Compassion and Children

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Bob and Ina were a middle-aged childless couple living in our small Kentucky town after being missionaries in a land across a sea. They were building a home where they would spend their retirement. On the day we were to go over to ooh and ahh about the place, before we left, Bob grumpily told me to make sure I kept the kids' grimy hands off their freshly painted walls.

Oh, I was indignant. AS IF. Anxious as I was back then about any signs of imperfection, I spent the entire walk-through tensely replacing curious childlike arms at sides lest they mar the precious walls.  

Still striding purposefully forth as a young mum, I'd take walks with a baby strapped in the Bjorn carrier on my front, a toddler in the Tough Traveler backpack on my back, and a slightly larger toddler in the umbrella stroller. With all my energy consumed by carrying the weight of their world on my body, we walked and I taught them everything I could think of, everything we saw. 

When my baby number four came along, I shifted from carrying the physical weight to carrying the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual weight. We had sent Valerie to kindergarten that fall because baby was due in late October and even I knew it might be a bit much to homeschool three (ages 5,4,and 3) with a baby on my hip. 

Once kindergarten had concluded, I had my vim and vigor back and embarked on the formal process of educating our kids. Thinking that my kids were uniquely unique in their uniqueness and pretty much the top kids ever born on this small blue dot of God's green earth, we spelled and sang and memorized and walked and drew and added and read our way through the years.

The bombshell of our later-in-life baby who brought Down syndrome into our world threw me for the looped-de-est loop that ever sideswiped a mama bear. And I reeled for years, trying to continue to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.

Finally, finally, I learned to embrace the whole kit and kaboodle, the mess and inefficiency and snail-like pace of these bright, quick, beautiful, sentient beings. 

Last night, as I set out to floss my teeth (take note, dentist person!), my special floss threaders for my lingual bar retainer were not where I had left them. Immediately, I suspected knew that Kepler was responsible for this reorganization, but he was asleep so no asky keppie tilly morning. 

Years ago, I would have raged, furious that I couldn't leave a small item out on the counter and know it would be there next time I needed it. By now, though, I simply put my Kepler thinking cap on, and remembered that he likes to put miscellaneous items down the laundry chute. 

I checked. No flosser threaders, but I found two barrettes that had been next to the f.t.'s and grew suspicious. Little Keppie has occasionally flushed a thing or two before. 

Throughout, I was calm, open to what lesson I might be having the chance to learn, and accepting the change in plans that is part and parcel of children in our lives. The compassion section of my heart has had room to grow as the controlling section has faded.

Although not everyone gets to or wants to say yes to the chaos of children, ours have been part of my journey to acceptance, which, by the way, I'm still on. 

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Small Victories, Baby, Small Victories

Sometimes I think I must be the most obtuse person in the universe.

A little background. Darling daughter started public high school this year, after several years at a 2-days-per-week program 12 miles away. Twice a week, I drove her and picked her up. Had to. No other option. This year, we started by having her ride the bus. School is one mile away. That lasted a week because there wasn't time to get her stuff after school and get to the bus in time. Without thinking it through, I said, "Hey, I'll take you and pick you up."

Here's what I forgot. Darling husband is rarely here at going to school time, so KEPLER and I take her to school. Does Kepler enjoy this process? No, he most certainly does not. He has shown his displeasure many a morning by refusing to budge. He's a strong kid, and it takes both me and DD to hold him (gently!) by the upper arms, and perp walk him to the car.

Isn't it Steven Covey who first emphasized the power of being proactive? I finally got proactive yesterday.

Kepler needed to understand what I was asking him for. I was waiting around for him to catch on, and wake up one morning, and say, "Mother, I now see that it is futile for me to be so obstinate about taking big sister to school. I'll be right with you as soon as I complete my morning ablutions. It won't be a problem anymore." Ooh, good plan there, mom.

See, obvious, like I told you.

But, poor kid, before I got specific and slowed down enough to explain it, he was in a whirlwind of activity every morning, usually me looking for my glasses. And then my keys. And my shoes. And his shoes. (another thing to be proactive about, obviously).

First try had me explaining that I wanted him to cooperate, but I didn't make it very clear what that meant.

Our first trial run was yesterday afternoon on the way to speech therapy. He was doing well, until he determined that me placing his unfinished cup of milk into the refrigerator was decidedly unwelcome and should not be tolerated. FINALLY we got into the car, but I decided he hadn't been cooperative enough. Which then made me realize that I had to get really specific.

So, I explained that I wanted him to cooperate and I explained exactly what cooperation is. In this case, it's simple: put on your shoes, put on your jacket, walk to the car, when asked. Such cooperation earns the privilege of listening to the Frozen soundtrack (for the 87 millionth time).

After speech therapy, he COOPERATED. This morning, he COOPERATED. This afternoon, he COOPERATED. I guess I cooperated, too, by making it possible for him to be successful!

Small victory, but trés, trés sweet.

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Why I'm not going to the National Down Syndrome Conference

(Note: a truncated version of this message was distributed owing to Blogger behavior on certain iDevices. This is the complete post.)

I've been seeing Facebook posts from excited people talking about the upcoming convention in July. The early bird deadline is today. But I've decided not to go.

(This post would probably be a lot more popular if my reason was owing to disagreeing with the official position of someone who is speaking, or with the vision statement of the NDSC. However, I'm just not much about controversy. I tend to think that both sides are worth listening to in *most* cases. My reasons for writing have to do with my own experience, and my hope here is that my experience will resonate with someone else.)

My file cabinet, inbox, reading list, desktop and a box are full of materials on so many aspects of Down syndrome. How to teach reading, kindergarten readiness, inclusion best practices, oral motor tools, lists of apps, apps, physical considerations, speech and language development. I could probably throw my own convention!

