselor after having her meet with him (because when your son no longer wants to play with his Legos, you take it serious.)  Things that were suggested included a light box since we live in the northwest and the sun doesn't like to be around this time of year. Maybe a session or two with a play therapist?   It was suggested that maybe this was a stage and it would blow over.   I hoped for the latter, and we turned on our Happy Light at breakfast time for a few days.  Then I did some thinking and I tried to put myself in his shoes.  That is what the first paragraph was all about.   Constantly doing the wrong thing, not planning to do the wrong thing, not wanting to do the wrong thing.  (this kid sits and draws during choice time so he won't unknowingly do the wrong thing and get into trouble.)  It has to be crushing for him and I think his new sullen attitude is a product of this.

I googled "play therapist" to see if we had one in the area.  Then I thought about play.  I got a random idea and this is what we are trying, and I think I am seeing results of a happier kid. Long term I am not sure this is going to work but I'm taking it a day at a time.  The plan is:  Short burst of one-on-one time with my son (husband is doing this with him too) where we have fun and no matter what he does, we don't correct him.  It's a time when he can do no wrong, we just play and have fun.  He wrestles me to the ground, or we play a board game, or whatever, but NOTHING he can do gets him a correction or even a scowl for the duration of that playtime.  (My goal is 30 minutes)  The rest of life goes on as it did before except that window of fun.  

My hope is that those times will bring his joy back and we can keep working on ways he can help himself be successful at self control so that he won't have to hear as many corrections.  He wants to follow the rules, that is obvious to me, but his little body and mind are just too full of Tigger to make it happen.

 However, I kinda think that the hundred acre woods weren't as fun until Tigger moved in.
(perhaps we need to move to the woods and homeschool?)

Gathering information and reflecting

Over the past weeks I have been coming to the computer to write and then realizing that I wasn't ready yet.  I have been reading some books on ADHD.  I have been thinking about what this all means.  I have also been working with my son on some challanges he is having now that the first grade adventure has started. 
  The first book I read was by Dr Barkley and it was a bit depressing, I thought it would be more fun because of that great big dog Barkley on Sesame Street.  Turns out it wasn't the same dog and in fact it was a human!   The book did have a practical  tool at the end, the suggestion and explanation of having a points system to help with behavior.  I downloaded an App called Kidzpoints to help me track it because I am very likely to misplace a chart, and forget to put poker chips in a jar (as it suggested.)  We have done it for a week and it seems to help with a few things, like calm hallway behavior.  I would say the program and my son are still in the honeymoon phase and he may decide it's for the birds next week.  I hope not.

I also found a book called The Gift of ADHD.  From this I found some interesting things, I also found a lot of anti-medical worldview.  I am not all about drugging my kid but I thought the book was kind of rude about it.  There was hope in the book though, and something else happend.  I recognized myself in some of it.  It put everything in a positive way and explained how people with ADHD feel the feelings of others very intensely.  Most people feel it a little but but for ADHD folk, they feel it much more.  It said that children with ADHD  feel  the emotions of others but they don't really know where it is coming  from, and then they act it out to try and understand it.  So say, student Susie is having a bad day and very angry, if they sit next to her they will start to feel her anger.  They actually feel it is there own anger and they might just throw a fit and act angry to understand it. 
I thought that was cool.  I thought about how my husband and my daughter cannot "feel" others emotions at all, and how I have trouble sitting near certain people at church if they are going through a hard time because I feel the emotion so much that it is overwhelming.  I am also drawn to comfort them, but some days if have my own things going on it's just too intense to handle. I usually push myself to handle it anyway because if I feel that much, they must be feeling so much more and need a hug. 

After my information gathering was done (is it ever really done?)  I went into reflective mode.  I have been going through the daily routine and pondering in the back of my head what all of this means.  We are still the same family that we were two years ago but we also have a better sense of self, and it's amazing how we all fit together.  Some of us can tune in to emotional needs, but when we become overly emotional and flipping out we have other members of our family who can keep a cool head and tell it like it is without feeding off our energy. 

At the end of my pondering I came up with this:  We are who we were made to be.  We don't have disorders or syndromes (although the labels will help us to find tools to make ourselves better people. )  We are simply people, who happen to be neurologically wired differently from the majority of humans.  We are part of a body.  The body has many parts, and if everyone was a foot then we wouldn't be able to think, if everyone was a head we wouldn't be able to step forward.  We were created to have these "quirks" for a reason. 
As with anyone, neurotypical (normal) or autistic, we all need to grow and change and become the very best version of ourselves we can, but we must make sure we still remain ourselves through that process. 

I would never want my son to lose his zest for life, his enthusiasm, or his energy.  I would however, prefer he learn to sit down during circle time instead of running around the room tackling people.    I would never want my daughter to lose her ability to notice tiny details and give amazing insights.  I would like her to be able to have more back and forth conversations though, so that she could hear other peoples insights as well.   I wouldn't want to lose my ability to feel peoples emotions and give them comfort, Although I would really  like to stop losing my keys, train of thought, coffee mug, and car in the parking lot.  

Muck

You know those times when you are blissfully running across a lush meadow, looking ahead at the place heading and then you realize that the meadow is full of soggy water and you end up with your foot sinking down into muck and before you realize it the next one has gone down too.  Bewildered and not sure what to do next.  You know you have to get yourself out of there, but how to do it without losing a shoe or falling on your face.  Plus, once you get out you of the muck you still have to trudge forward through the rest of the soggy mess to reach your intended destination.  So, here I am, standing in the muck and refusing to go forward, too tired to assess the situation, but also too hopeful to just lay down and give up.

For over a year I have been learning everything I could and reading every book I could get my hands on about aspergers to help my daughter.  Meanwhile, for the past six months I was also learning much about Sensory Processing Disorder to help my son.  I felt pretty good about it, like we had a path and a plan for my son.  He was doing Occupational Therapy once a week and making progress.  I am thankful for that progress, and thankful for the tools and skills that he gained from OT.  Our therapist was truly amazing!  Then, we were told that there wasn't much more OT could do and we should go get yet another evaluation.

After an evaluation with a team of people, plus tons of questionnaires, and a follow up I was told my son has ADHD.   Now, somehow this is hard to take, much harder than when I learned my daughter had aspergers. You hear about wonderful people with autism, geniuses.  I am pretty sure you never hear anything great about ADHD people.  (If you do please leave me a comment!)  I know ADHD is the most common misdiagnosed thing in children.  I also know my son can pay attention.  I also don't know anything about ADHD.  I have started trying to learn a little bit.  I got the book that the Dr.recommended and read 7 pages, then I stopped.

  I just feel like it was surprise muck.  Surprise muck that I am not even sure is real.  Although, the little I have read is making sense.  It just seems so big.  I made the mistake of reading what ADHD looks like as a teenager and it scared the hell out of me!  So I stopped reading and here I stand, knee deep in muck trying to figure out my next move and sort of feeling like maybe I will just stand here.