Liz Emrich's Open Salon Blog

Two Years Old: Little Man Recap

Tue, 1 Jun 2010 22:06:41 -0400

When I first started blogging on Open Salon, Little Man was two years old.

My first post on OS was a hyper-political post about the 2008 democratic primaries. Back in those days, OS was still in its “beta” form, and the small community of people that wrote and commented here was vibrant and committed. Many of the people I met in those early days of OS have become treasured friends.

But the thing that has meant the most to me during my two years at OS has been the opportunity to share the experience of finding out my son has autism, and everything that has come after.

When I joined OS, we’d already spent months struggling with Little Man’s feeding disorder. At the time we’d been told he probably didn’t have autism, that he was one of thousands of kids who simply don’t eat. We didn’t know what was in store.

Then came our first parent-teacher conference at the Montessori preschool Little Man was enrolled in. For the first time, it was confirmed that something was amiss. It would be several weeks before we had a diagnosis confirming that Little Man had aspergers syndrome, a form of autism.

But finding out about his neurological disorder was only the beginning. Our son’s school made it very clear that he was not going to be welcome as part of next year’s class because of his autism. We were devastated.

But the work of raising a child doesn’t stop, and we were hoping that the early identification of his condition meant that an aggressive program of speech therapy, occupational therapy, and even tweaking his diet would help his progress. And of course, the stress of having a disabled child threw a monkey wrench into an otherwise happy marriage.

And after much thought, I finally found a way to respond to the school that had so casually rejected my son on the basis of his disability. It wasn’t as dramatic as a lawsuit or a media expose, but maybe, just maybe, schools will be a little bit wiser about how to deal with kids with autism.

All along, our son did what kids do – he kept growing up. He kept changing, and challenging our expectations. He even swung on a trapeze. And he even started to make some progress.

Through all of this, the OS community has been tremendous support. Many of you also have children with spectrum disorders or disabilities, and you have given me glimpses into my future, and inspiration. Both on the pages of OS and in person, many of you have followed us on this journey. Your encouragement and support have meant the world to me.

I started out here on OS as a political geek, a social commentator, with some liveblogging thrown in for good measure. Over the course of the past two years, the Little Man Chronicles have become the heart of my blog here at OS. This is only natural, as Little Man is very much at the center of my heart, period. And I have to say, I have received so much more from OS than I have contributed.

So on this, my two year anniversary, I really only have one thing to say:

Thank you, OS. For everything.

Little Man Graduates

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:05:11 -0400

My son is about to become a graduate…of preschool. Well, actually, of two different preschools. And yes, there will be graduation parties.

I am as proud as any parent, of course. Who doesn’t love an opportunity to celebrate their child? But, part of me is a little ambivalent. It’s preschool, for chrissakes. Little Man will be five years old. And while he understands that he is going to go to a spiffy new kindergarten classroom next year, I really don’t think that he looks at it as some great rite of passage. Certainly it’s not one that deserves the fanfare of a graduation ceremony.

I have three degrees: a high school diploma, a bachelors, and a law degree. So I know a little bit about graduations by now. For me, each graduation was a significant milestone in my life, one that I will remember forever. It mattered to me that my family and close friends were there to share it with me. Each time I graduated, it was with the understanding that my status in life had irrevocably changed somehow. And that change was cause for reflection.

At first glance, it just doesn’t seem like that big a deal. Preschool, even a good, challenging preschool program doesn’t do much more than your garden variety episode of “Sesame Street.” Letters, numbers, some basic math and science, reading. Sure, the preparation provided by a good preschool seems insignificant, but it does establish the building blocks for learning.

But in my son’s case, there’s more than meets the eye. As some of you already know, Little Man has aspergers. That means developmental challenges. When he was diagnosed, there were a laundry list of issues that needed tackling. Among the most critical was his ability to pay attention and sit still, a skill educators sometimes refer to as “attending.” Now nearly every four year old has a slight issue with sitting still and paying attention. My son, however, was worse than most.

