Since I spend so much of my time lamenting the distress involved in mothering 2 boys with some big challenges, you think I'd be nodding my head vigorously when I get feedback suggesting that one of them is indeed disruptive and unequipped to participate in an age-appropriate activity. Well now that it's actually happened, that's so far off the mark I feel like I have a split personality; the mother who writes this complaining blog, and the mother who feels like ringing the neck of the judgemental martial arts teacher who has basically told us not to come back.
It doesn't help that this came after the sense of disapproval directed at Secundo yesterday by another adult at the end of a playdate. And I kind of knew it was coming, so why it has knocked me quite so badly off my balance is a little surprising. I suppose suspecting something is different from being told it bluntly. Suppose, indeed; I don't often get up in the middle of the night to sit at the computer, sleep is too hard to come by in our house, but after Primo woke up with a nosebleed as he does about once a month, my head was filled again with this little piece of news, which then drifted to merge with all sorts of other senses of failure that I'm experiencing in relation to my parenting, a whole wash of self-criticism from my being unable to keep my home remotely functional, to the disastrous, fragmented eating habits of the household, to the sense of having screwed up my little boy's life pretty much from birth, probably stirred up by the OT yesterday probing a little about his infancy, looking for more insight into that impulsive anger of his.
The stupid thing about this class is, it was in many ways a nightmare. I bought the classes at a charity auction and only found out after purchase where they were held; across town just before peak hour. Sometimes it took an hour to drive home, almost double the time to drive there. After a term of driving across the city straight from school, having to settle Primo in a different part of the facility and barely making it there on time, I've watched Secundo dance around, wobble, throw himself of the floor, and generally move compulsively in a way that clearly irked the teacher of this very disciplined, well-behaved group. I spoke to his OT, I even spoke to Primo's gym teacher, who specialises in kids with disabilities. Because of the rush in getting there and the class immediately following, I did not speak to the class teacher, so I can't blame him entirely for his reaction. But despite all this, Secundo was loving it. After years of trying miserably to get him to participate in any kind of group, this is the one he clicked with. I could see he was really responding to the strongly structured format, and glowed with pride when he sat down amongst slightly older kids who simply included him as one of the group. And he's strong, it was clearly good for him to be letting that energy out with some powerful kicks. He was doing his best, but that was hard for the unfamiliar eye to detect. The end of term came, and he was adamant he wanted to continue. On top of the logistical difficulties, it was pretty clear to me that the teacher found him frustrating, although Secundo didn't seem to pick up on that.
I couldn't just abandon the whole experience, so I found a local class which his Dad took him to this morning. He loved Dad going, but the class was more than twice as long with only one other child his age. He did not click with it. With resignation, I sent an email asking to rejoin the class he's been going to, only to get a curt and unfriendly reply. I had a kind of out-of-body look at myself sobbing because my child didn't quite cut it in a martial arts class, thinking lady, you've got to lighten up. If it was in isolation, maybe.
I found another school on this side of town and have sent an email asking about availability. If they have a place, I will present it to him as a fait accompli; we are changing because the other class is too far away, and, bonus, Dad will be able to go to the new place as well. If they don't take him, I just don't know. We considered telling him he could only go back to the other place if he stopped mucking around, in the hope that he would draw on his reserves of self-control and rise to the challenge, but I suspect it's more likely that his self-esteem would truly suffer and the rest of the household would go through the ringer in the process. I'm sure as hell not going to tell him that he's not good enough, but he's so rigid about many things, this could truly be the end of the whole experience, and I want so desperately for him to find something fulfilling for himself that he can take some pride in and experience the joy of developing skills ...
A big part of why I take such things to heart goes back to problems I articulated when I started with this blog; I don't really know what I'm dealing with. I don't believe I just have a quirky kid, don't think I ever did, but nor do I believe I have a second ASD kid, despite some recent inferences again from the OT. But the world does not come together for him in ways that I intuitively understand, and as time goes on I feel increasingly as though I'm failing him.
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