Parents ... Sound Familiar?

 After a super good week at school and afternoon ABA, when all was pretty darned much sunshine and budding roses, there came Counterbalance and negative behaviours. Sigh. Autism, Spring, Teen hormones, lack of a social squad, and impending graduation - all smooshed together in an active pressure cooker. 

This was me last week:

My guy is now 18. April is a good month to pause and reflect how far he has come, honour his resiliency through life crises I never had to deal with at his age, and gird up for the uncharted that is adulthood. Stay tuned.

Espresso So We Can Forte

It's Friday! Made it through another week. Luckily there was strong coffee in my actual Peet's mug, as James did not want to get out of bed. He was snuggly rolled up like a burrito in a blanket on his freshly laundered bedding, loving the heck out of his bed. It would have made a great commercial. School and work wait for no one, however.

I gave James 10 minutes to rise and shine on his own (he has started to do this, so I keep trying to encourage it). All the while I am sipping down java, getting out his breakfast, and revving my parental mode. Thank goodness for our morning routine. We both know what's coming - James is the teen fulcrum, waiting for me to lever him into starting his day and getting out the door on time.

The saving grace in all this is the flexible work schedule that allows me to relax enough to match James' playful mood - thank goodness he is rarely cranky or surly in the morning. He knows once I arrive in his room with the morning hygiene kit that getting out of bed is now inevitable. He good-naturedly picks a new shirt for school and puts it on as we start the routine.

Breakfast is consumed, with a few testing skirmishes on his Kindle. We assemble his lunch and I make sure his reading log gets into his backpack so he gets points for this work. The van pickup arrives earlier than it has all week, coinciding nicely with the garbage truck roaring around our block on it's pickup run.

Without any prompting, James takes his meds. I acknowledge this with a "Great job - I really appreciate your hustle this morning" and bundled him into the van with him still in a playful mood. Inside, both my fists are in the air and I am silently shouting "Yes! YES!!!!"

Because yesterday, it was me chasing him around the house, bad word scripting galore, over the course of 5 minutes before he grudgingly took his meds. Looking forward to the weekend!

The Importance of Getting Out

 One result of 2 years of COVID-19 restrictions is the regression of James' ability to tolerate outings. Not sure if it's his age, autism, or 2 years of homebody habit ... it's harder to pry him out of his room and engage in an activity.

While noise (dogs, babies, noisy kids, rap music, and power tools in general), crowds, and heat make outings uncomfortable for James he was able to enjoy Farmers' Markets, trips to the park, beach visits, and trips to the store. It's interesting that now that he is older, he can interact better, have more meaningful conversations, but be less tolerant of stressors. I think part of this is also due to stressors continually experienced over the past 4 years from moves, bad school experiences, and natural disaster evacuations.

I keep trying out options to get James out of the house, practicing transitions, and providing positive reinforcement when he stresses. Slowly I see this getting better. James should not have to live his life hidden away, and I will keep doing what it takes to help him move as confidently as possible in the world.

Safe, in the Time of COVID-19

Three snap-thoughts on the word "safe" - and a nice resource link.

One: When one's senses are continuously dialed to eleven (auditory and skin sensations in particular for James), it can feel like constant bombardment. Throw in losing a family, home, school/community, and trust in people you are attached to staying with you, and things become treacherous. Oh, and rather suddenly, you're a teen and shot up 6" or more in less than a year? To misquote Douglas Adams: Doubly so to all of the above. Safe becomes haven, sanctuary, release.

Two: Things that make James feel safe now? Not being in the apartments. His current school, Anova. His own room with his own bed. Being surrounded by really tall trees.

I asked him about this recently. This has been his incentive for keeping on-task and completing assignments: going out for a drive at the end of the day. He keeps asking to go to the redwoods. I asked if it was because they were so tall and calm and he said "Yes".

I agree. Being surrounded by tall trees in nature for a visit is very relaxing. The air is stiller. Sound even gets muffled.

