Thursday 24 September 2015

Happy ever After?

This time three years ago, our lives were about to be turned upside down as the boy met his biggest challenge yet when he started secondary school.

This time two years ago, I felt an utter failure as a mother. Despite the fact that I had taken him out of school in an attempt to try and restore some normality back to our shattered lives, I just felt that I had got parenting all wrong and a huge sign stating failure was shining brightly above my head.

The boy was also diagnosed with Aspergers at the time and we eagerly accessed our local autism centre to find out more about how to support him and educate him. There was one particular book that had several experiences written by parents and it was reassuring to hear that we walking along the same path. However these tales had been written with a "happy ever after" at the end, they had managed to create some success for their children which made me feel even more frustrated as our story was just beginning and I could not visualise how it was ever going to end.

 If you are reading this now at the start of your journey as a parent of a child with special needs, I embrace you and reach out to you in the chaos of your hopes and dreams raining down upon you, the normal rights of passage of parenthood disappearing into the horizon, the increasing isolation from your friends, community and society as a whole and that overwhelming distress that you feel as you say "this wasn't meant to happen!"

But it did and I guess it happened to those parents that I read about too.

So, in the aftermath we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves down and started walking.

Every positive change I noticed and observed. If he engaged well with a lesson that I taught him, or started to go out with his father for an hour and leave me behind. These little signs of recovery were like treasured jewels that I would hold and gaze and add to my collection. The excitement I felt when he disappeared with the other children one day during a home education meet up and I was able to utter that longed for sentence "where's my son?" was a moment I will always cherish.

I never take these experiences for granted.

Nowadays, the jewels are much bigger and shinier, a teacher remarking how hard he is working, a day out with a friend that he has not seen for ages, him buying himself some lunch. Yet I still pick them up, gaze and acknowledge silently that things are going Ok at the moment. I don't want to add the happy ever after to our story at the moment, I am still tentatively stepping. My husband remarked that he very much doubted I would ever relax where our boy was concerned. He is probably right.

I guess the failure sign has gone now. In its place stands a mother who knows deep down that the increasing amount of jewels that she has in her basket is evidence that she is undoubtedly right about how to care for her child. She is not afraid to  question the expectations that society places on our children and the need to somehow, at whatever cost to make them fit. Like so many other parents before me, I follow that path in the hope that for those that come behind me, a  less difficult time awaits  and that no one is ever made to feel a failure because their child is different.

xxxx

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