The Good and the Bad and the I'm Not Sure

Being a mom to a child with special needs means celebrating little victories, unexpected signs of growth. Throughout this time of Covid, my son (at the age of 12) has learned to give himself a shower, to make his bed, to make a pizza, to ride a bike without training wheels and how to pour himself a drink from a full gallon jug of orange juice.   He also mastered vacumning the floor, feeding the turtles and is now fully potty trained.  He can dress himself fully, he's planted bulbs in the back yard and knows how to help pick up the trimmed branches and compost it.  These are great skills and we wouldn't have dreamed all these things might have happened but for his being home with constant persistant coaching by his sibling and parents and desiring to fit in and show his own independence.  

However, with all these steps forward, there's the isssue that every parent of a kid with special needs has, the issue of whether this new level of independence requires a new level of vigilance on the part of the parents.   He can take a shower...do I need to always check to make sure the temperature is right.  I do, because he errs on the side of cold.  We've got to figure out a work around so he can make sure he doesn't resign himself to freezing showers.   He knows how to prep for a pizza.  We have to make sure he never thinks he can do the next step until we're sure he knows the safety issues involved.   (He gets out a cookie sheet, a pita bread, the sauce and the cheese and he can assemble it).   

With all these steps forward, we've learned more about how Paul thinks and acts.  He imitates and he thinks by association.  He watched the Disney shorts and he assembled a set of John Henry using blocks and cars to indicate the tracks and the mountain and the train.   He uses short hand with his communication device to let us know which song he wants to hear on the radio --crab means Shiny from Moana, frog alligator bug means Going Down the Bayou from Princess and the Frog.  We usually can guess from context what he wants and what he thinks, but part of it is just knowing what he loves and likes and thinks about.   

Sometimes however, he has a bad day.  We use a chart to help him keep on track.  We draw a check list and that works for bedtime routine and class work.  Because he struggles with screaming in class sometimes, we devised a plan --three X's in class mean no TV.   He knows this.  Last week, he got a bad report. Three X's.   He didn't like the report so he found his own paper and drew three checks and a smily face and what was unmistakably, a forged signature of his oldest sister who often oversees him while he works and keeps track of his behavior.   

It was hard not to laugh.   

The next day, he settled in to watch a favorite movie,  Spiderman Into the Multiverse.  On the deck that day, a huge spider had spun an impressive web. He could see the spider and the web as he watched television and I knew he'd connected the dots.   It's very hard to explain to Paul, "No, you can't get bit by the spider. It's not radioactive."   

Like I said, the things you have to anticipate, that no one can prepare for, they're what makes being a parent of a special needs kid interesting.  What's a gentle reminder to me, he's taking notes on me too.  He's learned to anticpate how I think. 

The other day I said I was stressed and he showed up with a candy bar from his Halloween stash and a diet coke.