Asberger’s & Motherhood- Guest post by Porsche Christensen
NO! I can’t put my clothes on! You do it!” “You do realize that you’ll be 5 next month and 5 year olds put their own clothes on?” “NO! I can’t do it!”
“Please, eat your French toast.” “No! I want cereal!” “I made French toast.” “NO! Can I have a peanut butter sandwich?” “No. Eat your French Toast.”
“Mom, put a TV in the kitchen!” “No. We don’t need a TV in the kitchen.” “PUT A TV IN THE KIIIIIIIITCHEN!!! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Welcome to a typical morning at my house. And it’s not even 9:00 am yet.
Wow, you say. Your daughter must be a brat. No, she’s not a brat. She is a wonderful, amazing child. She is also on the autism spectrum.
She lives in a world that is completely foreign to her. Things that seem intuitive to you and I are extremely hard for her to get. She does not get a lot of the social cues she sees around her. And figurative versus literal speech? Forget it. One day I was teasing her and said, “You’re going to get it, clown!” She replied, “I am NOT going to get a clown!”
She thrives on routine. Break up that routine, and we have meltdowns. Serve her something for breakfast that she was not expecting, and we get a meltdown. Ask her to do something that she does not want to do? “It’s too hard!”
As you can imagine, being the mother of this child is extremely challenging. EVERYTHING is a big struggle. Things like getting her to put her shoes on to getting her into the developmental preschool. Finding a pediatrician who knows how to deal with Asperger’s Syndrome to getting her a behavioral therapist. Getting her to play outside to getting her to go to her church/school class. Hard, hard, hard.
Most people look at her and don’t even realize that anything is wrong with her. It’s the day to day people that get it. My own mom and dad didn’t get how hard we struggle with her until we had to move into their basement. Now my mom has become one of my biggest supporters in dealing with my daughter’s Asperger’s.
It is not all bad. My daughter is amazingly smart. She has incredible fine motor control. She is an artist. She draws these amazing pictures. She loves to paint, color, cut, use stickers. Anything artsy you can think of. She also wrote her own name when she was 3 years old. She has recently started to sound words out and read them.
We also celebrate the little things. She didn’t walk until she was 23 months. Did we go crazy/happy when she finally did walk? You bet! When she finally got on her school bus without crying and screaming, we made a BIG deal about it.
Having a daughter with Asperger’s has made me appreciate people more. The ones who take the time to try and help, instead of just stop and stare. I appreciate the uncle who always talks to my daughter and lets her play games on his phone. I appreciate my sister who always makes a point to include my daughter in the conversation so my daughter can practice her social skills. The church teachers who tries their hardest to make my daughter feel comfortable with the other kids. To these people, thank you!
I also have learned how to hope. I can never give up on my daughter. I never know what she is going to learn or do the next day. I hope that she can graduate high school, go to college, and get a job. I hope (and pray!) that there will be a wonderful man out there who will love and protect her when the time comes. I hope one day she will become a mother herself.
She is different than us, but so worth knowing.
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