{"id":970,"date":"2007-04-10T14:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-10T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2007\/04\/strangers-in-a-strange-land\/"},"modified":"2007-04-10T14:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-10T14:57:00","slug":"strangers-in-a-strange-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/strangers-in-a-strange-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Strangers in a Strange Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe \u2014 and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land!
–Robert Heinlein, 1961
<\/span>
Oy, go and have children.
–My Great-Grandmother, “Bubbe,” Sarel Wolfson
<\/span>
Little B is on his playdate with A!! I have been nervous for the last hour, just hoping it works out. I know I should relax, and get a life. I just want him to have a friend or two, I don’t want him to have a hard life, to be lonely or sad. I just hate it when he asks me to get him a playdate and I just know the preferred child is going to be unavailable. But as I’ve said, it will do no good to force B to be in PALS (the singing\/acting group at our school that sucks up all the little kids on Mondays and Thursdays until they are old enough to chafe under the strictness of the hours and the director). It is no use suggesting T-ball or soccer or anything remotely resembling a sport. But it is my job to make sure he has enough social skills to get through life okay, and since he cares about having friends, I use that as my way in.<\/p>\n

I coached him a little about the upcoming playdate with A yesterday: “Now Beastie, you know that when you’re with A, you should probably try not to joke about anything that’s about him; that doesn’t go over too well with him, right? He’s kind of sensitive.”<\/p>\n

“Right.” In a robotic voice. He goes back to his pad. “Hey, Ma, you know I think the lava guy should have crystal shards in him. I think they all should.”<\/p>\n

WTF?? “Yeah, probably.”<\/p>\n

It is so hard to know what is on his mind, because he hates to talk about feelings. He hates to talk about anything that he did not think to talk about. Simple conversation, with a give-and-take, is just not his cup of tea. He is not comfortable in the realm of emotion, either, except anger and happiness. His therapist has helped him with this considerably, however, and I think that development will take care of some of it, too.<\/p>\n

Natural development is totally underrated these days. Everyone wants to get in there and force progress out of their kids, ASD or NT. They have to learn tennis before first grade, so they don’t pick up any bad habits. They have to do piano by age six, or it’s too late. Math facts memorized by age eight. And don’t forget Early Intervention and the Marvels of the Elasto-Brain of the Five and Under Child! Therapy, therapy, and more therapy! Toilet train by two. 80 hours of ABA a week when they’re 9 months old, that will make ’em snap out of it! <\/span> Uh, Oh, we only did 79 hours with Nat! Oh, that’s <\/span>why!<\/p>\n

(Okay, okay, I’m just joking!!! Sorry!!!)<\/p>\n

Some of my critics call me old-fashioned because I champion acceptance of our kids’ quirks (Hello, Making Peace With Autism<\/span>) rather than forcing them into the narrow round holes of Mainstream USA. But listen, I really do understand the impulse to push, push, push! I, too, tried a bunch of things with Natty when he and I were younger, (dietary change; Floortime; we had him tested for Celiac’s disease and gluten\/casein intolerance; we were on a waiting list for that pig hormone <\/a>everyone went ga-ga over in the 90’s, but then Nat was determined not a good case for it. (I don’t know why, I think because he has never shown any G.I. problems, he’s as regular as a clock); sensory integration; and of course, ABA ad nauseum<\/span>.)and mark my words, the trends come and go. Sometimes I get close to trying one thing or another but then I start to get skeptical again and to feel like it all sounds like it could be anything that causes the positive changes cited. This is what happened to us over the years with all the well-vaunted approaches we tried.<\/p>\n

But most parents get a feel for what works for their kid over time, and it can be any of the above or more that works. It could also be a better attitude on the part of the parents and teachers that help the child do better!<\/p>\n

And guess what worked best for Nat? Getting him into sports! How’s that for irony? I always say, “At least I have ONE NORMAL BOY!”<\/p>\n

Progress is what you decide it should be. I think Nat is whizzing ahead in lightyears these days. Yesterday I was scolding Ben for wearing the same pants for two weeks (yes, that is what I said), and he protested my demand that he change. Nat whips around and looks at Ben’s annoyed face, and a big grin appears on Nat’s face. He starts rocking and smiling and then laughing a little. I said, “Natty, are you laughing at Ben?”<\/p>\n

The smile got even broader. Oh my God!<\/span> Ned and I looked at each other. Whoa, Nat! It was definitely<\/span> a case of Nat being a nasty older brother, glad to see his sibling (with whom he has a difficult relationship) a little unhappy. Thank goodness Ben didn’t see! I guess that is progress, too, that they didn’t end up fighting. He just sighed and went upstairs and changed his pants.<\/p>\n

Mean Nat! Resigned Benji! Now I’ve seen everything! But to me, here in Bizarro Land, that is real progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe \u2014 and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land!–Robert Heinlein, 1961Oy, go and have children.–My Great-Grandmother, “Bubbe,” Sarel WolfsonLittle B is on his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-fE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}