Well to all of you who have been encouraging my further brain dumps...
I never really enjoy dropping my son to kinder. I'm always on edge about what type of day he is going to have, and watching him interact with others hurts my heart a little at times. He is a clever, wonderful, and mostly social boy...but to my eyes (and this is a confession I guess), he is somewhat socially retarded. Is it something we have or haven't done at home? It would be easy to blame ourselves...we've been blaming wheat for a while. But in the end, perhaps it's just his personality and all we can is try to improve his skills as best we can.
I suspect the part that hurts the most is how many of my own traits I see in him. Things I can't stand about myself - accentuated and magnified. As an adult I think I've learned for the most part to minimise my own foibles as best I can, whilst trying very hard to accept some things are just a part of who I am, and shouldn't be changed no matter what anyone thinks.
And really, I know many of us say it isn't so, but is there anyone who doesn't care what others think of them? Obviously there are degrees, but isn't at least part of being human, wanting to be accepted? So we dress the part - or deliberately choose not to depending on where we want to fit in. We present the best part of ourself on blogs, or at work, or at kinder showing only the parts of ourselves we know aren't going to be controversial or whispered about (unless again the aim is to be controversial and whispered about)
I just know that if I can't learn to accept myself, then I will struggle to accept my son, and he in turn will struggle to accept himself. It is important also to be authentic, and damn the consequences - being true to oneself is surely the key here.
Monday, June 1, 2009
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6 comments:
Ooh, I can relate to this a bit. I wouldn't say L is socially retarded, he's a very social and nice little boy. I think in that area he is much more confident than I ever was. But he is a bit of a goofball! and he lets his goofiness out whenever and wherever he feels like it. He does some strange things. Things that I know other kids will/may think him weird for doing, and I worry that it will affect his ability to be accepted and to make friends. Part of me knows he's just a kid, and that he's just doing stuff that makes him happy and part of me wants to tell him to not do stuff like that at school! I'm so torn between letting him just be who he is, and trying to get him to stop behaving that way so he won't become a target (I was bullied at school so I feel very anxious about what kids can do to kids just for being a bit different). I have to remind myself everyday that he is not me and hopefully I don't project anything on to him that causes him to stop being who he is.
I don't know what I'm more worried about - having a kid who is a bit dorky and who will get picked on OR having a popular kid who is the bully. At least if she's picked on I can sympathise and empathise. But if she becomes the popular but mean kid how do you find out what they are doing and then control them or rein them in?
I know exactly what you mean.
YK the thing is, the bullied can become bullies...either is a concern.
Without getting too much into it, I really see some ADD symptoms in him. Not the traditional ones but some of them - BUT - taking the wheat out of his diet really helped. We have let it back in the last month, and it's just the last little bit the behavioural symtpoms have returned. Soooo it's back off the wheat for another spell.
It's difficult isn't it.
We (our extended family - DH, his Ex and me, and to a small extent my DS)are at the stage where awe are trying to decide what secondary school will be best for DsD as she has high functioning autism. I suspect she will cope ok wherever she goes, but it's other children we worry about most.
Socially she's not good in some areas, but she's excellent in others, but she doesn't understand "appropriate" behaviour and any attempts to reinforce 'appropriateness" is thwarted with a meltdown of dire proprotions. Those who don't know us cery well don't understand what we go through with her.
Diet hasn't helped us. We are hoping speech therapy and the proposed autism plan will help, but sadly, I still can't see her being accepted in a maintream highschool.
There's that word again eh? "acceptance".
*sigh*
http://knittywomanonatrain.wordpress.com
It's such a tough thing to sort out isn't it!
Some days I think that I should just chill out and back off... let my girls be who they are. Does it matter if they don't have heaps of friends? Does it matter if they want to spend every second together? Does it matter if they grow up to be the freaky twins who still share a bedroom at 60?
They are who they are, and I love them for it.
But there is this fine line... the line between letting them be who they are, accepting them and loving them regardless... and wanting t0 help them cope in the 'real world'.
I accept that they don't want to be apart but I know that there will be times where they have no choice in the matter and I want to better equip them to cope with those times. I'm so fine with them not being little Miss Populars but I want to equip them with skills to make good friends and to stand up for themselves in a group of peers.
It's a fine line we walk... and it's bloody well not easy!
I've felt, and still feel a lot of this about one of my children - for his sake, I won't mention his name. Even just this week I've seen some of my own social oversensitivities (which are based in fear of rejection) in him. I've also seen one of my MIL's and Dh's socially deadly flaws in this child (wanting to make others feel the hurt he's has perceived thrust upon himself)...
It's really hard.
On the other hand, I know that with experience and maturity, things changed for me to some degree, even if it was a change in my own behaviour, it was a certain level of self-awareness that allowed me to mitigate my own response to particular kinds of situations, don't know if that makes sense.
Caring about what other's think of you have many facets. Personally, I don't care much about how people perceive me in the larger public arena, but how my closest circle of friends perceive me is very important to me.
I tend to say things publicly that other people wouldn't, either because they don't feel confident doing so, or even because they don't believe it's their place to say whatever...
At the same time, I sometimes hold back with my nearest or dearest because I fear losing their friendship...
Sorry, to ramble, just one more thing... For me, my vision impairment is also a social impairment because I often don't see subtle cues others do see, and yet, in this son of mine, I see the same lack of awareness despite perfect vision (for his age), so who knows what is genetic and what is socially learned from parental modelling...
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