New Year Miracle

A few years ago I joined a FB homeschooling group, mentioned by an acquaintance from church.  It has not generally been of much interest to me, due to the very conservative religious views, which I no longer/never did share.  But I did happen across a gem of a suggestion there in the form of another FB group someone mentioned called Gentle Christian Parenting.  

 

I joined that new group, and read obsessively for a while, learning so much more about respectful and peaceful parenting.  I had long known I wanted to be that sort of parent and violin teacher, but had limited educational resources at my disposal which really connected with me on my jouney.  I read and read for months and uploaded all the things to my brain, while not implementing remotely as well as I wished, especially due to unacknowledged unrealistic expectations,  unnoticed anxiety, and misunderstood sensory overload on my part...

At a certain point, having onboarded a whole lot of deep, practical, and radically perspective-shifting material, and being incredibly passionate about all of it, I felt that all these wonderful things were still only in the category of Tylenol for childbirth, at least when it came to my eldest.  At some point I found out from that group that some of the challenging and dangerous behavior I was seeing could be related to anxiety, and so to ward off suggestions and temptations toward old-school behaviorist approaches which would not be healthy for our situation, we got a referral from the pediatrician.  We were on the wait list for anxiety evaluation/play therapy for some time, and then everything fell to pieces due to the pandemic shutdown.

Timeline unclear to me in hindsight, but my mom mentioned (not with these specific words) that, more than anxiety, this seemed like some sort of neurodivergence.  That same wonderful Gentle Parenting group, even in read-only mode, kept providing hints for me to follow up on.  I researched SPD, ODD, ADHD, and "female presentation" autism in addition to anxiety.  All of these were kinda it, but not exactly; nothing really clicked into place, although I was discovering small puzzle pieces and faint outlines in the fog.

I started running into information on unschooling, too, which was suddenly the right fit at that time. I could see my own autodidactic nature and my child's, too, even though I did not fully trust it to help this particular child with the basics of math and reading.  She and I both really needed a demand detox and a chance at a positive relationship, although I did not know what was behind that. Though it frightened me I intuited that she needed the freedom, at a very tender age, to be the master of her own destiny and to shake off the shackles of societal expectations, just as much as she needed oxygen and sunlight and food and water.  I may have been too permissive a parent, but this feisty human demanded equality and dignity of person.  Relaxed homeschooling was honestly killing us, although at the time I mostly just felt tired. I have, since discovering the work of Ross Greene and jumping into another educational FB group called The B Team, realized that I am a very slow processor, and don't usually notice I am having a hard time until much after the fact.

Then one day, I saw in the Gentle Parenting group mention of PDA, and looked it up on the suggested PDA Society website.  It was like someone had walked into my house and written up a personal description of my child that almost no one outside our immediate family had ever witnessed in its fullness.  It was a proverbial lightbulb moment.  I immediately fired off the link to two relatives, with no attached suggestions, and they saw the same thing I had.

So I started joining all the PDA groups I could find and following all the PDA adult advocates as their names showed up in these new resource avenues.  I found myself in touch with a local parent of a PDA child, and found out who was qualified to identify this rare autistic profile locally. Also joined up with a local Zoom group for carers of PDAers.  Read everything on the interwebs I could about autism.  Now we were on the proverbial "my child is autistic" to the "almost our entire family is neurodivergent" pipeline...

In the Fall my middle child easily got his autism diagnosis after I finally noticed he fit the profile and asked our pediatrician for a referral. Eldest got her diagnosis of autism: PDA profile, GAD, and ADHD-combined type just last week from an amazing, well-informed, and unbelievably kind neuropsych, thanks to some financial help from family.  She also sent along myriad suggestions for resources for our family to dig into as we grow together in new understandings.

And at the same time, my eldest has had two incredible weeks.  The neuropsych who evaluated her confirmed my hunch that regular public school (which we have never tried for her) would not be a good long-term solution for her.  However, she is very social and outgoing and needs more than we can give her at home both socially and academically, (although if she is left completely to her own devices, she is happy and autodidactic in her flow for days at a time - as long as there are screens involved.) She does better in groups than 1-on-1.  

It just happened that the community center a block away from our house reopened this month after closing in March 2020, offering a 4-hours-a-day FREE after-school drop-in elementary program with physical activites, engineering, environmental science, crafts, recreation, and lots of unstructured time with other kids and caring adults. Although we were worried it would not be a good fit, it so far seems to be perfect for our amazing daughter in every way.  She has gone every single day, and even spent hours asking how long until it opens.  Because it is social, minimally structured (but educational), and totally optional, it is the perfect Godsend for this child right now.