Another issue my son has is “scripting.” When you or I want to talk about something, we decide what we want to say and say it. Well, imagine if instead of constructing thoughts and putting them into words and making sentences, you essentially memorized bits of speech you’d heard before and parroted them instead of creating original speech. And then you repeated them over and over, especially when you wanted attention or were anxious. That’s scripting.

Then there’s the motor skills issue. Little Man has some issues with both gross and fine motor skills. He has trouble crossing his midline, meaning that he is not comfortable using the left limbs on the right side of his body and vice versa. He also has trouble operating some of the reflexes in his hands, which makes it difficult to hold a pencil or crayon to write.

Even with all his challenges, Little Man is one smart little boy. He’s known all his letters since about three. His numbers too. He understands how things work, and he remembers what we tell him, sometimes uncannily so. He likes to find out how things work. He’s known how to find the on and off switches for all his toys since he was nine months old. My husband jokes that in a few years we’ll have to put the toolbox under lock and key, lest we find the television dismantled on the floor.

But these challenges he has have the potential to disrupt his learning process. If he can’t learn to attend to tasks, he’ll have trouble absorbing instruction from his teachers. He’s already behind in his speaking and writing skills.

For the past year, Little Man has been in the public school system’s special education preschool five afternoons a week, and in a regular community preschool three mornings a week. Now, he’s about to graduate from both.

A few weeks ago, the local elementary school where Little Man will attend kindergarten held an open house for new families who would have kids attending the school for the first time in the fall. Of course, most of the parents had kindergarteners like my son. For them, this would be their very first foray into the county public school system. They were dutifully concerned about all the things they should be – how were their little darlings going to handle riding the bus to and from school? Who would get them to and from their classrooms? What would lunch be like? While the parents sat in the assembly hall fretting, the children were herded off to their future classrooms to meet their teachers and classmates, and tour the school bus.

I sat in my wooden elementary school assembly hall seat somewhat bemused. After all, Little Man had been riding the big yellow bus home from school for almost a whole school year. (Contrary to popular belief, the special ed kids don’t ride a short bus in my county.) Very little of the carefully reassuring presentation was of use to me. I already knew the drill. Apparently, off in his soon-to-be classroom, Little Man demonstrated equal aplomb on his tour of the school bus, nonchalantly sitting on a seat, buckling his seat belt and patiently waiting to actually go somewhere in the bus.

Starting Kindergarten at the public elementary school wasn’t really that much of a milestone. He’d already been in a public elementary school for a whole year. Having a full day of school wasn’t a milestone, either. He’d been doing that three days a week all year.

No, the milestones my son was going to celebrate with his graduation would have nothing to do with riding the school bus or attending a new school.

When he started this year, the majority of his speech was scripted. Now, the majority of his speech is actually original speech. He only scripts when he’s stressed out or bored. He’s sometimes too quiet, and his ability to engage in longer exchanges, particularly with peers, is still developing.

When he started this year, he did nothing but scribble with pens and crayons. Now, he can write his name and draw simple shapes and trace lines. Although he’s still not decided which is his dominant hand, left or right.

As for his ability to attend, he’s made dramatic improvements. He now sits in circle time with the other children and participates as required, eagerly, in fact. He has his moments, of course. But it’s markedly improved.

Little Man is not finished developing the skills he’ll need to support himself in an academic environment. And he may never be fully capable of connecting to his peers in a “normal” fashion. But he’s on his way. He’s going to be in a regular kindergarten class, receiving only minimal support from special education programming. And if he keeps making progress at the rate he is, he may soon be able to operate without any special services at all. Even the “gifted and talented” program isn’t out of his reach. Given how strong his cognitive skills are, I’d say he’s got as good a chance as anyone.

It’s not quite the graduation anyone expected. Certainly not the one his peers are experiencing. And it’s not the life-changing, earth-shattering experience that comes from a diploma. But it is a milestone. And I have to believe it’s not the last.

Taking it Personally

Wed, 19 May 2010 18:05:27 -0400

The “stroller wars” have almost become a modern cliché. If you are a parent with a child under 10, you’ve probably been on both sides of the battlefield. On the one hand, you have been the persecuted parent who has been made to feel inadequate because you aren’t doing everything exactly the way the “parenting powers that be” have decreed.

