autism
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Leaps of Faith
Signing up a child with autism in a new extra-curricular activity—especially a sport–is a very stressful experience. I can’t just look at the Fargo Parks and Rec catalogue and say, “baseball would be fun,” fill out the registration and send off the cheque. There’s a lot of stewing and agonizing, questions to consider like: “Are we doing this because J wants it or because as parents we want it?” “Will the teachers in the class be accommodating and understating of J’s special needs?” “Will the kids in the group/activity be accepting of J” “Will J be distracting or hinder the learning of the other kids in the group” “Does J…
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The Cross Culture Kid
When I was 16 years old, my parents moved our family to the United States. Being a Canadian expat is a strange, strange experience. It’s forever changed the way I see the world and my cultural identity (and I’m still really confused about both). I have no real hometown. In a lot of ways I feel like I don’t “belong” as a citizen of anywhere. I live this strange life where people assume I’m American just like them, and in some ways I feel like I am. But then I have these moments where things get weird, like when I explain to them that I’ve never seen an episode of…
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You Just Never Know
In honour of celebrating Autism Awareness Month, we’ve been living this week in typical (unpredictable) autism fashion. Here’s a little recap of how this week totally threw us for some unexpected surprises. Sunday: Our good friends invited us over for Easter lunch, and it was the most entertaining, heartwarming lunch I’ve had in a long time. J got to meet my friend’s new dog Tucker. Fred really did work some miracles for J when it comes to dog interactions. Fred taught J about “dog bubbles” (like “you don’t run up to a dog and give it hugs” and “you give it time to get to know you”). Fred taught J how…
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A Letter to My Younger (Mom) Self
Dear Young (Mom) Sarah, I’m writing you this letter on Autism Awareness Day. It’s 2018. Right now you’re sitting in the early 2000s and you’re overwhelmed and confused and frustrated with autism. It’s new and something you’ve never heard of until now. Activism, pride, and awareness are not on your “to do” list. In fact, right now you want to hide the fact that J has autism. You’re secretly hoping he’ll “grow out of it.” You’ve gotten your hands on every single resource and it’s almost impossible to find information, studies, and narratives about teenagers and adults with autism. You’re terrified of what the future holds for J because no one…
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Little-big things
Little things are always big things when it comes to autism and though we’ve had a pretty low-key week, it was still filled with lots of little-big things. Here’s this week’s list of top 3 little-big things (in no particular order): Little-big thing #1: Varsity kids. J had his second track meet of the season this Saturday and despite his awesome performance last week, he still has a lot of little things to figure out. Last Saturday he missed his warm-up and cool down, and was a little confused on the new number system. (In middle school, his number was written on his hand. In high school, he gets two…
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3.30.35
When they called the fourth heat of the 800 metre race to line up, I looked over at a few of J’s XC teammates, who had also congregated on the sideline, and said, “Yeah, I’m pretty nervous about this.” “Yeah, we’re nervous too. But he’ll do great. He’s been getting so fast lately.” Then the official called the boys to line up by numerical order. Of course, this is J’s first high school track meet–first indoor track meet, for that matter. In middle school, he ran with kids from his team and so J always had someone who knew him (and knew he had autism) help him line up. But…
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Autism Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum
There have been very few moments where J and W haven’t shared the same space. They’re 22 months apart, and in the early days, it felt like I had twins. Because of J’s developmental delays and W’s precociousness, they moved in the same sphere. We had teachers and speech therapists in our house weekly, and while the adults struggled to engage J and keep him attentive, W sat at the table, ready to learn, the wheels turning. W attended J’s early intervention preschool as a peer model, pre-screened to meet requirements of academic readiness and the ability to have compassion for children with special needs. She moved around the preschool…
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Navel Strings
I am not a helicopter mother by choice. I really, really believe that it’s healthy for kids (and parents) to have their space. Kids need to step out in the world on their own, get their hands dirty, make mistakes, learn by trial and error. It’s essential in developing self esteem, innovation, confidence, social skills, negotiation skills and more. Of course parents should be there in guiding kids away from harmful dangers, enhancing moments of learning and growth, but I really feel that kids learn best when they feel trusted–trusted to succeed and trusted to make mistakes. I just can’t do that with J. There are so many strings attached with…
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This Kid
While going through the MFA program, I wrote about J a lot. J wasn’t my thesis, but he was the topic of my Creative Nonfiction classes. He was eight years old at the time, and I had a lot of subject matter to write about. I wrote about the quirkiness of autism, the feelings of inadequacy I felt being his mother, the small victories we had, the really puzzling aspects of autism to which I had no answers. I didn’t realize it, but often I would refer to J as “that kid, this kid, or the kid.” Someone in workshop picked up on my word choice and asked me, “why…
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Adulting is hard
“So what are you up to right now?” I get this question from friends and family a lot. It’s an absolutely fair question, because my “personal life” outside of autism is always different depending on what day, month, or year we’re having this conversation. Almost every decision I make concerning my everyday life is made with J’s autism in mind, which means (depending on how well we’re doing, or how much we’re struggling with autism) my “personal life” will be a direct reflection of that. It’s really hard to have a full time job and be a parent of a child with autism. No matter how old your kid is.…
