Back to School and Work Yay! A day in a life parenting Autism while climbing my mountains

Back to school is probably a phrase lots of parents enjoy the sound of.  Back to work is what we all dislike. However… at the end of this summer the ‘Back to School’ phrase made me happy but not for the usual reasons and ‘Back to work’ didn’t disturb me either. OMG I said that out loud!
During the summer break we experienced a very traumatic event as we lost someone really really close in extremely tragic circumstances. Due to the complications around the death and police involvement there’s a long delay for the funeral which makes things so much harder. I’ve suffered loss before but for some reason this seemed the worse feeling for all of us in history!  Therefore ‘Back to School’ and ‘Back to work’ was needed especially for the children to provide some routine and ‘normality’. JJ in particular took the loss really bad so when people say children on the Autistic Spectrum have difficulty connecting with emotions errr please believe that to be a myth for possibly the majority of them. I saw real emotion, real pain in his eyes, that which I haven’t witnessed from him ever. It broke my heart massively knowing I actually couldn’t make it better.
Nae-Nae is so spiritually mature that her way was actually a blessing to us. When I told them about the loss and the rest of us were historical she looked at us and asked do we believe? We stopped to pay attention to her. She continued “There’s no need for the crying, God is compassionate so he is in heaven now having fun.”
Do you know what? That choked me on levels I didn’t even know existed. She was so matter of fact about it and articulated it from a place way beyond her years and the knowledge that we had ever given her. I didn’t even know she knew the word compassionate and use it in the correct context. She has never used it around here. I looked in her eyes and thought she just delivered a message so I’ve got to listen and wow that brought a great level of comfort.

I do believe in heaven and believe it’s a place bigger and better than here and actually if our relative has gone on to that place then yeah she’s right, why are we crying? At the same time I wanted her to realise that it is ok to show this emotion for the pain of our loss that we won’t see him again for a very long time, when we will hopefully meet in heaven. She looked at me like “How do you know?” Well… That’s another story for another day..!

Even though we had a tragedy during the summer JJ and I still went away for his pre-birthday treat and thank you treat for working so hard at school and for helping me with all my projects. Without his help some of the things I produce would not be happening. We had such an amazing time and it was so needed, so strategic for both of our journeys.  I did think to cancel the trip but hubby told us to go. He explained that JJ had lost one important thing in his life so I can’t take another thing away as he might not recover from it. This was very true. Our children find it hard to process why things they have programmed in their brain or rehearsed over and over again change or don’t happen. At times they feel that they have done something wrong which is why it’s no longer happening. I remember when JJ was small he loved playtime at school and the timeline that was created for him would include it. He looked forward to that part of the day. Even when he didn’t see the physical timeline he would still programme that in his head. So when it rained and they couldn’t go out to play he struggled with this big time. It was meltdown city! He thought that he must have done something wrong so it was punishment to him as if someone is taking a reward away due to bad behaviour. Even when the teacher explained it was because of the rain he still didn’t get it for several years, no matter how many times it was explained and shown to him.
He has come so far from that place but then he has still transferred that idea in different places so if I took the holiday away from him, it might have crushed him for a long time and I couldn’t do that to him. Besides a change of scenery was good for him as he was very quiet and needed something else to focus on and actually so did I.
Nae-Nae didn’t want to come she was looking forward to spending time alone with her daddy. She knew she would be the princess on the throne and decide when she wants to go out and to do what she wants and when. MrJK and Nae-Nae are very similar in personality so they are very in tune with each other’s needs. I realised something about myself when I facetimed her everyday and she looked so happy and relaxed. Actually my intensity probably contributes to some of her behaviours. I always want to do something or go somewhere and actually she doesn’t want to most of the time. To hear that she went to a busy town on the bus with her dad and places she will never go with me if I asked her was just an eye opener. She suggested it so that was different. She wanted to go so she had worked it all out in her brain beforehand. I also know that sometimes I talk to her too much if I see any discomfort in her face but MrJK just lets her be and she works through her anxieties quicker. I’m going to talk less now! Well I’ll try!
Back to school for my children is great. It provides structure and routine which is what they thrive on. So when that day came we were happy. Well… Surprisingly for the first time ever Nae-Nae was worried about it the night before. This was different. She has never cried about going to school ever! When she started school in reception I was hurt that she didn’t even care they we were there she just bounced in without saying goodbye. I was well hurt when all the other children had to be prised away from their parents screaming.
What was it about this year? Then I thought about it. It’s her last school year in primary school so she is already predicting a big change coming. We spoke about it and it was also about the fact that she would be in the top year of the school and there comes responsibilities and pressure that they need to set an example but what if she couldn’t do that all of the time.
Aww my baby! My heart just melted for her. She had put incredible pressure on her brain. Her wonderful new teacher detected that and made her feel so comfortable. We are so blessed to have been given super teachers for our kids.
The first full week back was good for both children. Nae-Nae had one slight blip one day which was caused by her expecting people to read her mind and when they couldn’t she went ape, but in the grand scheme of things this was a minor to what I anticipated. At the end of the week she bounced in the house to show everyone that she had a special wrist band. ‘Star of the week.’ She was so pleased with herself. She has had these before but she had the biggest smile on her face this time. She reminded me that this is the first one given out for this new school year. I smiled. I knew exactly what she was saying. Nae-Nae finds celebrating people difficult at times but if she has been celebrated first she will happily celebrate others thereafter. So this met her needs! She was the first star of the week so to her anything can happen from here on with her classmates and she can join in as she will always remember that she was first. I couldn’t have organised it better myself but I actually didn’t need to! Nae-Nae impressed the teacher and deserved the acknowledgement. I was so so pleased for her. JJ also bounced home on day 1 to tell us that he has been selected as form rep for the second year running. To his horror I gave him the biggest hug and kiss. My children are real tryers.
This taught me something…! Despite what happens around us we can’t give up, we still need to carry on and be the best we can be as we all have our own assignments on earth. Even if someone else’s assignment has ended ours still continues. We teach our kids to reach for the stars and all things are possible, so to see them live that is something to rejoice over too in the midst of pain. In all things we give thanks!
Being back at work did me some good too, strangely enough…!