You probably have also assumed the role of judge, jury and executioner of your fellow parents. You watch in horror as a parent does something that isn’t actually illegal or abusive, but is something that you would clearly never, ever do. Later, when you are with a like-minded friend, you will exclaim, “I cannot believe what this woman did with her kid today at the playground!” And you will each make the appropriate horrified noises, secure in the knowledge that you are the superior parents.

In this modern age, we take our parenting so very, very seriously.

This is probably to be expected, particularly among the highly-educated, upper middle class whose ways have always been considered what’s “normal,” even though it’s by no means representative of what the majority of Americans experience. The parents who were members of the “Baby Bust” generation, a.k.a. “Generation X,” went through the latchkey kid phenomenon, getting many of our best life lessons from episodes of “Fat Albert” as opposed to our parents. The kids who came after us, born in the early 1980’s, were exposed to all the angst and ambivalence that comes from parents who desperately want to be liked by their kids. The bottom line in all these vast generalizations is that parents in the new millennium are bound and determined to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors.

And so we are diligent. We read books. Oh. My. God. Do we read books! Thirty years ago, there was one book. It was written by a guy named Dr. Spock, and parents either loved or hated it. My husband, the fourth child of six, raised by an Air Force mechanic and his no-nonsense wife, joked that the only way his mom used Dr. Spock’s book for parenting was to throw it at him when he was misbehaving. Thirty years ago, if you got pregnant, your girlfriends would have lots of advice they gleaned from their own experiences with their children or younger siblings. Now, if you get pregnant, your girlfriends will give you a reading list full of books by parenting experts detailing their theories and research on other peoples’ kids.

The reliance on “experts” is understandable. We lack the sense of connectedness we used to have. People don’t stay in their hometowns. We don’t always know our neighbors. The close-knit communities that our parents grew up in, filled with parents and grandparents who had a wealth of experience to share, are becoming less prevalent. And the media’s “if it bleeds, it leads” sensationalism has made us a lot more wary of potential sexual abuse and kidnapping, to the point where even if we had contact with our neighbors, we’d be unlikely to trust them. This is not an entirely bad thing, of course. Parents should be conscious of who interacts with their child, and wary of strangers who might have an agenda.

There is now a cottage industry around making parents feel like they are doing everything possible for their children, even if what they’re doing doesn’t actually work. Julie-Aigner Clark, founder of the Baby Einstein company, made millions creating a video product for babies of questionable value, that parents religiously bought for their children, on the word of mouth that it was “good” for their child’s development. Parents now spend at least $10,000 in the first year of their child’s life, and upwards of $16,000, depending on where they live and their demographics. One has to wonder how much of that money is spent on things that are actually necessary, and how much is spent to secure junior’s future, which is only possible if he is carried in the proper sling, pushed about in the proper stroller, and given the proper brain-stimulating toys to play with.

The phenomenon doesn’t limit itself to babies. Companies like Sylvan Learning and Kumon make money hand over fist promising to improve the academic performance of primary school children. Every new bit of research that touches on parenting is front page news, debated in Talmudic detail by parents around every watercooler, playground and school bus drop-off. Wars are waged over school redistrictings and class start times. Entry into “gifted and talented” programs, science and technology high schools, and magnet schools are sought like the Holy Grail, with affluent parents (and even families living paycheck-to-paycheck) spending thousands of dollars on whatever it takes to secure a child’s future in one of these programs.

Oh yes, my friends, we take our parenting very, very seriously.

Because we have invested so much of ourselves into our parenting, we are naturally defensive when our parenting is called into question. Among the stroller set, the worst violation of etiquette is to suggest that a fellow parent’s methods are somehow deficient. Disciplining someone else’s kids using your own standards runs a very close second.

I saw this first hand on the playground one morning when my son was on a playdate with my friend’s son. Maddeline’s son, just turned four, was wanting to play on the roundabout. I’ll admit, Maddy and I had gotten to talking and we weren’t really watching what was happening. We only knew that Maddy’s son was crying that he couldn’t play on the roundabout, and there were four other, older boys playing on it. So Maddeline went to ask the boys on the roundabout what had happened. She wasn’t angry, she was asking them a question about what happened.

