trinityroyal
Well-Known Member
Sorry this response is so long...I'm thinking all this through as I type, and it's very complex...
Fran, this really struck a chord with me. I too have been searching for the key to unlock difficult child's ability to learn and motivate himself to survive in the world. And in doing so, I've been thinking long and hard about my own early life, what I learned, how I learned, and how I developed into a productive person.
Strange to say, I think one of the keys for me was very neglectful parents.
My mother is schizophrenic and my father has anti-social personality disorder. My older brother was the child they wanted and always dreamed of, and I was an accident that snuck in the door literally 12 months later.
As a result, beyond basic care and feeding during babyhood, from the time I was able to talk I was pretty much left to my own devices by them to raise myself.
I had a very loving extended family to whom I could turn whenever I needed help or guidance, but for the most part they lived out of the country, so I was always my own "person of first resort". So I learned. By trial and error. I learned how to interact with people. How to ask for things, how to let people give me things. How to go to the store and buy things. How to open a bank account, how to make telephone calls, how to enrol in lessons. My grandmother, who came to live with us when I was 3 months old and difficult child-mom went back to work, was a huge help in all this. She let me do for myself mostly, but was a loving presence, ready to show me, teach me or hold me whenever I needed it.
I had pretty-much unlimited access to money and "stuff", but any interaction with my parents was either for their own amusement, or when they needed my help with something. (Imagine, being put in the position at 10 years old of giving your mother relationship advice!)
That lack of help and guidance forced me to learn how to survive. Some of the strategies I learned were highly unorthodox. I STILL write myself a script whenever I have to talk to someone on the phone, otherwise I don't remember what I'm supposed to say. But through years of long practice, I learned.
Then I look at my difficult child. He's had the benefit of specialized programming, 1:1 aides in school, socialization classes, therapy, psychiatry, medication, blah blah blah. So many people have done so many things for him over the years, and I think he's learned that the world exists to look after him, take care of him, focus on him.
That's not to say that I think the specialized programming or socialization classes were inherently bad, just that they didn't necessarily take into account difficult child's learning style. He's not curious about anything, and has no desire to learn. Has having knowledge and information spoon fed to him all these years has made him intellectually lazy? Or is it that he just doesn't want to learn, and without the classes and interventions, he would be completely non-functional.
I just wonder...did having to learn everything myself embed in me the fierce desire to learn that I have to this day, or was it that desire to learn that allowed me to survive a childhood that otherwise might have killed me (spiritually, if not physically)
These are hard, hard questions.
For now, husband and I have put measures in place to ensure that difficult child is housed, clean and fed, has some intellectual stimulation, people with whom to interact, a social life of a sort...all in a highly structured, locked down environment. difficult child can never go anywhere or do anything by himself. Strangely, he seems to like it that way. When it's suggested to him that the life skills he's learning will enable him to live on his own one day, he freaks out and starts crying, panicking, etc.
Maybe for him, that is a fulfilled and happy life. I just don't know anymore.
I have been looking for my "Anne Sullivan" to my very own Helen Keller for years. There should be a way to access their natural intelligence to make then learn how to survive. I think I have written this in another thread years ago about our kids having a blindness and deafness of the mind.
Fran, this really struck a chord with me. I too have been searching for the key to unlock difficult child's ability to learn and motivate himself to survive in the world. And in doing so, I've been thinking long and hard about my own early life, what I learned, how I learned, and how I developed into a productive person.
Strange to say, I think one of the keys for me was very neglectful parents.
My mother is schizophrenic and my father has anti-social personality disorder. My older brother was the child they wanted and always dreamed of, and I was an accident that snuck in the door literally 12 months later.
As a result, beyond basic care and feeding during babyhood, from the time I was able to talk I was pretty much left to my own devices by them to raise myself.
I had a very loving extended family to whom I could turn whenever I needed help or guidance, but for the most part they lived out of the country, so I was always my own "person of first resort". So I learned. By trial and error. I learned how to interact with people. How to ask for things, how to let people give me things. How to go to the store and buy things. How to open a bank account, how to make telephone calls, how to enrol in lessons. My grandmother, who came to live with us when I was 3 months old and difficult child-mom went back to work, was a huge help in all this. She let me do for myself mostly, but was a loving presence, ready to show me, teach me or hold me whenever I needed it.
I had pretty-much unlimited access to money and "stuff", but any interaction with my parents was either for their own amusement, or when they needed my help with something. (Imagine, being put in the position at 10 years old of giving your mother relationship advice!)
That lack of help and guidance forced me to learn how to survive. Some of the strategies I learned were highly unorthodox. I STILL write myself a script whenever I have to talk to someone on the phone, otherwise I don't remember what I'm supposed to say. But through years of long practice, I learned.
Then I look at my difficult child. He's had the benefit of specialized programming, 1:1 aides in school, socialization classes, therapy, psychiatry, medication, blah blah blah. So many people have done so many things for him over the years, and I think he's learned that the world exists to look after him, take care of him, focus on him.
That's not to say that I think the specialized programming or socialization classes were inherently bad, just that they didn't necessarily take into account difficult child's learning style. He's not curious about anything, and has no desire to learn. Has having knowledge and information spoon fed to him all these years has made him intellectually lazy? Or is it that he just doesn't want to learn, and without the classes and interventions, he would be completely non-functional.
I just wonder...did having to learn everything myself embed in me the fierce desire to learn that I have to this day, or was it that desire to learn that allowed me to survive a childhood that otherwise might have killed me (spiritually, if not physically)
These are hard, hard questions.
For now, husband and I have put measures in place to ensure that difficult child is housed, clean and fed, has some intellectual stimulation, people with whom to interact, a social life of a sort...all in a highly structured, locked down environment. difficult child can never go anywhere or do anything by himself. Strangely, he seems to like it that way. When it's suggested to him that the life skills he's learning will enable him to live on his own one day, he freaks out and starts crying, panicking, etc.
Maybe for him, that is a fulfilled and happy life. I just don't know anymore.