"Am I stupid?"

We hear this question often during the school year that we pause and wonder if we are subjecting Tristan to some-sort of school torture. Last year in kindergarten Tristan came home saying that a child on the playground called him stupid and Peter and I thought 'OK, this is kindergarten, how much longer can Tristan endure school?'

Tristan seems oblivious to the "stupid remarks" until bedtime when either Peter or I snuggle in for a good book and loving and then like a wave crashing on the beach, Tristan says "Am I really stupid?" My heart splits in two and 99% of me wants to say "OK, no more school, that's it." But instead I ask Tristan if thinks he is stupid and we talk about learning differences and we hug and I suggest ways he could advocate for himself. We lay in bed practicing and role playing what to do if a kid calls him stupid.

The next day I talk to his teacher before class and at morning meeting the kids role play and discuss hurting each other through words. Still I feel unsettled, so unsettled even I stopped referring to Thor, our less than intelligent dog, "stupid" when he runs into the neighbor's yard (the one that has threaten to kill him) or pulls our organic, local (expensive) chicken off the counter and eats it.

Now it has been three weeks into our new school year and last night as I nursed our youngest to sleep, I heard Peter saying, "Tristan, you know you are not stupid, right?"

Nothing silence.
Then Peter said, "Is mommy stupid?"
Tristan replied "No."
"Is daddy stupid?" Peter asked.
"No." Tristan replied.
"Well we don't make stupid kids, so you are not stupid." Peter encouraged.

As I lay in bed with Liam cuddled next to me and Thor at my feet, I recall a conversation I had with a colleague and friend after the first time Tristan came home from school telling me that all his friends think he is stupid. I told this friend that Peter and I discussed home-schooling Tristan to shelter him from the years of harassment and his response was "well, then how are they (non-autistics) going get to know us and live with us." My friend and colleague grew-up with autism and managed his way through school with the same remarks and now he is the director of the self-advocacy organization in our county.

So, for now we remind Tristan of his strengths like an ease with math and computers and we hold on for the ride and remind ourselves we are practicing for adulthood where the kids that call him stupid now grow-up and have to live in a community of differences.

The End of Summer

I have been fighting back the end of summer (probably with a light saver) since last week. Everyday for the past week, I would rustle the boys away from the computer by saying it may be the last time we swim outside or go throw rocks at the river. Vermont Autumns are historically beautiful weather with red flaming Maple trees that cover our mountains, but this end of summer has been the most difficult for me.

This was the first time in three years we decided to limit Tristan's summer services and stop the revolving door of therapists our house tends to have in the summer. Sure we were worried about regression and his Star Wars obsession, but we decided that our family needed a break. The last three summers the school therapist and the therapist we hired were in and out of our house daily which made our schedule too busy for long days at the pool.

So, we pushed back our fears of regression and hit the pool and the local beach and guess what the sky did not fall! Tristan even gained skills and I realized he learns more effectively from computer games than workbooks. For Tristan taking out the stress of the workbook and the social piece of have someone always by his side working with him and replace that with a computer worked for him.

Tristan was able to begin to recognize letters and numbers when using computer games instead of the workbooks or even the video his teacher and therapists produced for him. Letting Tristan have time to discover the video game on-his-own also helped by taking the social stress away.

As we dropped Tristan off for his first day at school, I realized summer is over (even though it is 80 degrees today) and the flexibility of jumping in the car and spending the day at the beach is over until next summer.