The mother of the four boys, who also had not been paying attention, swooped in, chastising Maddeline for “accusing” her boys of something. She had no idea what was really happening. All she saw was that some other mother was attempting to discipline her precious children, and she didn’t like it one bit.

It’s become the sacred cow of parenting. No one tells you how to raise your kid. Indeed, start talking to a parent about how they raise their kids, and they’ll spin out the master plan of how they’re bringing up the next Einstein, or Beethoven, or Madame Curie. They’ll tell you all about their beliefs – whether it’s “free range parenting” or “old school discipline” or new age flibberty-gibbet – and your job is to nod and smile and not pass judgement. The parent’s right to decide how their child is raised is inviolate.

After all it’s their kid, right?

The problem with this is that it’s become a way for parents to excuse whatever objectionable things their children may do, and force others to indulge their idiosyncrasies. Annoyed by a kid that has a habit of running around in restaurants bothering the other patrons? Well, the parents like to “let kids be kids” and who are you to question how they raise the child? Your kid is on a playdate with a kid who’s so bossy it’s like playing dolls with Attila the Hun? Well, the parents don’t believe in being negative with the child, so don’t expect to hear anyone tell her “no.” Wondering why little Eddie can come to the birthday party but can’t eat any of the snacks? Well, mommy has a thing about little Eddie ingesting anything that isn’t organic, so those Good Humor fudgsicles aren’t going to cut it.

It is their kid, so who are you to question anything?

Parents are indeed responsible for their children in every possible way, from a legal standpoint. A parent’s duty to monitor and control the life of their child, everything from schooling to medical treatment to contractual relationships is indeed inviolate. But modern parents have transformed what is, in essence, a legal responsibility into a form of social narcissism.

Parents have poured their hopes and dreams into their children for as long as there have been parents and children. This is nothing new. But never have we lived in an age where parents have been so ready to inflict their desires for their children on the world around them. It is not enough anymore for parents to create their desired environment for their children at home. They must ensure that anyplace their blessed offspring wanders is consistent with their personal vision of childrearing. After all, it is their child, and you don’t get to make decisions for their kid.

I think this is where people rightly get pissed off at parents. Your kid does not give you the right to create the world as you wish it. Raising your kid is a responsibility you have, not only to your child, but to society at large. It is not a right that you get to bludgeon others with. Nor is your kid a canvas on which you must express your personal philosophies about life, the universe and everything.

He may be your kid, but as he grows older, he enters society, and he becomes our problem. Whatever crackheaded things you’ve put into his head, whatever strange habits you’ve inculcated her with, everyone else will eventually have to deal with it. And sooner or later, your kid will have to navigate the world without the plastic bubble you have so lovingly created around him.

I know as well as anybody how hard it is to raise a child. I have a four year old with a developmental disorder. I recognize that kids are not perfect, and even when a parent is doing the best they can, there will still be times when kids act out. I have hopes and dreams for my kid, and I would love him to go into the world representing our values as a family. And I don’t like others telling me how to raise him any more than the next person.

All I’m saying is that modern parents need to stop taking their parenting so personally. It’s not about you. Sure, you have a terrific responsibility as a parent, and you want to do everything possible to get it right. But if you are living every day of your life aiming to prove that you’re the best mommy or daddy on the block, you’re toiling in vain. And what will be the measure of your effort’s success, anyway? There’s nothing to win -- the “parenting powers that be” do not give trophies. And most kids never really grasp how much goes into giving them their start in the world, so they never show the kind of gratitude that a parent with this kind of chip on their shoulder craves.

What’s worst of all is that children have a crazy way of usurping all your efforts, good and bad. Plenty of kids that come from good homes with wonderful parents end up disappointing, and other kids whose moms and dads are all but checked out of the parenting process still manage to become accomplished citizens. Sometimes, there simply isn’t a correlation between effort and outcome in parenting. Your kids are going to surprise you. And if you’ve invested too much of your personal identity in being the “perfect” parent, you will not weather those surprises well.

