Blossoming

I noticed something I do last night that needs to Stop. Right. Now. I still want to help him with everything. Dressing. Washing. He lets me, of course. But more and more if I don’t offer, he goes ahead and does it himself. Last night I caught myself as he struggled into his jammies – I almost asked him, “Do you want help with those?” and then I caught myself. I need to start giving him more credit for what he can do. I wonder now how many other times I’ve asked him if he needed help and took away a bit of his independence?

The other night we were watching videos of Monster as a baby, and there was my beautiful boy at 15 months old pulling himself up and scooting a chair across the floor on wobbly little legs. He may have learned to walk late, but he LEARNED, on his own terms, and the huge smile of pride on his face showed that it didn’t matter to him how old he was, how “behind” he might be. He was DOING it!

I can see in him the blossoming of a new confidence – a sense of himself as a person who can do whatever he wants to do. I know this is thanks almost completely to the school district’s autism specialist. She got pulled in when we were throwing fits about Monster’s getting suspended all of the time. She was the one who said to the school, look, you have a kid with Asperger’s. You don’t punish him like other kids. You praise him. You let him know what an amazing person he is.

This is a child who spent the first 5 years of his life being bounced from daycare to daycare, believing himself to be a “bad boy” because, honest to god, some of the teachers would tell him that. So you have this very smart, very frustrated, very misunderstood child who of course acts out because everyone already says he’s bad. Now, literally within months, the autism specialist has turned around the attitude of those who work with him and his whole outlook toward himself has changed. He believes in himself. He wants to do well, because others believe in him.

I’ve been trying to tell people for the past two years that my son was a good kid. Most people didn’t believe me. They pointed to his bad behavior as proof of just how wrong I was. I’m not wrong. My son is an amazing child. Does he sometimes hit and kick and tantrum? Yes. But he is so insightful, so wonderful and smart and sweet, that if people would just give him a chance they would see below the surface behaviors to the child I know. A sweet, snuggly boy who still asks for cuddles and kisses and wants to have sleepovers with me (those special nights when I let him fall asleep in our bed) even when he becomes a grownup. I hint to him that maybe there will be someone else special in his life that he may want to have sleepovers with, and he tells me, “Well, you can come too, Mama. I’ll invite you over. I’m sure you’d want to be at my sleepover too!”

Tell me again my kid is bad. I dare you.