Small Victories

Yesterday we had a therapy appointment for Franklin.  We've been seeing this psychologist for several months now (we'll call her Dr. M) and she asked my husband and I yesterday how we thought things were going.  She said I seemed a lot less stressed. I told her I didn't feel less stressed and I thought that I could see little things starting to improve, but the big things still were not working for us.  I told her that I felt like the things that were causing us the most stress were not changing despite our best efforts to REALLY use the method she was teaching us to use.  Dr. M stopped me in the middle of my "complaining" and told me to take a pause.  She told me that she has seen huge improvements in the way that David and I interact with Franklin.  She told us that just listening to us in the waiting room before coming out to get us, she noticed that we're really working hard to try to help him problem solve and giving a voice to how he is feeling.   She said she really noticed how we were making sure to encourage him in the good things he was doing, which she said was a completely different scenario a few months ago.   Dr. M reminded David and I that even small progress is a victory and that it is important to focus on the positive changes instead of dwelling on the negative.  I guess when you're so used to things being difficult, or when change is so slow, it's really easy to dwell on what ISN'T working rather than on what is.  So Dr. M had us list all the things we thought were going well from our perspectives, and it really helped David and I see how things were changing for the positive.  We still have our struggles, of course, and things are changing slowly, but they ARE changing.  We just have to keep working at it, and we have to focus on what is going well, and we will get there.
Something else we discussed with Dr. M is the fact that I feel like I constantly need to explain Franklin's behavior to EVERYONE, whether it be people we know, or random people out in public.  It's hard when you have people in your life who don't believe that Autism is a real thing or don't really understand it.  My son is very high functioning, and a lot of his "Autistic" behavior manifests itself in what looks like "bad" behavior.  The difference is that my son isn't being hyperactive, defiant, or tantruming (is that even a word?) because he is not getting his way- he is doing it because his world is "literally" attacking him.  He doesn't hit because he's being a "brat," he does it because he wants your attention and he doesn't really know any other way to get it.  He doesn't scratch because he wants to hurt someone or himself, he does it because that provides him sensory stimulation that feels good to him.  So the way in which we deal with this behavior has to be different than the way in which you would deal with the behavior in a "neurotypical" child.  I cannot punish my son for these behaviors because of the reasoning behind them.   I feel like I am constantly having to explain these things to people because a lot of times I get, "but he needs to know it's not ok to do those things!"  Yes, he does need to know that those things are not ok to do because some of them hurt himself or others, however, instead of punishing, we need to teach him other behaviors to replace those that are not working.  We need to teach him the skills to deal with things in those situations, because trust me when I say that reward and punishment systems DO NOT work with Autistic children.  They just don't work.  Period.  Dr. M helped me realize that I don't owe anyone an explanation.  That I have the right to deal with my child in any way I see fit because I'm the mom and that's just how we do things. She made me realize that people are always going to judge or not understand why we do things, but it's not up to them, it's up to me! Hearing that really helped me, because I honestly think I am WAY too worried about what other people think when what I really need to do is focus on doing what is best for Franklin.  Anyway, there's my reflection for today.  I wish all of you dads out there a Happy Fathers' Day!!!