New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings. Lao Tzu
Well, that’s all well and good. I mean, Chinese philosophy is great – very philosophical and deep – but unfortunately, it’s not a convincing argument for a 10 year old Aspie. New beginnings are often just as painful as the endings, and sometimes, the pain doesn’t seem to wear off as the newness does.
The painful new beginning
Last year, I shared the challenges that starting at a new school posed for Littlest Wombat – and the rest of us. He just couldn’t bring himself to accept that we had made a decision, some years previously, to send him to a school that we thought would give him great support and the opportunity to explore and develop his interests.
Instead of looking forward to what he was gaining, he kept on looking back, at what he had lost. Rather than focussing on the new friends he was making, he lamented not seeing his old friends (who made little to no effort to keep in touch – unlike him). His self-talk was continually negative, not positive.
We made it to the end of the year. By all accounts from the front, it had been very successful. Littlest Wombat was engaged in class, had a couple of good friends in the playground and enthusiastically participated in the school play. So maybe I could live with dressing him each morning, sometimes needing to carry him to the car and occasionally having to walk him into his classroom so that he didn’t scarper out of the gate. After all, home is the safe place where everyone de-stresses. If your kids are going to play up, best that it happen at home.
We were hopeful of a positive start to the 2017 school year. Being that bit older might make all the difference. Maybe… Or maybe I was just kidding myself, that I was living in a world where children accepted their parents’ decisions – even when they didn’t necessarily agree with them. Maybe I was just hoping in vain that I could insulate him from his older brother’s perpetually negative and derogatory comments about the school, driven by his own experiences. Maybe it was just wishful thinking that reason would trump emotion…ha! Maybe I was just completely delusional. You’d think I’d know by now, wouldn’t you?
Some of the challenges
All the things that Littlest Wombat was grappling with were genuinely hard for him to manage. Like change, and settling into a new environment. As Tony Attwood explains in The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome, the “executive functioning” skills that help people be organised, plan, reflect and self-monitor, understand abstract concepts and see the big picture – all of these can be particularly challenging for someone with ASD.
As far as dealing with a decision that he disagreed with went, well, conflict resolution is also problematic. Tony Attwood writes that “children with Asperger’s syndrome can appear to oppose the decisions of others, defy their priorities and deny their reasons. They may have a history of pursuing their decision until the other person capitulates”. I can almost hear the heads nodding.
So really, we were like Sisyphus, pushing a boulder uphill only to have it continually roll back down again. It wasn’t that Littlest Wombat wanted to be defiant or contradictory or make our life difficult. In fact, his argument was that we were making his life difficult. It’s just the way he’s wired.
At the same time, over the course of last year, other thought process were at work as the two younger boys ate their breakfast each morning while Train Wombat was still asleep, or arrived home in the afternoon to find their older brother already relaxing in front of his computer. The simplest things become complicated.
Like a dog with a bone, Littlest Wombat was determined not to let go of his desire to move schools. Really, from Day 1 last year, he had set his mind against the school we had chosen for him. As the holidays progressed, and Term 1 began, his talk continued to be negative. When questioned by others about where he’d go in Year 7, his response – always accompanied by a glare towards us – was that he hoped he’d start at his oldest brother’s school.
When Plan A doesn’t work…
There comes a time when enough is enough. The emotional strain of either continually defending our decision, or not saying anything and trying to ignore what I felt were unreasonable complaints was draining. Trying to insulate him from his brother’s negative comments was challenging. Altering his negative self-talk was impossible. Because he was so negative and hard to get going in the mornings, I was also driving him to school, while his brothers had taken the train. This was also tiring and time consuming.
We’d hoped all three boys would be at school together. We don’t want to change schools at the drop of a hat. After all, sometimes you just need to try and work things out where you are. Develop resilience and strategies to help you in other situations where change is impossible. But you can’t predict what life will throw at you and your kids. Sometimes, you’re up against something that you just can’t work around.
The plan was for them to be at school A together. That didn’t work out. I added together the emotional strain and the physical strain of the past year, and the projected challenges of this year and the next and the next…and had a chat with my husband. He agreed that we needed to change tack. Now, the boys will be together again (eventually), only at school B.
Train Wombat’s school (school B) is great. He’s happy there. The teachers are excellent. Home-school communication has been good. In another life, we would probably have started all the boys off there. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
From Year 7, Littlest Wombat will get his wish, and we will move him to his brother’s school. With this light at the end of the tunnel, hopefully it will help him through the next 7 terms at his current school. Free-running Wombat has had different experiences, but even so, we have learned that he has been facing challenges of a different kind and also wants to move schools. Knowing that his older brother is settled there makes it much easier to make the decision to move the younger two. If Train Wombat had faced challenges similar to those at his old school, we would not have been quite as open to moving his brothers.
A load lifted
Having made that decision, I feel like a load has been taken from my shoulders. I’m sure that Littlest Wombat will still complain about his school at every opportunity, just like his oldest brother never misses a chance to criticise it. Free-running Wombat is the peacemaker and sees our perspective, as well as having his own views – he just keeps quiet at these times. But they can see that we do listen and that we are prepared to change.
I only hope that by modelling this, our boys will also learn to listen to alternative views, consider the competing merits, and be prepared to change if the situation requires it. That they don’t just hang onto their own view point from some point of principle – or pride. And also, that changing your mind is not necessarily a sign that you made a mistake in the first place. It also shows that you recognise changing circumstances that require a different direction to be taken.
In the meantime, Littlest Wombat is excited about one thing at school – he’s learning the tuba! And who knows where that will take him…
Until next time, Happy Wombatting!
