I cannot protect my child from rotten kids who set out to hurt him for no good reason. I can’t keep him from getting hurt by people who claim to be his friends but then treat him horribly. I can’t keep the labels away from him – special needs, and now – EBD.
Maybe he was neglected by us, in that we didn’t know what to do with him until he was 4. Maybe dealing with him by the skin of our teeth for so long set up a sort of neglect-like scenario for him. It didn’t help that we left him with so many adults who treated him as a NT -albeit rotten- child. Our neglect may be that we put him in these places who had no understanding of his needs. And neither did we.
Did we neglect him because we two spent so much time frustrated and angry, blaming each other and ourselves and Monster for the disaster that seemed to have struck our house and we both were so stunned and felt unable to figure out what we needed to do, what were we doing wrong, what was wrong with our kid?
Our son learned aggression at daycare. That much I know for a fact. So how is seeing it at daycare and learning and practicing and taking it on as habit from something you do at daycare different from something you see and learn at home? It isn’t.
Backgrounds of neglect, abuse, loss. This is the type of child my son is put with to learn how to behave in this world. And I used to think the label didn’t fit – Not MY son. Because he is very much loved and coddled at home and if anything should be suffering from being spoiled rotten, not neglect. And yet. We didn’t know, so we neglected. We are like the parents who don’t know what children need and so give them nothing. But we thought we knew, which is probably even worse, because it meant we took too long before we asked for help.
My son cannot control himself. And yesterday it was hard for me to blame him, these kids were so rotten to him. I thought to myself, here we go. Now it starts. The friends turning on him. The children who don’t even know him singling him out because my son and all of these children are older now, more perceptive, my son’s differences more pronounced. I can’t do anything for him. Today I ache so badly for him I can barely think straight. He doesn’t deserve this. Even hubby and I lose our temper at him and he’s just being himself. He’s just doing what he knows – what he is capable of. Yes, sometimes he is a horrible little shit intentionally, but sometimes he really cannot help himself, and yet. I lose my temper. I cannot take it one more moment, whatever little odd stim he is doing to deal with strain. He repeats himself a hundred times. He cries. He tantrums, he screams. And I can’t take it.
I’m putting my son out into this world and he is getting hurt already, and it’s just going to get worse. I can’t protect him. I can’t fix him. I can’t change him or save him. I stand on the sidelines and watch him stumble, hear the other children laughing at him. I reach out toward him but he’s out of reach. He’s moving farther from me. He needs to, it’s part of his life's work. And I stand here as he recedes into his days and hope that his heart can be patched together when he returns to me in the afternoon.
I feel like I’ve failed him. I feel like I will fail him a million times more. And I thought I was so strong and ready for this. I was so wrong.
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2 comments:
Gosh, what a sad post. I hope the week improved for you. I completely understand those feelings of wondering whether things could be much different, much better, now if only we'd figured this out earlier. (Just went through a bout of that myself, after yet another talk with my son's teacher about his inappropriate, unacceptable behavior. Yet another round of coached apologies, lots of crossed arms and pursed lips.)
But where it's hard to say this to myself, I can say it to you: it's not a crime not to be an expert on childhood psychological pathologies. These AS problems usually first start to become clear in the preschool years -- before that, the "problems" are more or less in the range of normal. Your love and coddling and bedtime moments could be what has given him the self-control that he does have -- he has bonded with you and, on a deep level, wants to please you. And it's also normal to occasionally vent some anger at your son. I don't think that anyone who has read your blog can accuse you of neglect.
I also wanted to follow up on an older post, about how long you would still have your "sweet boy." I would say that we almost lost sight of the sweetness in our son 'round about first and second grade. He was so angry, so void of insight into his own emotional reactions to things, that we grew very weary, and wary of what adolescence would bring. (You try not to project into the future, but you do.) However, I can tell you that now that he's eleven, he still rages sometimes, but he has also been maturing over the last year or so, and he has quite a lot of insight into what triggers anger or anxiety for him. And we can talk about a lot of things. Lately he still infuriates us, but he is also sometimes extremely affectionate and caring. And appreciative. The sweet boy is still there, even though he sometimes curses like a sailor.
Thank you so much. Your comment gives me hope.
Today Monster is playing with his AS friend, the Birthday Boy. the two of them get along so well. I feel at peace when they are together, because neither one will call the other a name or hurt the other.
I still have this ache inside of me, this sense of loss for my son. The boys at the party really threw me - I hadn't to this point seen children being cruel to my child simply because they could be. Always before it's been chidren he knew - the anger brought about by real or perceived injustices. But now. Now children who know nothing about my son are picking on him. And I sit there and watch and wonder, how often will this happen when I am not around? And how will my son react? And is it wrong to say no, you can never hit other kids no matter how angry they make you, and then to hope deep in that dark place in my heart that he beats the crap out of these kids and makes them pay for picking on him?
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