Most modern parents will protest that it’s not about them, it’s about what’s best for the child. Everything they do, they do for the child. But even that approach is a little misguided. Because no one, not even a child, has the right to expect that all the world will bend to his or her needs. The social contract in which we all participate is a reciprocal transaction, and the sooner children learn that, the better equipped they are to function in the world. The parent that insists that everything around the child must be directly tailored to the child’s needs is quite simply being unreasonable.

I’m afraid the answer in this modern age, where parenting is serious business, is the same answer that works to solve so many of life’s dilemmas: balance and moderation. Parents need to ease up on the expectations – of themselves and of each other. And they need to make a little extra effort to participate in social settings without making an issue of themselves. The dance of life is more complicated than having everything revolve around you or your child.

Yes, he’s your kid, which is why you should never make him our problem.

The Sad Truth About Rielle Hunter

Sun, 2 May 2010 00:05:52 -0400

I watch the TV in my studio while I do work. I absorb a phenomenal amount of bullshit TV in the name of having noise in the background while I work.

When Oprah did her hour-long interview of Rielle Hunter last week, the needle got buried on the bullshit meter. For all her talk of “truth” – her commitment to it, John Edwards’s “path” towards” it – the fact of the matter remains that her relationship with Edwards was built on lies. Lies he told to Elizabeth Edwards. Lies he told to his staff. Lies he told to the press. Lies he told to the American people.

The innate and pervasive hypocrisy of it was not lost on anyone, least of all Oprah, who dutifully asked the follow up questions that pointed out the irony of claiming to be committed to “truth” while participating in so many lies, and loving a man whose entire life seemed to be a lie. Rielle Hunter’s response was merely that it was “weird.”

No honey, there is nothing “weird” about it.

Most commentators to the John Edwards and Rielle Hunter debacle have focused on the near miss to the American public. They have pondered questions like, what if he had actually won the primary and become the Democratic nominee? What is it with politicians that they have to do such stupid, self-destructive things? What does the whole episode have to say about American politics and politicians? In other words, they have with their questions attempted to transform this tawdry little affair into a larger-than-life epic tale that is somehow “important” to our nation.

The sad truth is that most of these questions are rather inane. Let’s be honest here about the 2008 Presidential campaign. John Edwards was not in any danger of getting the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, and even if he had succeeded, he would never have won the Presidency. John Edwards wasn’t even capable of winning a statewide election in his home state, much less a national election. He was a candidate with more failure under his belt than success, who had spent the last four years working for a think tank. He’d have had no chance even if he’d never met Rielle Hunter. Let’s not forget, Edwards was already out of the race for all intents and purposes when word of the affair first surfaced.

And let’s not kid ourselves about the nature of affairs. Why do we persist in believing that somehow politicians are magical beings who are more moral, smarter, more accomplished than the rest of us? John Edwards is not the first man in the Universe who dallied with a pretty woman when he grew tired of doing the hard work of maintaining his marriage. The fact that he did so had very little, if anything to do with his political career. I daresay John Edwards would have had an affair even if he’d never embarked on a political career.

But lest we berate ourselves too much, let’s not forget who’s kidding themselves the worst – Rielle Hunter. What was most painful about watching her conversation with Oprah was the convoluted justifications Hunter had for nearly everything that had happened. Rielle Hunter twisted all the events of this affair as she related them, attempting to cast herself and John as misunderstood soulmates, caught up in John’s “path to truth.” The level of contortion was worthy of a Cirque du Soleil act.

The facts Hunter revealed about her affair with John Edwards, even in their contorted state, were tawdry to be sure. She told Oprah the she and Edwards did not have protected sex, meaning that the risk of pregnancy and disease were there from the beginning. Edwards told her he loved her. She bought Edwards a duplicate cell phone that looked just like his work phone, so that he could appear to be talking about work when he was really talking to Rielle. She claims Edwards was “gracious” about her pregnancy, and never once pressured her to give up the baby or terminate her pregnancy. And when John Edwards denied their relationship in a TV interview, he called her immediately afterwards to tell her that “it didn’t mean anything.” She admitted that the rather nice-looking North Carolina home she is living in is even now at least partially financed by John Edwards. When asked whether she was still seeing John Edwards, Hunter was evasive, refusing to answer.

