The other day I watched my fifteen year old son hop into the
backseat of a little white car and take off to the mall (which is slightly over
an hour away) with his misfit friends, the oldest and slightly most responsible
of them behind the wheel.
I hated it. I hated it, I hated it, I hated it!!
You would think that by now, by teenaged son number three
(with one more to go) I’d be used to—or at least have found some tricks to help
me deal with!—this letting them grow-up and go learn who they are with freedom
thing. But here’s the problem with that assumption, each one of my sons is a
very different person, choosing different types of friends and activities, with
different habits and self-identifying labels they need to explore. Each time
one of my boys takes off I have entirely new worries and wonderings. Along with, of course, all the traditional
stand-bys.
Here’s another problem with that assumption. Each one of
my sons is a person I love so much, and my heart can’t stand that I know the
very real dangers of the world. No matter how many children you guide toward
adulthood, you don’t get used to that.
Each one of our children is a person who absolutely must
find themselves in potentially dangerous, possibly heart-breaking, powerfully
character building situations in order to become well rounded, confident and
free individuals. From the moment our children are born we have the job of
letting them learn to leave us, and in truth when they are very little it is
kind of a fun job! While they learn to walk we let them fall down and promise
them that they can get back up all by themselves. When they want to tie their
shoes we show them how and then step-back and promise them that they can do it
on their own! It’s fantastic and cute and when they finally do figure it out. The
beaming with pride lights up our heart and fuels it for the next lesson!
For those of us who have children with special needs, the
specifics might be different but the job is the same. Leading them to learn not
to need us. The timelines and specific skills might look different, but the
goal is the same. Show them that they can do it. Believe in them and trust them
and give them the tools, then let go.
When I watched my fifteen year old take off with his
misfit friends yesterday, I knew that it was the right thing, but I also knew
that it was scary and dangerous. My son has challenges with social skills. He
is, what he calls, a little bit autistic. And though I totally know better, I have been holding onto him a little too
tight because of my own fears. Especially since one thing that has been
consistent with him is his choosing of misfit friends. Why, in that car
yesterday was a girl who recently ran away with an older man she met on the
internet, a boy who tried to shoot himself only to accidentally shoot his dad
in the knee, and a sixteen year old girl struggling with cancer and living life
on the edge, because she might die. So, I have been offering excuses to avoid letting
him party with his peers, or I invite them to hang out at our place so they
know I’ve got my eye on them.
I’ve also been actively ignoring the part of me that sees
clearly how my son fits comfortably into these misfit groups. He likes them and
they genuinely like him. He makes them laugh, and they tell him he should stop
worrying about his weight, that his body looks good and matches him. He feels
comfortable being his quirky self with them and they listen while he brags
about his family, agreeing and adding compliments. They are “troubled teens”
who are kind to my son and his family.
I’ve been hypocritically begging for autism acceptance on
my Facebook
page, while refusing to offer adolescent acceptance with his peers.
But lately I’ve stopped ignoring and I’ve let myself see:
not only has keeping him home had him
feeling left out of peer groups, he has also been talking with his little
brother and his little brother’s friends in ways-- and about things-- that are
perfectly age appropriate for him, but not for his brother and his friends.
Well…duh!
How is my fifteen year old supposed to practice social
skills (which, as I readily admit, he needs to practice!) if I don’t allow him
the freedom to do so? At school or in organized social activities our children
are offered manufactured opportunities, but without allowing them true freedom
away from the watchful eyes of their grown-ups and mentors they can’t practice
and discover and really know who they can be, while knowing confidently that
the choices and mistakes they made were entirely their own.
Who has ever learned about life without living? And who
can discover their own power and personality if they are never offered the
freedom to do so? I’ll offer in my defense the very true conundrum of many
autism parents and individuals. A person on the autism spectrum experiences the
environment differently, and often understands communications differently than
the majority of the people around them, and so it’s hard to anticipate what to
expect when adding a little autism to the peer group, making it harder to
prepare our kids. But, so? If our children are autistic, indeed if we ourselves
are autistic, we still need freedom to learn who we are and how to handle the
world. Different challenges and abilities will mean different specifics, but
always we have to let our children take the next step in the direction of their
goals. And always it will be scary. If it isn’t scary, we aren’t really doing
it.
Also, finding a balance is intimidatingly important and
forever unclear. We can’t let go too much, close our eyes and just hope. We
mustn’t forget to give tools and example responsibility. We can’t just assume
that if their friends’ parents are letting the kids do something, it’s probably
fine. Our kids are not their friends.
We must watch and trust and give freedom and communicate….
It’s our job as parents to step-up and handle that gut
wrenching, heart-palpitating fear that accompanies letting go. Whether it’s
waiting in the car while they go alone into a public restroom, giving them
permission to walk to school alone, or letting them take off with their misfit
friends to the mall; it’s our job as parents to let go.
Even if we hate it.
When my son got home last night he told me that his
friends had smoked cigarettes in the car, driven too fast and the girls wore so
much perfume he could taste it. “I hope I don’t get cancer from all the smoke I
was forced to breathe,” he worried, “next time I’m going to tell them I’ll only
go if they don’t smoke.”
And this morning he said, “Hey mom, I learned a good way
for me to feel confidence. I make myself do something, then I let myself slow
down when my confidence is getting low, but I don’t let myself stop. Then I
feel so proud of myself for doing the thing that my confidence gets stronger.”
So I’m learning from him. I’ll make myself let these
fantastic boys of mine learn to not need me, and when my confidence wanes I’ll
slow down but won’t let myself stop. My boys have given me so very many reasons
to let my confidence grow stronger!
