As your child grows older they gain responsibility and a little more freedom. Usually. But when your child has Autism, sometimes responsibilities take a little longer to come into effect.
Our eldest son Stevie is a sweet, lovable, huggable, expressive, rowdy, kind, happy little man. He just recently turned 9 and is realizing from his fellow peers that he too should be able to do more things. Things such as chores, using the microwave, or pouring his own drinks, and maybe grab the mail from the mailbox.
What he doesn’t realize is some of those things he just isn’t ready for yet. We’ve given him daily chores (i.e cleaning his room and bathroom) with supervision, and we just recently thought him how to vacuum the floors. But for safety concerns; he just isn’t ready for walking to the mailbox by himself, or using the microwave, or like he tried this morning.... pouring a glass of milk.
Now before you get started with pouring a glass of anything isn’t difficult and we should let him... you don’t understand the full scope of our son Stevie. But I’ll shine a light on it for you all.
When Stevie was born 9 years ago, he was the cutest little guy (still is!). We were beyond excited to welcome him into the world and into our family. After 30 hours of hard labor and and emergency c section, Stevie was here. It was then we were informed his Left Hand did not form completely.
Regardless of having a hand that wasn’t fully formed, that didn’t make any difference to us. It still doesn’t make any difference to us. We love him unconditionally.
We soon after his birth found out from specialists that his hand deformity (man I hate that word) is called ABS. That stands for Amniotic Band Syndrome.
So fast forward to today and we had a little incident involving Milk, a cup, and our son Stevie. He has been taught how to pour drinks for himself using his right hand. His left hand only has a thumb, so at this point he isn’t ready to pick up heavy objects with that particular hand.
He told me he was getting milk (he has to tell us when he is going to do something in the kitchen for safety reasons), and I responded to be careful. As he was about to pour the milk, he decided to us his left hand.
He lost grip of the container and dropped the gallon of milk on the floor. He was so upset. I was frustrated that he would do something with his left hand knowing he wasn’t ready for it.
I’m not saying he will never be able to with his left hand, but at this point he can barely pick up small things with it. He has to work up the strength in that hand before he can do that.
As I was bent down on the floor cleaning up the mess and arguing with Stevie about the situation; I became overwhelmingly mad. Not at Stevie. Not at the fact that I now have 1 less gallon of milk in the house. But at two things.
Autism, for making it difficult for my son to be able to do simple things like walking to the mailbox without me having to pull him out of the street or tell him to stop talking to that stranger. For making doing things like use the toaster or microwave dangerous as he easily forgets about things and becomes a serious fire hazard. For making him think less of himself because children his age are far more advanced then he is at 9 years old.
ABS (Amniotic Band Syndrome), for making something as simple as pouring a glass of milk 200% harder, for making our son feel self conscious around others and is an easy target to be picked on, for the strangers stares and comments that are uncalled for.
I’m mad.
When Steven and I thought of our future and raising our children, we never thought we’d have to deal with so many hard things. Autism and ABS changed our dreams.
We now dream for a life for our children where they as a team (Stevie, Maycen, & Sawyer) will be able to take care of each other long after Steven and I are gone from this world.
We dream that Maycen will be able to help do things Stevie can’t, that Sawyer will be watched over carefully and lovingly by both Stevie and Maycen. We dream we can make there future safe and secure.
As for the spilled milk.... we can buy more. But our sons confidence in himself we can’t buy. That is more important than anything.
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