This is so Gage. And Sally, of course.
Me: “J, I’m sorry but I just think we shouldn’t make it harder on him; on us. I mean he has special needs, you can’t forget that. Things are harder for him no matter how much we see him move in the typical world.
Maybe THIS just isn’t his thing. His “thing” is another thing that he’s just not found. And that’s okay. It’s okay to let him quit. It doesn’t mean he’s a failure and he’ll be a quitter his whole life.”
My husband was at odds. He was reluctant to let Gage drop out of scouts. Since Gage crossed over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts (in May) he’s not been able to find his grove and we’ve had a lot of struggles to get him to meetings. Lots of protesting, small outbursts. Boy Scouts is Scout led and it requires more independence, something that is tough for Gage.
You see, Scouting was the only activity where he was involved with other people, with a group for a greater goal. It used to be the only thing he would do, you know, when he wanted to die. He’d dropped out of soccer, rock wall climbing and piano. But he was still connected to scouting, if ever so slightly. Sometimes he would go, not speak to anyone, and linger in the corner, sad and disconnected. But he still went. We were grateful he had something.
Was it just the stretch in moving from cub to boy scouts? Requiring more input and participation? Confidence issues in comparing himself to others? Too hard? Did someone do or say something? Maybe all of it or some of it. Probably, yes. Over the last several weeks he resisted going. Hated going actually. It’d been building into small bursts of Angry Gageness and going to week long camp, where they had fun, did not help, as Julian had hoped it would. Gage just tolerated camp. But now for meetings we’ve been having to prepare Gage two days ahead of time. That morning a warning and then a couple of hours before we’d have to get him started because it took him forever to get ready.
We spent a lot of time cajoling, encouraging, forcing, comforting, convincing. Frankly it was getting old. We cajoled out.
Julian was involved in working with Gage in Cub Scouts but that isn’t the case in Boy Scouts. And because of Gage’s special needs he isn’t able to navigate complex things (working on achievements, etc) without assistance.
He just isn’t.
It bothers Julian a lot that Gage has nothing else that he does in a group where he can learn how to interact with people; practicing how to look in their eyes and talk, talk without mumbling, have confidence in what he is doing/sharing, and just having to work through working in a group.
I don’t think Julian wanted to believe that but I had to tell him last night that maybe Gage is just that kid. That kid who isn’t involved in group activities. Maybe he’s happy to be at home, have a couple of friends and enjoy different things like art, junk collecting, lego building. Maybe he’s just that kid. Maybe he should accept that he’s different. Maybe it’s time to quit trying to get Gage to fit into a shape that doesn’t work.
I had to say that maybe it’s okay for Gage to have a smaller world.
I had to remind Julian that Gage has special needs. It hurt me to do that actually because I know; he knows. But because Gage is seemingly typical to outside viewers and it can be easy to believe it yourself in short spurts. We have glimpses of Gage typicalness. I mean, if you let it. It’s especially easy to let that kind of hope creep in because Gage is doing well. He’s had a great 18 months since his breakdown and it’s so easy and nice to be hopeful but yet situations like this are reminders that some basic skills are difficult.
Last night I told Julian that maybe it’s time to let that dream go. I had to tell him that we have to push Gage enough. For years – literally – we’ve had to push Gage into living; living by typical standards. We’ve had to force him into staying alive, in school, therapies, tutoring, into surgeries and push 10 years of medication into his body. Push, push, push. Always pushing.
I told him – right or wrong – that if we can make life easier on Gage then we owed it to him to do it and to me this seemed like an easy decision.
Julian is not so happy but he said he was facing the inevitable and allowed what was going to happen, to just happen earlier. So Gage didn’t go to Scouts. While Julian sees this as a fail on our part, I see it as embracing reality, embracing Gage as who he is today.
Julian is mourning what he believes is supposed to be and I am not. I am glad to take something off Gage that made him anxious. I don’t think I’m imagining that Gage was lighter at the dinner table after we told him he could quit.
It’s hard when one of us has to give up a dream for one of the kids. It’s harder still to navigate it as a couple and a family. It’s one of the kinds of things we do together with our opinions equally respected even though they’re very different.