I think the ongoing challenges (opportunities, in the positive thinking parlance) take up a tremendous amount of energy for me. I can see how extroverted moms and dads might really thrive in the convention atmosphere, but I think my brain might just pop if I try to put too much more info in there.

Maybe the biggest challenge (opportunity) for me is to actually use my resources with any consistency. I often say that if Kepler had been our first child, he'd be being raised differently. More lessons, more teams, more play dates, more therapy, more deliberate educational activities at home. But, well, with him being our fifth, and coming along when I was losing energy rather than gaining it, I can occasionally accept my more lackadaisical, laidback parenting and recognize that Kepler is a happy, well-loved, smart kid.

More often than not, though, especially in environments such as a convention, I become aware of how very lackadaisical and laidback I am and always wonder if his speech would be more intelligible if I were doing more; if he might be reading already if I'd followed through on all the reading resources I know of. So events like conventions just seem to drain my energy.

It finally occurred to me recently that it might be a great idea for me to hire a babysitter sometimes. I have had several built-in babysitters, but Kepler adores being the center of someone's attention, which is what he gets from a hired babysitter. What a relief to discover that I don't have to do every. last. thing. myself, that babysitters can even put Kepler to bed! That's a step in the right direction to being able to be a little more free for events such as a convention. (Of COURSE Greg puts him to bed sometimes; he just travels a lot.)

The thing I would enjoy about something like the convention is the possibility of finding a new heart-to-heart friend who understands life with Ds from the inside. Between all the moving we've done, Greg's traveling for work, and homeschooling, many friendships have faded away over time, and have been replaced with e-friends. These days, making new friends IRL seems like a challenge indeed.

But if parenting has taught me anything, it's that I am resourceful and creative and persistent. Simple next step is to invite a mostly online friend to get together! It's not like I have to plan a 200-person catered affair to get to know someone!

I've already got two people in mind.

Tl;dr: Writer is on information-overload, but social-underload.

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How Gary Keller's The ONE Thing got Kepler to Stay with me in the Parking Lot

Look at that little angel face.  Would you ever suspect he'd run away from his mommy in a store, parking lot, park, anywhere-he-needs-to-stay-close? For Kepler, it seems that "Stay with me" is apparently secret code for "Run, Forrest, Run!! Talk about danger!

Taking him places was becoming a huge problem. I dreaded every trip.

Enter Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. Or at least their book, The ONE Thing, The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results.

Not only did I:

- hear about the book, but I also 

- reserved it at the library, and I

- checked it out and brought it home, and amazingly,

- read it from cover to cover, blanketed it with PINK post-it notes, AND

- put it into practice. 

I'm particularly adept at those first three steps, but actually getting around to reading the book is more challenging, putting it into practice is as rare as a two-headed unicorn.

Keller examined the research on multi-tasking and writes on page 44, "Multi-taking is a lie." We simply cannot FOCUS on two things at once. Narrowing our focus to ONE thing yields extraordinary results, as he says. Let's see.

With multiple areas in life that simply must be addressed daily, I have tried to do much multi-tasking. Sometimes it works for things that don't need strong focus, but one where it doesn't is parenting. Applying Mr. Keller's thesis I made a list of the essential areas, and then asked myself this question about each area (see The ONE thing, pg. 106). Here's parenting:

Q:  What is the ONE thing I can do today in regard to parenting that will make everything else easier or unnecessary?

A:  Read and complete the first three chapters of "Without Spanking or Spoiling," a parenting book I have had since 1996 and have not yet read!

Q: What did I discover in those first three chapters?

A:  To define the problem specifically and behaviorally. Vague problem definition was "Kepler doesn't obey." Specific is "Kepler runs away when I tell him to come to me."

Q: What else did I discover?

A: To brainstorm solutions. I came up with 10. 

1. Buy and use a child leash.
2. Take a 3 ft rope along to show him maximum distance he should be from me.
3. Create a simple rhyme like "Obey means Stay."
4. Appeal to his desire to be helpful.
5. Find books on the topic to read to him.
6. Create a social story.
7. Leave him home at all times.
8. Carry him everywhere.
9. Allow him to lead and explore occasionally on errands.
10. Make a leader badge for him to wear where it's his turn to lead.

Q: What happened when I took him next to the store?

A: We got out of the car and he proceeded to dash out into the parking lot while I was getting the cart. (I hadn't made my plan yet!) I grabbed him by the arm and his eyes got wide as we got into the backseat and I gently continued. I looked in his face and said words I guess I never really said before: "Kepler, you MUST stay with me for your safety. There are cars and you could get hit by a car if you run away from mommy. If anything happened to you, I would cry forever." Of COURSE  I had told him bits and pieces of this but not like this; not sitting in the car giving HIM my full attention, focusing on just this ONE thing. 

My words apparently resonated with his sensitive heart, because when we got out of the car, he specifically stood right by me and looked up at me showing me what he was doing. I ended up allowing him to lead part of the time, gave him huge kudos for the good things he was doing -- staying with me, helping me, listening, and I used a previous helpful rhyme: OK means Obey, and added, Obey means Stay. 

You probably know Kepler is the youngest of five kids. The other four didn't run away. Ever. Why? I don't know. They probably thought about it, but maybe my face was stiffer and sterner back then. So who needed strategies for this back then? 

tl;dr: Gary Keller's book The ONE Thing, The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, has practical applications in parenting and made a huge difference in my experience of taking my child on errands with me.

I'll probably have to review all of this next time, and the time after, and the time after, but he will eventually understand and apply, and so will I. I just have to remember to focus, really focus, on ONE thing.

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