Fish Out of Water

Breakfast time is a stressful time at our house

I grew up as the only child of a single parent. That had its upsides -- I was, very much, for a very long time, the center of my own world. It also had its downsides -- I wasn't very well acclimated to interacting with kids my own age. From an early age, everyone told me how adult I acted. The truth was, I spent so much time with adults, I felt more comfortable with them much of the time than I did with my peers.

 My kids have grown up in a very different environment. My wife and I have been married for 14 years (we celebrated our anniversary at the end of last month) and we have three kids to show for our efforts -- 12, 10 and 7. As anyone who has grown up in a family with sisters and brothers can tell you, each kid is very, very different. But those differences get magnified when one or more of the kids has special needs, as two of ours do.

Our two older kids both suffer from disabilities that are on the emotional/social end of the spectrum, and it's caused us to develop accommodations for them over the years that our youngest just doesn't need: Sensory input, for example. Executive functioning skills like organization. Getting ready in the morning is a practical example of where these issues converge into a perfect storm. Every morning I get my kids ready for school, I feel months, if not years, taken off of my life in stress.

Our oldest has a more or less classic case of ADHD. He's extremely hyperactive and easily distractible until he's settled down into his morning routine and his med starts to take effect, which unfortunately for us (and fortunately for his teachers) is about a half an hour after he leaves the house. That means I have to bark at him like a drill sergeant to get ready in the morning -- making sure he stays on task as he eats breakfast, gets dressed, packs his bag for the day and gets out the door. I repeatedly, every morning for years, have to remind him that now's not the right time to pet the cat, stop arguing with your brother, stay away from your computer/the TV/the Nintendo DS, brush your teeth, wash your face, comb your hair, are your teeth brushed? Put the comb through your hair again. Where are your shoes? Did you pack a snack? I told you, stop petting the cat -- your school van is already waiting for you in the driveway. Grab your coat!

Sure, this is stuff any parent has to deal with -- but trust me, it gets more complicated when you're dealing with an ADHD kid, by orders of magnitude.

Our daughter is another good case in point. She's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and she's subject to fairly rapid and fairly extreme mood swings. It's not unusual for her to burst into tears two or three times before she leaves the house because she couldn't find the right socks or couldn't easily find her shoes. Or I'll have to "talk her in off the ledge," so to speak, while she's brushing her hair. Or we'll get into a tear-filled argument (her, not me) about what's for breakfast that day, and how horribly inadequate it is. ("We only have three different cereals to choose from, and I want waffles!")

 Our youngest, meanwhile, is a breeze. Partly because he doesn't share his siblings' disabilities, and partly because he's grown up around this, he's much more self-reliant than the other two are. My wife, who is the youngest of three, sees much of herself in him -- she also learned to depend on herself from an early age.

Almost without exception, he's dressed, fed and washed, and ready to walk out the door, with at least fifteen or twenty minutes to spare each morning. He's almost always early for the bus. He's usually conscientious about cleaning up after himself from breakfast. And he's proud that he can do it himself.

So we try our best to let our children be themselves, and learn to work within their limits and help them understand what those are, and why it's so important for them to try to occasionally push those limits. That's how they grow as people; that's how they develop character; that's how they learn independence and develop a sense of self-worth. It can be a tightrope walk some days. But can any parent who loves their kids be expected to do any less?