Guilt

Motherhood just naturally comes with guilt. Every mom second-guesses herself, beats herself up when her kid gets hurt, spends her nights awake mulling over the should-have-dones and should-not-have-dones. I guess it's part of momhood.
So I don't claim to understand all mom guilt. But I understand my own.

I didn't appreciate the good points about my son until he got diagnosed at 4. I just didn't. I spent years blaming myelf, blaming Monster, blaming Monster's daycares and schools, for all of the troubles. But mostly I blamed myself. No good mother would have a child who acted the way mine did. What was I doing wrong?

From the time my son was two we were told by daycare workers (whom we mistakenly assumed were licensed in child care) that we needed to punish my child to teach him. Bad day at daycare? No treats, no TV, no computer. Of course Monster spent many evenings crying because once again his treats and TV were being taken from him.
We were punishing my child for stuff he had no control over. We didn't know it at the time, but it doesn't stop the guilt. After all, I contributed to my son's sense of self - his idea that he was a bad kid who could not be good no matter how hard he tried.
And placing him into one daycare after another just added to his feelings about himself as a bad kid who couldn't do anything right.

And during all of this I wasn't appreciating his sweetness, his goodness, his kindness, his loving heart. I only saw the bad kid I couldn't control.

The diagnosis was a blessing. Once I got a reason for M's behavior I was able to stop blaming everyone and simply focus on the wonderful parts of my son. I wish had had him diagnosed a year earlier, when I was first hearing hints about 'that word' - Asperger's. I let people talk me out of it - if he had it, he wouldn't want to have friends. If he had it, he wouldn't let you hold him. And I listened for another year, not wanting to label my son, wanting to pretend that everything was fine and I just needed the secret cure.

Now I feel that I lost time when I was mostly angry with Monster and myself, and I could have been loving him and telling him what a good, smart, wonderful boy he was.

I can't change the past. But if anyone out there has a toddler who gets kicked out of daycares, who seems to act badly no matter what you try, think about getting him/her tested.

In the end, the diagnosis doesn't change your child. It changes the way you see your child. And that makes all the difference in the world.