What struck me about the whole interview was that all through her stilted narrative, it was clear why Rielle Hunter was talking to Oprah – she wanted validation. She was tired of being cast as the “skanky mistress.” She wanted to be viewed in a more sympathetic light – as the woman who loved John Edwards and was helping him with his “search for truth.” It was clear she had been telling herself this series of justifications since the beginning of her relationship with Edwards, and she believed them so thoroughly herself that she honestly thought that America would find them convincing.

Her comment over and over again that her story was “weird” on the surface sounded like an acknowledgement, an attempt to defeat her critics by showing she understood their view. But even in this, Rielle Hunter is kidding herself. The fact that she considers herself “committed to the truth” but still participated in an affair isn’t “weird.” There’s nothing unusual about it in fact. It happens every day.

People have affairs all the time, and most of the people who do don’t see themselves as bad people. They are constantly inventing rationalizations, narratives that explain why they are betraying people they have made promises to, why they are participating in a relationship of which society disapproves. These narratives always portray the situation as unusual in some way, so that the participants in the affair can claim that this is a special case. We all want to believe that we are good people, and we are perfectly happy to invent convoluted reasons why what we do is good, even when deep down, we know in our hearts it isn’t.

It’s an innately human trait to go into denial when we do things we aren’t proud of or disappoint others. Kids as young as four know how to make an excuse for themselves in the vain hope that mom will buy it and not punish them for their misdeeds. With her hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar, Rielle Hunter is no different from any other kid, really, except in the fact that her capacity for self-deception seems so limitless that she can in one breath acknowledge that John Edwards has lied to everyone in his life, and yet, claim that he has always told the truth to her.

The mark of maturity in situations like this is not the elaborateness or persuasiveness of the explanation, but the wrongdoer's willingness to own what they did, regardless of the explanation. They recognize that an explanation is not an excuse, and that no situation is ever so special that it justifies hurting another person. RIelle Hunter is a child, clinging to her self-conceptions and the belief that hers is a "weird" special case.

Rielle Hunter is no different from any other woman who’s talked herself into an ill-advised relationship with an attractive married man who is looking to step out on his wife. She is not special. And at this point, one has to wonder if all the media attention hasn’t contributed to Hunter’s pathetic belief that what happened between her and John Edwards was anything more than a cheap affair.

Oprah’s first question to Rielle Hunter was about the fact that apparently no one in Hunter’s life thought her doing an interview on Oprah was a good idea. (Given the ridiculous justifications she’s been laboring under, it’s not hard to see why…). But the more important question is why the people in Oprah’s camp thought this interview was a good idea.

Lets not kid ourselves anymore. The sad truth is that there is nothing special about her story, nothing to learn, nothing to gain. Aside from satisfaction of the puerile desire to hear the intimate details of the affair, Rielle Hunter has nothing to offer.

It's time to turn the channel.

With the Greatest of Ease

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:12:28 -0500

It is one of the less attractive aspects of child-rearing that the little buggers seem to have a knack for changing the game on you just when you think you have them figured out. No sooner do you think that you have a handle on the whole newborn thing, they go and start crawling, and the fact that they will no longer stay where you put them forces you to reassess everything you do. Your happy little grade-schooler overnight morphs into that most-dreaded of all jungle creatures, the “Tween” and suddenly everything you do as a parent is dead wrong. The feeling of competency as a parent is fleeting. I don’t care how capable that mom at the bus stop looks, scratch the surface and you’ll find someone who’s constantly off-kilter, holding it together with paper clips and duct tape. Just like you.

When you’re living life on the spectrum, raising a kid with Asperger’s, it’s really no different. They grow up at a different pace, and with different quirks, but they do grow up in their unique way. Little Man has been surprising us this way a lot recently.

