Teaching Jeremiah, A Journey into the Mind of an Asperger's Child

Jan. 23, 2008

Humility

If you read my last blog then you know that this is where God has been most busy in my life lately. A few thoughts I wanted to share.

My first few years of parenthood were filled with pride. I remember seeing those haggered moms in the grocery store lines while I was pregnant. You know the ones. They have two different colored socks on, something sticky in their hair, and three screaming little ones pulling at their shirt tails and throwing tantrums over the candy she refuses to buy them. She also licks her thumb to wipe something brown from one of their faces and then uses her own sleeve to wipe the other one's nose while her oldest child tells her why he likes it better at his friend's house! I used to cringe!! "That'll never be me. My kids won't behave that way."

Then I became a mom. And at first, I tried pretty darned hard to keep the June Cleaver front alive. I dressed my kids nice and changed their clothes if they spilled anything on them. I kept Wet Ones and tissues in my pocket. I said things like, "Now dear, let's not talk that way to mommy. It's not very nice." Oh yeah, I was good! A good faker was more like it. Behind closed doors my kids fought over toys, overfilled the bathtub and flooded the floor, colored on the walls, tore pages out of their books, and yes, they even had temper tantrums.

Thanks to my home church and Bible studies like, "Shepherding a Child's Heart" by Ted Tripp and "Raising Kids Who Hunger for God" by Benny & Sheree Phillips, as well as to the veteran home school moms before me that so graciously imparted to me their wisdom, I learned how to deal with and often times effectively handle the above situations.

And mind you, it was not always my kids that acted foolishly or childishly. I could be pretty good at throwing temper tantrums myself and "ssshhhh, don't tell anyone, but I'm still a yeller"! Oh no!!

Then came Jerry...God's ultimate humility hammer in my life. My child is the one who throws sand in other kids' faces at the park. He laughs at his friends when they get hurt and cry. I cringe when I hear someone near me say, "Ma'am, is that your child?" He intentionally knocks down another child's Lego tower, throws and breaks things that do not belong to him, and laughs at and appears to disrespect other adults when they speak to him. Granted, Jeremiah cannot read the emotions of others and so does not know how to properly respond to them. He does not know how to properly get someone's attention that he wants to play with and so he gets it the only way he sees he can...by destroying whatever is currently holding their attention. He cannot both look you in the eyes when you are talking to him and comprehend what you are saying and so he simply will not look at you at all.

Now I'm not making excuses for Jeremiah and sometimes he is just being downright disobedient, and often it's hard to tell the difference. But what I wish people would do is not just assume. It is a mistake I will never again make when seeing a child throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of McDonald's. Why? Because I've been the recipient of the dirty looks, the shameful expressions of disgust over not being able to control my own child or his emotions, the shocked expressions, and the defensive attitudes of the parents of kids Jeremiah hurt or offended.

I recently discovered a website that asks, "What Kind of World Do You Want?" It is a place where you can upload a video of your autistic child and voice your answer to that very question. Each time your video is viewed by someone, so much money is donated to the charity of your choice. In many cases, it is Autism Speaks. I have linked this website onto this blog so that you can watch a few of the videos. They are very powerful and I plan to create one for Jeremiah in the future.

But back to what kind of world I would want. There are endless answers to that question and I know that I could answer it in many different ways and they would all be true to what I believe. But in relation to Jeremiah, here is how I would answer that question. I want to live in the kind of world where people do not make assumptions about you and your family based on outward appearances. I want to live in the kind of world where compassion runs deeper than condemnation. I want to live in the kind of world where Jeremiah will be given every opportunity to fit in, and the grace he will need when that's not possible runs deep. I want to live in the kind of world where other parents admit their imperfections openly so that we all can learn from them, and they don't just speak of their kids' successes and achievements, but of their failures and character flaws they are praying for God to use in their lives.

Amen.