NATURAL EDUCATION and the QUIRKY CHILD - Part Eight

PART EIGHT

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One of the first steps in dealing with a problem behaviour is to ACKNOWLEDGE that it IS a problem. There is a certain relief and empowerment when a problem is acknowledged. Then when the next step is ready to be taken, whatever it is, the person may be more confident having a go at a therapy or facing a challenge if they know their problem is REAL and believed by others. Imagine a child who struggles with handwriting. When it is revealed they have dysgraphia or dyslexia everyone has permission to go “Ok, that’s the story, let’s go from here now.” That same person, undiagnosed may grow more and more unhappy, confused and in a state of mental bashing themselves up every day knowing that nobody understands or believes the issue. They may receive completely unhelpful, and vague advice like “you’ll just have to try harder” or “perhaps glasses would help”, “stop worrying” “ah well, we all feel like that”. Reminds me of something that used to urk but also amuse my Dad - those people who say “How are you, good, good” and they don’t care at all. Just like the verse in the Bible that says “And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Our buzz word over the last few years has been STRATEGIES. We’ve got to work out what an issue is, and then think of a good strategy to help, and then the hard part ACTUALLY DOING THAT STRATEGY when the challenge comes along.

Unfortunately some people may think “If I accept this behaviour then I am enabling that person to wallow in their challenges, I’ll allow them to feel hopeless, I’ll give them excuses for not trying ...” On the whole this is pretty dangerous and destructive thinking.

I read recently of a young man named Ryan who said the following:

“Now that I know I’m an Aspie, I focus on the “how” instead of the “why”. For example, if I was in a class with a lot of other people and everyone was “getting it” I used to think, “Why am I not getting it”. Now I think, “How is the best way for me to get it”. In other words, what strategy can I use to catch on? For me, the focus on the “how” instead of the “why” is much less emotional and much more rational. Instead of blaming myself for something I didn’t understand, I am now strategically coping with the neurotypical world.

http://www.aane.org/asperger_resources/articles/friends_family/journey_into_aspieland.html

I was a participant in one of Celeste Littek’s autism seminars and she taught me that strategies and resources for a disability or challenge are a wonderful way to enable people to cope. One mistake is that people will think “I’ll give you this resource to help now, but I think we aught to phase it out in time.” Would we build ramps for wheelchair access but then take them down little by little so we could “phase out” the wheelchair use? A neurological difference is always going to be a neurological difference. We might find strategies that help, and we may overcome some challenges to a degree, but quirkiness can’t be CURED, it will always be there. The degree to which the quirky person and those around them will rejoice in those quirks or suffer with them is very dependent on tiny little choices made daily in how to deal with situations.

I guess the over-riding feeling for the quirky people I’ve heard from is CONFUSION about the rules of society. The unwritten rules that they are just supposed to know, understand, remember and follow. And if a quirky person experiences problems with remembering and following these rules then quite a few regular members of society can be intolerant and hurtful. If you are not quirky – if you are “regular” please try to be considerate of quirky people.

A quirky child at school has so many other things pressing upon them, and I guess the most obvious and sickening challenge will be bullying, that figuring out how to cope with their quirks comes way down the list. And parents don’t necessarily have enough time with the children, or perhaps even realise the magnitude of the challenges, to work on them one at a time

I’m just thinking here of one of our children – a real sweetie pie, very tolerant, loving, forgiving, imaginative and artistic. He has tremendous difficulty concentrating sometimes and needs just a little more time to process things. If I constantly thought he was just being lazy or not trying I would be at my wits end. If he was trying to keep up with peers, or the hubbub of school activities, or dodge bullies … well, I don’t want to think about that.

Everybody who works with quirky children will tell you that you have to become a detective to figure out what is going on with your child. However, there is a saying: “The hallmark of a neurological disorder is it's inconsistency” A child who can’t tolerate noise and movement in one situation might cope very well in another situation when perhaps they are more comfortable, not hungry, just had a sleep, just had some happy exercise, the noise was not unexpected – or when they are making the noise themselves.

So - to be a detective we need to look very closely at our children and their behaviour, in many different situations, and even set up certain situations to see how they cope and where their triggers are.

Have you ever packed a neglected toy away into a box and put it on a high shelf, thinking that nobody was playing with it, then later have someone in tears because their favourite toy was missing? You might say “You never played with it!”

They might say “I did – you just never saw me!” You realise just because you never saw a big demonstration of their appreciation for something then you didn’t think they HAD any appreciation for it. Some children fly so low under the radar that it’s very hard to pick things up!

Some children, kindly, exhibit their challenges in a way that is easier to spot – hand flapping or jumping, rocking or staring. But not all self stimulating or calming behaviour is easy figure out – whistling, humming, shouting, hitting and other “annoying” behaviours can be a child’s way of expressing a challenge they’re coping with. It can be difficult to separate this from plain old annoying, antagonising behaviour (which in itself, with any child is a sign that something else is going on, but it can be easier to unpick that behaviour in a regular child).

Dr Temple Grandin has said “Obviously if (a child) has got sound sensitivity, he’s going to cover his ears. (with visual processing problems) They do a lot of flicking around with the eyes. That’s a tip-off. They’ll tend to tilt their head because they can see better if they look out of the corner of their eye. Oftentimes, they’ll hate escalators because they can’t tell when to get on and off the escalators. They may have problems catching a ball. When you go in and do eye exams they’re going to be normal. Their problem is INSIDE THE BRAIN. Don’t get hung up on diagnostic categories.

I admire and respect what Temple Grandin has to say, and recommend her work to anyone interested in learning more about autistic challenges.

So, yes, it can take a very close examination of a child's life to really define where quirky problems stem from. With natural home education you have oodles and oddles of hours to learn about your child, making a mental or an actual file of challenges they have. If you physically write them down it can be a great encouragement to you and your child to see any progress they are making, no matter how slow. Our older two boys have made terrific progress in the last two or three years. We say to each other “Leaps and bounds!” when they achieve something – at first it was our oldest getting the bus by himself, but since then there have been pretty major achievements like drivers licences and David buying a motorbike and taking trips to Blenheim and other places. Just the other day our oldest bowled me over once again when he told me about a conversation he’d had with his support worker. He had shown so much discernment when he very rightly and tactfully disagreed with her that he made me burst with pride.

Some people believe that quirky children should be alongside neurotypical peers – integrated into regular schooling, given the same opportunities. If you are of this belief then it is best to find someone to come alongside you and support you with that. I don’t have any personal experience with that, and to be honest I can’t see it being entirely the best idea.

I don’t really have to apologise for being outspoken on this issue – when I thought about it you probably wouldn’t want to attend a talk about natural education if someone was half-hearted about it, saying that home education and school were both really great options, and it kind of didn’t matter at all which you went with.

But Yes, I am very passionate about home education, especially natural learning – especially for quirky children who more often than not in a regular school situation are puzzled or bored, drained of energy, and not allowed the time and freedom to become as wonderful as they could be – having to deal with curriculum, social rules, noise, confusion and constant restriction on how much noise or movement they need to make.

The alternative to regular (or public) schooling might be a private school. However, there are similar problems there too – this article is something I REALLY recommend you reading.