Toady is one of the those days that it's incredibly difficult to be the parent of a child with Asperger's Syndrome. Sam is going through a really defiant stage lately- lots of "I hate you!", "shut up!", "I'm not going to listen to you!"- I'm sure you get the picture. We've been plugging along with our normal disipline routine- be as non-reactive as possible, give frequent resets, even loss of computer privileges. The problem doesn't seem to be improving at all. This morning after I had heard about the 10th argument over something I asked him to do (which included everything from whining to screaming to verbal abuse on his part), I pretty much lost it. I threw his backpack at the front door and told him to get out of the house and wait for the bus. Of course now I feel a whole lot worse for the way I handled it.
We all know that feeling when we are getting close to losing it. Even the most patient among us has those moments. It feels like momentum grips us and we are propelled ahead and over the cliff, not matter how aware we are that it's not the right thing to do. We know this is true of Sam. Whenever a situation with him starts, if it isn't immediately put to a halt, it only escalates and can become 10 times worse. This, to me, is the very root of the problem behaviors. I keep going over and over in my mind ways to put a stop to the escalation. I feel there has got to be a fundamental way to do this that so far I'm missing.
I don't feel proud of myself and I definitely don't feel like I'm doing a good job when I lose it. I realize that I'm only human and one can only hear so much of "I hate you!" before it starts to wear you down. I try to give myself a break- I'm not perfect, I'm just a mother that is scared to death for the future of my son. I keep waiting and praying for the lightbulb in his head to go on. When is he ever going to get it that being so reactive is not going to get him anywhere? When is he going to start accepting that things can't go his way 100% of the time, not everything he does is going to be his idea, that other people have feelings? This is something that makes autism so hard to deal with. What motivates Sam and what goes on in his mind as far a logic and what makes sense is so hard for me to wrap my mind around sometimes. I feel like if I could just understand, I'd be able to so much more effectively parent him.
Motivation to do the best I can for him is always driving me. Even when I fail miserably (like this morning), I'm still driven to improve. Part of my brain can't believe that the child I have guided for 8 1/2 years could be on the brink of being out of control. But then I realize that all bets are off in this situation, and that plain common sense is only a small fraction of what goes into handling this problem. I guess the next step is (after allowing myself 15 minutes to wallow in self-pity, is to get back on the horse to try again.
