Yeah, we didn't have the benefit of an autism diagnosis until A was 9, so we couldn't put it into perspective. I kept saying his behavior wasn't typical for his age...I didn't know ANY other kids who would cry like they were being tortured because mom walked up the stairs before dad. He had these routines from the time he was only a year old or so, that if we did anything differently, he would completely freak out. Like, the first time we went to swimming lessons, we got off the bus and I needed to cross the street, but I wasn't sure which one. I went one street too far and had to double back before crossing. The next time we went, I knew the way, so I just crossed immediately and he starts screaming, terrified, saying we were going the wrong way. I pointed to the rec center and said "No, look, there it is. This is the right way." He kept insisting we had to go back, cross the street, go to the other street and cross back like we did the first time. He refused to go further, even though we could see the rec center from where we were. I had to pick him up, kicking and screaming, and drag him there. The next week, he started crying as soon as we got off the bus and asked if we could PLEASE cross the other street first. So we did that every week. I asked him about it and he said it made him feel safer. My husband didn't believe there was anything going on because he was at work all day and wasn't witnessing these meltdowns. I got pretty good at dealing with them, and I learned to have a lot of patience with him. But because I did, my husband didn't really notice anything. He knew A had a lot of meltdowns, but I was good at dealing with them, so he figured it was just typical kid stuff and nothing to worry about, while I was completely frazzled having to deal with meltdowns all day every day. Now that we understand what was going on in his head, it makes it easier to deal with, and now my husband is a lot better with the wording and being able to get to the crux of the problem and figure out solutions.
I'm curious...did I understand that correctly that strangers wanted you to hand K over to them to walk around with them to calm her? That's kind of creepy.
I think my mom's definition of bad behavior was more like your friends'. It used to really embarass me that my mom would try to discipline other people's children. She would tap a kid on the shoulder at church and chew them out for being disruptive, because she thought the parents should have put a stop to their wiggling around or whatever. She spanked her friend's kid once when they were at our house....I was in college by that time, but there was a friend who was around my age and who didn't have parents anymore. I guess my mom was kind of like a parent to her in some ways. But she was married and had a little boy about 3 or 4 years old, and the boy had some issues. He talked, but it wasn't understandable....he didn't really pronounce consonants, so he called me "oo-uh". It was extremely difficult to understand him. When our mutual friend was in the hospital with pneumonia, my mom and I and this woman went to clean his house so when he got out of the hospital, he could just come home...it was Christmas vacation, so I was home from college. The woman brought her son, and he was 3 then, and while they were working on cleaning, I was kind of babysitting him. We were playing with the checkers board and he started throwing the pieces, so I told him we don't throw things, and he picked up the board and threw it at me. He just wasn't used to boundaries, and his mom really had no experience with kids before she had him and she was really young. He just hadn't been taught how to behave really. Anyway, they went to my mom's house once and he was mad because he had wanted to go to the playground or something instead. He started pounding on my mom's piano and my mom scooped him up and paddled his behind. I would never do that to someone else's child. Well, I don't spank my own kids because I know it really never taught me anything when my mom spanked me except to be afraid to make mistakes. I usually didn't know what I had done wrong. But I certainly wouldn't put my hands on someone ELSE's kid unless it was to grab their hands when they are trying to hit me or something. I can't believe the mother wasn't livid. But that was mom's thing....you do what I tell you to do and you do it right now, or "I'll spank you so hard, you won't be able to sit for a week". I wasn't allowed to go anywhere where there wasn't adult supervision, so if my friend's parents weren't home, I couldn't go to their house. In high school, I was allowed to go out for a walk or whatever until it started to get dark, but in the winter, it gets dark early. It's really embarrassing to be the only 17 year old whose curfew is 5pm. And for going to the movies, etc, we had to drive 40 miles to the next town where they had a movie theater, fast food restaurants, etc. I was only allowed to go with a friend if their parents were driving, OR I could go if my brother was going. I wasn't allowed to go with my friends until I was a senior in high school because my brother was away at college. But I wasn't always allowed to go then, either. Some things seemed reasonable....it was a 40 mile drive, so things like calling her before we headed home....if something happened on the road like we got a flat tire, it was dark and there were no cell phones then. So she knew how long it should take, and if it took longer, she should come looking for us. She did have to come pick us up once when my distributor cap got a hole in it and the car wouldn't start. Fortunately that time, we had stopped at the gas station to use the pay phone to call her to say we were on our way, so when the car wouldn't start, we just had to call her back and tell her to come get us and we walked a couple of blocks to perkins to wait for her. Calling was a reasonable request. But I didn't understand why my brother was allowed to take a carload of his friends to the movies, but I wasn't. I couldn't go unless he went. My brother could go to a friend's house without the parents there. My brother could go to a girl's house, but I couldn't go to a boy's house. My brother could go out after dark, but I couldn't. I asked her once why there were different rules and she said because I'm a girl and girls can get into a lot more trouble.
The music thing still boggles me. It was an honest mistake. 2 folders on the music stand, exactly alike, you grab one and don't realize it's not yours until you get home. It's got the same music in it...and we were 11 years old. We were beginners....there WERE no markings in the music. We were still learning "This is an F, and this is how you play it." It really wasn't the end of the world and it could have happened to anyone. The fact that it happened to the golden child of our year who was known for being really responsible and intelligent is proof that it wasn't the result of negligence or stupidity. It was just a mix up. But when I went to college, my mom would come to visit and she'd go through my drawers, my bank book, she'd open my mail, she'd listen to my answering machine messages. She'd wait until I went to the bathroom, and I'd come back and get interrogated about why I spent $3 on a snack when I had the dining plan...that was a waste of money and it was irresponsible. Or I'd come back and she'd be listening to my messages and asking me who so and so was, what they wanted, etc. I started hiding my bank book....I actually forgot where I hid my check book and had to wait until I moved at the end of the school year before I found it again. And I would go to the bathroom BEFORE I let my mom into my room. My senior year of high school, my mom announced that she was going to move to Laramie with me for college so I could live with her instead of in the dorms. I told her she was welcome to move to Laramie, but I wasn't going to live with her. I wanted the dorm experience. I wanted to participate in activities with other students and know what was going on on campus...I wanted to be independent and really get the full college experience. What I DIDN'T tell her was there was no way I was going to tell my new friends that I couldn't go out after class because my mommy said I had to come straight home after school, or that my curfew was dark. I had been biding my time until I went away to college so I could finally be out after dark, go out with friends, hang out at someone else's house, etc. I knew if I lived with her, even though I was an adult, that wouldn't be allowed. So I just told her I wasn't going to live with her. She was so mad, and she told everyone I "wouldn't let her move". I told her "You can absolutely move there if you want, but I won't be living with you." "Well then there's no point in moving there!" My brother lived there too, so she would have been close to both of her kids....the real reason she wanted to move was because she couldn't control me if I didn't live with her. She was terrified of what I would do if she wasn't the one making the rules. She told me that I wasn't allowed to go to a different church. She had already chosen my religion for me. I was LCMS whether I liked it or not! She was very controlling, and I think she was convinced that anything other than her opinion was wrong, and doing anything against HER wishes was terrible behavior. I'm not familiar with stepford wives, so I'm not sure what that means, but if it has to do with controlling adult children, that was my mom.
Seeing I banged up my entire side I'm going to putter in my steps the best I can but nothing else until at least the weekend. I'm much better than I was and am healing more quickly than expected. Hoping everybody else is doing better than I am
I should have looked first.