In addition,  Jared Ballance, being the unflappable and dependable Saint that he is, got her into a new routine at home starting in mid-December that involves daily reading and math practice, and is totally child-led in terms of timing each day, choice of study material, and choice of which parent assists... It gives her the freedom she needs to be in charge of her own life, the time demand is minimal (10-20 minutes a day), and confers on her advancing levels of electronics usage.  It is such a good fit that she is now ALWAYS the one to initiate those activities each day, and she is starting to make some headway in the academics which she has always found extremely challenging. 

These two weeks haven't been perfect,  but honestly have felt miraculous.  Our lives will never be "normal," which has not been a part of my life-framework at any point, but I have found myself thinking, "Is this what typical parents' experience is like?"  I am not good at recognizing and naming feelings for myself,  but maybe this qualifies as happiness.

[And I am so very thankful for the vast assistive resources, including connections through FB and the amazing library which is the internet, that have gotten us here so far, not to mention so many gifts of time and resources from family, friends, and even strangers online. And the neighborhood we find ourselves in with its particular set of nearby resources - many more than listed above - perfect for my daughter. Just so much to be grateful for...]

Winter Wilds (and too many dashes)

Early December saw much labor on our family's part, over some weeks, to walk one of our children through extensive evaluations to identify specific neurodivergencies.  The clinician was truly lovely, a safe-to-talk-to person with a big heart and reputed skill and knowledge in all the right specialties, who will follow up with us in a couple weeks.

In the course of this, however, something was said to this clinician behind closed doors, which did not have context surrounding it.  This small child's-statement sounded odd and triggered the clinican's mandated reporter status.  I had a terrifying couple of days of anticipation between when I learned we had been reported to CPS and when CPS showed up.  I did discover some helpful things about CPS, including the fact that most calls to CPS turn out to be almost nothing.  I was interested to learn that CPS is run by each state according to its own rules.  Our caseworker assured us that in Washington state, at least, CPS is no longer like what we heard about it growing up.  It is there to support families  by connecting people to training, physical, emotional,  or financial assistance, or whatever is needed to provide families-in-crisis with support.  Family separation is a last resort and for only the most serious cases where children are in immediate danger.... I did not feel good about the social worker showing up unexpectedly, photographing dirty dishes in our sink, and asking if the fridge worked (as the light was out), and checking my child for marks on their arms.  Despite my appreciation for neighbors looking out for the good of others, the kindness and professionalism of the social worker, my intellectual understanding that CPS has a really important role to play, and my naive tendency to overshare on too many occasions, this still felt really invasive and vulner-ating.

The two-week Christmas break was Much Needed and enjoyed, though of course not without melt-downs and tears from one or more human family members most days. (Nevermind the traditional daily festive cat vomit, etc.) During the first week Jared and I took turns driving Anne up to the Pass to play in the abundant early-season snow, and staying at home to play with Littles.  During the second week, the snowline descended to sea level, so we had lots of outdoor winter wonder at home (elev. 250 ft).

January 3, sadly, meant back to the grind.  One family member woke up tired that Monday morning with a cough, after having had a bit of fever in the night.  So, remote teaching for the week it was.  

Thursday the rest of us woke up sick.  Kids lay in bed all day.  I taught in front of the computer, of course, as skipping meant I'd have to find a way to make those lessons up later, an exhaustion-inducing prospect.  I texted a neighbor, who kindly dropped a bottle of Pedialyte for one of the kids on the porch and ran. 

As it was nearing dark and I was on Zoom with my oldest group class, Jared popped in out of the POURING rain, bearing a slightly crazed expression, telling me to "go long" with my half of the class if he wasn't back yet.  Based on the amount of water issuing from the sky and 20 years careful study at interpreting Jared's subtle facial expressions and personal habits, I intuited that he was quick-patching a just-discovered roof leak. 

When I was done teaching at 7:45 I went straight in the house and got the roof report on the kitchen leak before huddling into bed, where I more or less remained until the following evening.

By Sunday everyone was cheerful enough again, and we had a beautiful blue skies, warm-for-January sunny day. 

Jared had sung himself a verse of "Happy Omicron birthday to me..." over his cake midweek.  We did not go for testing, as we are all vaccinated for flu and covid as far as age allows and felt confident enough in our soon recovery that the specific diagnosis did not matter.  We are treating it as covid in terms of self-isolating to protect our students, friends, and neighbors.  Still home alone for another 5 days collectively, so Anne and Lazarus will miss the first week of experimental-for-them activities we have signed up for at the just-reopened community center behind our street.  Very eager for Anne to get back to Tae Kwon Do, too!  She's only been 3 or 4 times since mid-December.

Bedtime has hit a nasty bottom-of-the-cycle phase the last few days.  Hence why I am blogging to decompress at 3 am during the work week.