This fall has been rather ambitious. After last year’s debacle with the bigoted private Montessori school, we enrolled Little Man into two different preschools for this year. Three mornings a week he attends a private community preschool that leases space on a county-owned park that is also a working farm. Many of my friends’ kids attend this school and have loved it. When I was first told that I would not be allowed to send Little Man back to his other school, this school was my first phone call. I will forever be indebted to them for the compassionate and caring response I received. Five afternoons a week, Little Man attends the local public special needs preschool program.

I have discussed the issues that surround public special needs education before. And as recent news stories will attest, special education in America is a hit or miss proposition. School systems are required by law to provide it, but often underfund it, understaff it, or fail to watch over it. I am blessed to live in a county that has a vibrant special needs program, and a community blessed with excellent, caring special ed teachers. My son loves his teacher, Miss Katie. He calls her “sweetheart” sometimes. If there is even a hint of protest at having to go to school, he softens when I remind him that he’s going to see Miss Katie. If he were a little older I’d swear he has a crush on her.

We’ve also kept up private therapy, both speech and occupational, and we’re doing swim lessons. It’s a full schedule, and keeping up with it has been grueling, both for me and for him. Two different schools three days a week, school five days a week and therapy two days a week is quite a schedule for a four-year-old, disability or no. And it took him almost a month to adjust to the change. I know his teacher at the farm school thinks we’re a little crazy.

But we had our reasons. Little Man is at a stage in his development where his brain is a little sponge, capable of absorbing things quickly and making rapid strides in a short time. And indeed, he is an entirely different little boy than he was before school started. His social interaction has improved dramatically. His speech is coming easier, and though he is still engaging in way too much scripted speech, he’s made progress.

The most dramatic improvement has been in his eating. The little boy whose signature trait used to be his refusal to eat anything in quantity and from only a small range of foods now surprises us daily with what he’s willing to try, and how much he’ll eat when given a chance. Little Man now eats peanut butter and pasta. He’ll put away kiwi fruit and now eats cupcakes with gusto. Yesterday at the grocery store, he insisted on buying celery, and he was so excited he couldn’t wait to get home to try it. Literally. His volume has gone way up too. Although we still keep a watchful eye on whether he’s putting on weight, and monitor his percentiles, mealtimes are no longer the minefield they were two years ago. We’ve even started adding small quantities of dairy (mostly cheese) back into his diet, because we have discovered that cheese is a huge motivator. Promise my son cheese and he’ll try just about any other food once.

I have to admit we pushed him a little, and it’s been really gratifying to see him not only stand up to our expectations of him, but in a lot of ways exceed them. Sure, kids with disabilities cannot always do what a “normal” kid does. A paraplegic might be able to drag himself up a flight of stairs, but they should not have to. A kid with a severe case of autism might not be able to talk, and even if they can may not be able to have a conversation. But I’ve seen parents cop out on their kids, too. The truth is the list of things that a disabled kid can’t do is often a lot shorter than his parent thinks.

Take that classic bugaboo for kids with autism – the ability to transition and adapt to new situations – the fact that it’s going to be difficult doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. And it’s definitely true that very often kids on the spectrum cannot live up to the social expectations of being out in public. Inexplicable things will send them into a screaming fit. But I do know parents who never challenge the presumptions of what their kids can or can’t adapt to. If the child demonstrates a fear of a certain kind of shopping cart, the parent will spend the rest of his life assuring that Junior never again encounters it. If the child acts out when they try to take him to a birthday party, the child might never again accept an invitation, or at least not for several years. Once bitten, twice shy seems to be the operating principle.

In fact it’s very easy to become almost enamored with the “specialness” of your disabled child. You are the parent of a beautiful, unique child for whom the rules that seem to bind others just don’t apply. There is a certain wonder and adventure in discovering parenting methods that work for your very different child. And quite frankly, it’s a great way to shut up judgmental parents who want to tell you how to raise your kid. Play the “autism card” and not only do they forfeit completely any right to question you, you become their brand new favorite supermom. Because hey, if you have a disabled kid you must be a saint, right? Well, that’s the theory anyway. The allure of being “special,” outside the rules others have to play by, has its charms. Given how difficult raising a special needs kid is, it’s actually surprising more moms don’t fall into this trap more often.