Three: James has definitely noticed COVID-19 and the crazy fails going on in our government at the top levels right now. He's home. School is on a laptop. No more respite or ABA visits. Most of us wear masks now outside. He watched YouTube videos. School is helping make James feel safer, as is being in his own home. He asks me questions, several of which come out of his watching videos online.

Resources: It's tough figuring out the best (i.e., reassuring yet accurate) responses. Here is one of the better online articles I have found for helping form a response and support: Mayo Clinic's: How To Talk to Your Kids About COVID-19.

Here are two more: The Verge's: How to Talk with Kids about Screentime and COVID-19 and The Clay Center's: 7 Ways to Support Kids and Teens Through the Coronavirus Pandemic.

If you can, take a nature break, even if you have to stay in a car. Park and roll down the windows. Close your eyes. And breathe. We are lucky that we now can do this in our back yard. Sometimes, even looking at a photo from one of our outings helps:

Routine, Auteen, and Quarantine

Struggling to Master a New World Order

I am working hard to maintain a schedule and routine during quarantine. It is not easy. James is still growing. He sleeps like a true teen now. Getting him to wake up in time for school is another big challenge for keeping on schedule.

Then there is the added anxiety of COVID-19 and staying at home. James is moving slower than a turtle and has developed a nervous tic of go back / forth, side / side, type a letter / erase it ... it can take half an hour to get out of our small house, down 3 steps and into the waiting car at the bottom.

A good place to start, from Blessing Manifesting

Getting James on a routine means getting me on a routine, something I do not care for, especially when I feel so pressed for time. Still, it makes such a big, positive difference that I keep trying. As soon as I feel I have something in place, a bubble warps up somewhere in our lives.

And so we start again. Thank goodness for James' school. The teachers are so calm, patient, and encouraging. I stayed up last night as a kind of talisman for James as he finally got going on some homework. Five hours to do two assignments that might take me 10 minutes. He made it VERY clear that he wanted to do it.

So I snuggled into my big reading armchair and finished a short book until he was done. Thank goodness Burger King stays open late still. We celebrated with a late night treat (for him) and a drive in search of deer. We didn't see any, but we had a good time.

The No-Win Bedtime

When you realize you and you autistic teen are both done and you enforce bedtime.

Then get to listen to the scripting based on YouTube rant videos while you try to sleep.

#nowaytowin #tryagain tomorrow.

New School: Week Two

James started off the week spending the day doing processing exercises with Staff about the field trip incidents the Friday previous. A while day of story boarding what happened, how he was feeling, how it made others feel, and plans for how things could go better next time.

Storyboard from Wikipedia and  The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd 

Congratulations, he was told. After all your hard work, you've earned coming back to class - well done!

I want to say this has been a game changer.

Since then, James has dealt pretty well with ABA, trying to synch up with the school bus in the middle of our apartment parking lot being unavailable due to a noisy repaving project (which is where the bus is supposed to pick him up), and his teacher being out unexpectedly for much of the week. There have been behaviours, but they are smaller. A blowup about finding something unexpected in his frozen yogurt at home was brought under control by James himself within a very reasonable amount of time.

Field trips other that the group walks to the Farmers' Market are out for him for the summer, but he seems to be coping well with that. 

Yes, we are still talking about aides and principals who were involved with the most challenging school situations. But James also asked to visit some of his favourite counselors at the local Boys and Girls Club. We dropped by twice last week to say hello, and he was told he is welcome to come visit or some day returns over the summer. Yesterday he asked to visit the library for the first time in forever, and he asked about checking out a book (Matilda). This is a nice change!

Stormy, Weathered

Over the past week we've had weather. Some places near us received over 10 inches of rain over 3 days. In an area that gets an average annual rainfall of about 36 inches a year, that's intense.

We had snow on the mountains near us ...

We had hail that looked and felt like snow...

We had amazing rain showers with double rainbows ....

And par for the course, James was sick. So he stayed home for two days. He went back to classes for  Friday, and now he has a three-day weekend.

The apartment looks like a teenaged boy has been hunkering down for a few days. Luckily respite has finally started and that helped him do his own laundry again. There will also be trash hauling, fridge purging, and open windows. Carpe storm lull.