In this case though, I think Gage’s opinion is the right one. Sometimes you have to let your kid decide something about their life even though it feels counter-intuitive. Sometimes it means letting go of an image; an idea about their life.
It also means letting something go inside yourself. Sometimes it means acknowledging that special needs rule your life more than you’d care to admit.
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
I always appreciate your thoughtfulness about these kinds of challenges. Sounds like it wasn’t easy but you came to a decision that supports who Gage really is.
It wasn’t hard for me, but it was hard watching Jman struggle with him letting go.
Great post! It can be so hard of letting go of what “we” think should be, isn’t it? We are struggling with this with Liam right now. He hates, HATES, the transition of leaving to go do something, no matter how fun. So he is resisting signing up for circus school this fall, even though he loved it once he was there.
sigh… it’s never easy.
And the balance of when to push, when not to is a challenge always with us too. I hope he can get over the transition if he truly loves it.
A wise man once said, “You got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em”. Okay…it was just Kenny Rogers but I find this to be so true in parenting. It’s hard to know when to push and when to stop pushing.
Indeed. The folding has been done. I’m so relieved and so is Gage, which means we’re on the right track. When Jman has a week to grieve it, we’ll be back in business.
I appreciated this blogpost.
Thought-provoking.
Got me wondering:
When is it right to push for your kid(s) to do something? And when is it good to let them decide? Am I making it unnecessarily hard on my child to practice fine motor skills through cursive writing? Or is he really capable and *I’m* the one giving up?
“Am I making it unnecessarily hard on my child to practice fine motor skills through cursive writing? Or is he really capable and *I’m* the one giving up?”
Valerie, this sentence REALLY hit home because this was our reality two years ago when G was in 4th grade. Between us, his special ed teachers we decided to let it go. It was one of the fights we decided not to have but your comment reminded me how hard it was because we did feel like we were letting him out of something he just found “hard.” But it’s more than that…it’s physically difficult because of poor muscle tone and it’s HARD. Not just a hard thing… you know?
You have to ask yourself… who’s dream is it that’s being let go. I know it’s hard. But it sounds like letting scouting go is the right thing. Maybe not forever but for now.
Have you looked to see if there is a lego program in your area? It’s a great social skills program. I forget where you are but if you are anywhere near South Jersey – I can recommend two programs. If you aren’t, I may be able to help you find one locally.
WAIT A MINUTE. There are Lego programs? Like official groups or meet ups.
Oh please help Julie. BECAUSE I NEED HELP! I didn’t even know Lego groups existed. I’m in Atlanta GA.
Oh girlfriend! They are wonderful! If I can’t find one in your area, maybe you can work together with some other parents to form one. I may be able to get you resources on how to do it.
Background – a doc in Voorhees, NJ (next town over from mine) who specializes in children with autism noticed an amazing thing. Kids who ordinarilly parallel play (if that), make no eye contact and have little to no social skills somehow are miraculously transformed when playing with legos. Now, all of a sudden, these kids are making eye contact with each other, working as a team to create a lego, making videos, etc. Since then, lego groups have been popping up all over the place! We go to one with http://www.missjoan.com who we love. I’ll reach out to her and see if she has resources for lego programs around the country.
I honestly just cried a little bit. THANK YOU. This is why I love the internet.
That’s what we are here for – to help each other. We are just one big worldly family (hey you’ve hung out with my friend Cecily so I consider you close family!).
He’s 12 (adjusted dev age is probably 10)
What’s your twitter handle again?
If he’s between K-5th grade, there’s this program… http://playinonpurpose.net/brainy_builders.html
Not quite sure about this one but.. http://midtownatlanta.org/item/83840
I haven’t found much more than this BUT if he’s receiving OT, maybe you can team up with the OT to get other kids together to form a lego program? It seems like the first link will come to you and set it up.
Good luck and please let me know how it goes!
My twitter name is #TheFoxx
So very true. Sometimes we as parents can get so focused on our dreams for our children that we forget to embrace the reality. My kids (both Aspies) are not involved in Scouts, sports, or music lessons (which breaks my heart not a little). But they both have activities that they love (writing, theatre, godhelpme Dungeons & Dragons) and where they excel, and that is our reality. Acceptance.