The trick is to never let the diagnosis turn into an excuse. The diagnosis can explain behaviors and educate you as to why something is happening or not happening. But pointing a finger at the diagnosis and saying, “because of this my child is absolved from trying to do something other kids his age can” is a whole other matter. You’ve crossed the line from compassionate parenting of a disabled child to copping out.

People marvel at Little Man’s ability to calm himself when he starts to get anxious and wind up towards a tantrum. I’ve had parents, teachers, social workers, therapists, and others tell me how amazed they are at his ability to self-soothe, something that kids with Asperger’s often have difficulty with. And it’s a skill that has come with much hard work on our part. We’ve worked extensively with him from the time he was a toddler, teaching him that he can pull himself together when he feels like he’s losing control of his feelings. While it was hard at the beginning, and he’s by no means perfect all the time, he’s at a place now where most of the time, if he’s upset, with a few minutes of conversation, a couple deep breaths, and the occasional time out, he can work it out.

It’s a fine line that every parent walks with toddlers – teaching them that they can control how they express their feelings while still communicating to them that it’s perfectly natural and okay to have the feelings in the first place. With autistic kids, the reaction is so disproportionate, so overblown, that the temptation is to assume that it’s uncontrollable – that control is something the child simply can’t learn right now, and the only thing to do is remove the child from the situation and pray the screaming stops. It was perhaps a willful blindness on our part that enabled us to avoid the trap. We simply didn’t accept that it was impossible or even difficult. Until he demonstrated to us that he couldn’t control himself, our presumption was that he could, and we would continue to try to teach him to do so.

I’m not perfect at this, though. Even I fall into the trap. And over Thanksgiving, Little Man found a very special way to remind me that I should never presume that he can’t do something.

The dive shop in my community put together a Thanksgiving weekend dive trip to the Bahamas, one that was so inexpensive that we couldn’t pass it up. And although the resort hotel we stayed at was run down, the diving was excellent. The other attraction that seemed to not have suffered the ravages of time and inattention was a real, honest-to-god twenty foot-plus high circus trapeze, manned by a troupe of three performers who did a really basic acrobatic and trapeze show in the afternoon, and gave lessons to guests during the day.

The first day after we arrived I was supposed to go diving. When I woke, I realized that I wasn’t going anywhere. The muscle in my back just behind my shoulder blade had seized up overnight, immobilizing my neck and putting me in a state where nothing was comfortable most of the time, except for those moments that were punctuated with sharp, blinding pain that caused me to scream. Until I could spend a few hours on my back in bed and get a proper deep tissue massage from someone competent, I was useless. My ever-reliable, wonderful husband agreed to watch Little Man for the day while I lay in bed reading, and occasionally screaming.

By lunch I was eagerly awaiting a massage and had made it about halfway through my paperback when my husband and son burst into my room, triumphant.

“Tell mommy what you did.”

“I went on the trapeze,” Little Man said.

My husband was beaming. “Twice!”

There was that moment of shock as I visualized it in my mind – my son twenty feet in the air, swinging from a slender bar with nothing but a belt and few pulleys for safety and net for when he fell. My heart jumped.

“He went all the way up there?” I asked.

“Yeah, he just climbed up the ladder, and he did it! Then when it was over, he did it again!”

I was proud of him. I would never have thought my skinny little boy with his poor muscle tone and his grip problems would have ever proven to be a budding trapeze artist. Of course, fate being a cruel mistress, there are no pictures of him on the trapeze. Daddy is not as camera-happy as mommy, and missed the chance to photograph the event.

And I knew in my heart of hearts that I would never have allowed it to happen had I been with him instead of his daddy. I would have assumed he couldn’t, that he would get up there and choke, that there is no way he wouldn’t get up there and freak out and balk at actually jumping off the tiny platform. Had it been up to me, I would have denied my son the joy on his face, I would have assumed that he was incapable. Because he was on the spectrum. I was guilty of presuming that the mere fact of his disability precluded even an attempt. He would not have been able to demonstrate the newfound confidence in his body that we had been seeking for months in his occupational therapy.

The list of things my son can do is obviously a lot longer than I think it is. And it includes swinging on a circus trapeze.