Today ended well. We went to a potluck with our fellow Bible
Study families and for the most part, it went well and our children behaved.
For most parents, this would be a no-brainer. For me, I am almost crying, I am
so relieved and the emotional fall-out after the event is over is almost like
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Why? Because I have a nine year old with
extreme social anxiety and behavioral issues.
What does that mean? It means my oldest son is very
unpredictable in social settings (well, he is almost predictably badly behaved,
but it is unpredictable how badly he is going to behave.) In social settings,
he gets very anxious. He worries about what people are going to think about
him. Then he gets himself worked up and any perceived slight or insult will
trigger his anger. He calls names, he swears, he hits, he throws a major fit.
At best, he is just sullen and rude and leaves everyone alone to sulk in a
corner, muttering to himself and we just hope no one gets close enough to hear
the awful things he is saying.
This has been my life with him for about three or four
years. Sometimes it has been better than this. Sometimes it has been much, much
worse. School has been a nightmare. We have him in therapy with a psychiatrist
and he’s on his 2nd counselor. He sees a counselor and a
psychiatrist at school on a weekly basis as well. His school has created an
action plan of rules just for him, because he doesn’t fit into any of their
existing protocol for dealing with troubled children.
I hardly leave the house during the day, because I don’t
want to get a phone call from the school telling me I need to pick him up when
I’m somewhere that I can’t just drop everything and go get him. I spend every
school day cringing with dread any time the phone rings, because so many times
it IS the school calling to tell me something I don’t want to hear.
Social occasions are nightmares. I can sense the thoughts of
the other parents as my child acts out. He’s behaving like a spoiled
uncontrolled brat and I’m helpless. I feel their judgment on my shoulders. “Why
does she allow that?” “Why doesn’t she punish him?” “That mother needs to have
a firmer hand.” “She needs to grow up and control that kid.”
I just want to cry. So many of my fellow parents do want to
offer support and understanding. But as much as I appreciate their support (and I do, it does help!), very
few of them can really understand. It is one of those annoying circumstances where
you can’t ever fully understand unless you are living it yourself (and I used
to hate it when people would tell me that, but I’ve come to know that sometimes
it is true). Only other parents of special needs children can understand. Leaving a party, restaurant, or other place
due to a tantrum is something most parents experience. But for most parents, it
is a limited-time phase a child goes through or a once-in-a-rare-occasion
occurrence. For a parent of a special needs child, that phase can last years
(or a lifetime). The frequency of occurrence is more like 95% rather than
5%. If your child acted out to the point
you had to leave during a social function 19 out of 20 times, instead of once
out of 20 times, would you be tempted to cut back your social calendar? I think
so! The intensity of what we “special needs” parents are dealing with is so
hard to explain so that a parent of “normal” children can understand. It is a
bit like a person with a sprained ankle trying to understand what it is like
for a double leg amputee to live in a world full of stairs.
Maybe none of the other parents are thinking judge-y
thoughts about me, but I feel like they are, because half the time I’m thinking
that about myself. I feel like a failure
as a parent ALL THE TIME. But being firm with my son doesn’t work. Disciplines
that are standard fare for most children (time-outs, grounding, taking a
favorite toy away) don’t work. He’s not a spoiled brat – he has anxiety. His
brain does not function the way a normal nine-year-old brain functions. His
thought patterns are different. He gets locked into a cycle where he feels
attacked and his only recourse is to attack back. His brain perceives little
problems as huge life-or-death problems and then he’s at a point where reason
just doesn’t work. He’s out of control and there is nothing he can do about it.
There is little that I can do about it either, except to remove him from the
situation.
Once he calms down and his brain unlocks and he can think
and reason again, he’s almost always remorseful. The worst part is that he
hates himself. He hates that he can’t control his brain. He hates that he
embarrasses himself and us as his parents. That embarrassment just makes his
anxiety that much worse the next time we have a social function to endure.
So really, it is no shock that we tend to avoid social
situations. So much easier to just not go in the first place, than to go and
have to leave partway through, humiliated and defeated, frustrated and angry,
sad and despairing that nothing will ever improve – my heart exhausted for
myself and broken for my son.
However, that won’t really help him in the long run, will
it? He’s on two different medications, he’s been in counseling for almost two
years, we’ve learned a lot as his parents. So we have been trying to increase
our social life. Tonight’s venture to the potluck was a step in that direction.
We talked to him before-hand, explaining the timing of the event, who would be
there, what his options for activities were, what we expected of him, what the
consequence would be if he made bad behavior decisions, etc. We braced
ourselves and prepared for the worst – we had a game plan in place in case he
behaved his worst. Then the evening passed with only a few minor incidents. One
of which got him a time-out on the couch, where he immediately started to get
into fight mode, but we both sat down and were able to talk to him before he
escalated. We were able to praise him for the good play he’d been engaged in
with the little kids up to that point. We stressed that we understood how hard
it was to be the biggest and oldest kid and not be able to play as roughly as
they were because he was bigger and stronger. Then we gently explained how his
behavior could be harmful and asked that if he didn’t feel he could play
safely, that he could choose to draw with the drawing paper and pens we’d
brought for him instead. He opted to come hang out with us and draw for a bit
while he had dessert and within 15 minutes had regained his control and went
back to play and the evening ended successfully (of course, we were the first
ones to leave – we wanted to get out of there while we could still end on a
positive note!) We told the kids how proud we were of their behavior (our 2nd
son is high-functioning Autistic and so has his own set of issues sometimes!)
and that we appreciated their good behavior because it allowed us to enjoy rare
grown-up time with our friends.
Still, even as well as the evening went, I was an emotional
mess once we got home and I put the kids to bed and had some down time to decompress.
Even though our oldest behaved himself pretty well this time, I was still
waiting the entire evening for the usual fall-out. Like a soldier returned from
battle who hits the ground when a car backfires, my heart rate increased every
time I heard a crash or a child cry. Even if it wasn’t my child causing the
tears, my stress level was still zooming up with each incident – whether my
child was involved or not. By the time we got home, I was emotionally
exhausted. Just another side affect of living with and parenting a child with
social anxiety and behavioral issues. I still count tonight as a win, though,
and it gives me hope that there are more wins in our future.
I know that God gave us the children that He did for a
reason. I know how much I’ve grown as a person in my tolerance, patience, and
understanding. I am a stronger person for having parented my son and I hope to
be even stronger by the time he’s a grown man and living his own life. I hope
and pray that he will be stronger too, and in full control of himself, having
learned how to live with his anxiety and anger. Most of the time, despite all
the struggles and pain and worry and stress we’ve been through, I feel positive
about the future. I trust God’s purpose for our lives so I have hope that what
we are enduring today will be used for something great in the future. However,
I am still human. This isn’t easy. There are times I want to cry. There are
times that I do. But amongst the little defeats, the many set-backs, and the
huge blowouts, there are sweet, precious moments of winning. I’ll take them.