Yes…the wave of acceptance is hitting the husband right now. We’re trying music again. Hopeful as it’s the first time he’s been mentally stable and taken lessons.
For what it is worth, scouting was the hardest activity I participated in while in school because it was the thing that I most noticeably did not fit into because of social skils impairments. So much so that I still feel hurt by things that happened in scouts, which I quit 23 years ago. My parents had a firm rule that if you started an an activity you did it all year. Period. I’d been a scout for many years when it came to a head with an incident so bad that my mother let me quit effective that day (everyone but me and one other girl were invited to stay at the leader’s home for a slumber party after the meeting).
The activities I learned to enjoy tended to be a combination of independence with a little time with others. I ran track long distances (so practices were out on a road not with the team) and cross country. I did weight lifting. I did do creative problem solving team (actually Gage might enjoy this but I don’t know what the name is now; it used to be Odessy (Sp?) of the Mind. I worked on the yearbook but did ad sales. That kind of thing. Involved, sometimes even a leader, but not interacting all the time.
Just Me Jen
In another “for what it’s worth” comment…I don’t have special needs, but I was also a kid who had trouble fitting in, trouble with social skills, and was in a lot of ways emotionally younger than my peers. And in school, it caused me a lot of trouble. I wasn’t the most popular kid, I had a few bullies, I never felt like I fit in. I felt awkward. I felt like there was something wrong with me.
It’s only been as an adult that I’ve been working out that just because I make friends differently, or more slowly, and less readily, than most people, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me. I function better now that I’ve stopped fighting my conception of “this is how you’re supposed to be,” and started trying to navigate the world on my own terms, taking the way my own mind works into account. (A friend of mine helped me enormously with this. On hearing that I didn’t like to go to parties because I don’t talk to people I don’t know and always end up standing alone in the corner, she said, “That’s cool. We’ll make an Awkward Couch. Parties are full of people being awkward. All the awkward people will sit on the couch, and be awkward together, and it’ll be fine.” And oddly enough, it was.) Rather than fret about something I can’t change, I cut myself some slack and say, “This is how my brain and personality work. It’s something I can’t change. I might as well make peace with it.”
I hope that Gage doesn’t have to wait until he’s an adult before he finds that peace of mind. School is so focused on the social pressure of making kids fit in and function in a specific way that it’s hard to remember that being different can be okay. As much as it made my life harder, I’m also grateful for the little unchangeable kernel inside of me that won’t let me change to be everyone else, even though that would be easier. It won’t let me be something I’m not. I think Gage has this too. For all that being Gage is hard, Gage will–all his life–be indisputably, unchangeably Gage. Someday, he’ll figure out how to march to the beat of his own drum but still stay more or less in the same parade as everyone else. Gage is who he is, and that’s okay. Not being a Scout is okay. Having a little more time to figure out where he *will* thrive in social situations…that’s more than okay.
Sorry this is all long and presumptious. I happened over to your blog through Rob R.-H.’s and read the whole thing (really. The whole thing.) in the past month or so. Just think of this as five years worth of comments from me, I suppose.
I apologize if I sound creepy or stalkery.
I found it! It came up and I reread it and I wanted to say thank you for all these words…it really means so much to me. (I sent you an email)
EAK!!! Check your email! I found something for him!!!
We’ll miss Gage at Scouts. Please know, he was always spoken to and acknowledged at every Cub Scout meeting whether he responded or not. I do agree, Boy Scouts is much different than Cub Scouts. I can see where he’s a bit anxious and lost. Ian’s working his way into this new group of huge kids. Hope to see him around some. And I know Ruby and Ian do too:-)
Thanks Debbie. I am sure it is partly the switch from cubs to scouts and the requirements. I also think that it is this particular troop and possibly a lack of regard for any leeway (i.e., special needs), although Julian says I am mistaken with this notion.
Pingback: Scouting Inclusion Policies & Special Needs | Support for Special Needs
Pingback: Scouting, Inclusion Policies and Special Needs | Kidneys and Eyes