Autism Awareness Month Day 19

Back to school for Nae-Na, yes at last! It was a long three weeks having children with different school holidays. I hope it doesn’t happen again as its was a real juggling act. Thank God for MrJK and his work pattern and flexibility. Nae-Nae was excited to go back to school but she was also nervous. She wants to do so well this term and for her doing her best means not getting internally or externally excluded which is a bit sad but we’re working on it. She told me that exercising good behaviour all of the time is hard for her. I explained that there isn’t an expectation for her behaviour to be perfect as there are things which are beyond her control and I wouldn’t define it as bad behaviour either. She clearly doesn’t do certain things on purpose and all she can do is try to manage the reactions to some degree by using calming strategies if she has a meltdown or to prevent one.
She knows what works, breathing techniques and press ups but there usually needs to be someone around to help remind her what to do in those moments to break her out of the meltdown or stopping her from having one. Humour and other distractions work well too. I wanted her to relax a bit as she is putting a huge amount of pressure on herself and it’s really good that she wants to try hard to control it but just not to the degree that it causes her further anxiety and panic. What is needed is the right level of support to help her through each day as that in my view is one of the ways to reduce the risk of certain outcomes, although some things no one can ever predict and they may just happen.
Nae-Nae was particularly concerned about the events of tomorrow as she has an appointment to attend first thing in the morning and although it’s an educational trip and very important she doesn’t like the fact that she can’t be at her school first thing to be part of registration etc. She thinks that this will affect her attendance rating which causes her a great level of stress and she just doesn’t like the fact that she can’t choose her lunch option at the same time as others and she’s worried when she returns to school it will be too late to do so.
We’ve been over and over this all holiday but she still doesn’t completely believe my explanation but I know she will believe it if it comes from the school. Therefore I wrote a letter to the office staff explaining the situation and a possible strategy which will help me and her and I wrote to her teacher too. Usually I will write in a communication book we have but I didn’t want Nae-Nae to be able to read what I wrote as I was planning to pull a bit of a crafty one… By any means necessary! I just didn’t want her to see my method of trying to reduce her anxiety levels. I put the letter in a sealed envelope so she wouldn’t get hold of it.
She doesn’t often read what I write to her teacher and what her teacher writes back but as she growing up she is more intrigued to know everything so there was a chance that she could get into the playground and read the book and as MrJK was taking her to school there was a greater chance of that happening. No offence to him of course, but when he drops her to school she goes off into the playground and lines up and he positions himself somewhere far off, where he can see her but not close enough to see everything she is doing, whereas I join in with conversations with her friends and their games lol so I’m usually only ever a couple of feet away. We both have different personalities and different styles. I’m a talker and he’s not. Quiet waters run deep though!
By the way I know he does this as I’ve seen him doing it. At times when I’m off work or working locally I drop JJ off and then meet MrJK and Nae-Nae at her school so he can get off to work or to his other commitments. We’re like a tag team. On those day I could just take Nae-Nae with me to drop JJ but its far too stressful. Been there done that! If there’s a lot of traffic she panics because she worries that she won’t get to school at the time she needs to and that will affect her day. One time this happened and everyone in the car had there hands in their mouths. There must have been an accident as traffic was moving slowly. I had to find alternative routes just so my car was not at a standstill as this makes her kick off. JJ’s friend was sitting in the back with her and the time and the poor boy had to endure the screams closely in his ear and JJ was sitting in front of her and getting the back of his seat kicked. I ended up getting the boys as close to school as I could and then asking them to get out and walk the rest of the way just so I could turn around and get her to school as far as I could. I felt bad for them but it was the only way. We made it to school on time for the start but not early enough for her to open the gate with the caretaker so that wasn’t a good day!

I usually take Nae-Nae with us on a Friday though but the boys have to be ready extra early so I can get them to school as early as it opens so I have time to get back to Nae-Nae’s school on the other side of town as early as she would when she walks with her dad. Fridays are good days in terms of traffic as its usually quieter on the roads. I put it down to the fact that many people have Fridays off work so that takes that extra car out of the equation. Well that’s my theory anyway.
I went to work and had a great day of ‘lasts’. My last supervision meeting and my last team meeting with other managers on my level. It’s been 13 good years but I’m moving on from that organisation next Friday. I managed to keep back the tears but I did feel a little emotional inside. It’s been an incredible journey and I’ve met some really great people and learnt lots of stuff. I’ve had opportunities to do all sorts and I’ve climbed the ladder to achieve my development goals. I aspired to get to senior management level and I managed to achieve the goal but after a while I thought been there, done that, got the skills and experience I wanted so then I opted to step down a level again and they supported me to do that. I will miss it… well a little bit.
However, it’s time! I’ve run away from other things for a long time and just been too afraid and felt too comfortable to step out but the Lord knew that and did it in such a way that I was forced out and to me there was no other option but this way. I know there are greater things ahead and I just need to continue to live in my purpose and have the faith that everything will work out beautifully. God’s got us!
I got home and as soon as I walked through the door Nae-Nae called out “Hi mum come here please.” They were all sitting at the table eating dinner. I asked JJ and Nae-Nae whether they had a good day and JJ nodded and Nae-Nae replied “Yes mum I didn’t get excluded.” Oh boy…! She was rating the success of the day by the fact that she didn’t get excluded… We need to have a chat! I decided not to have it then while she was having dinner and I had a meeting to attend in the evening so I decided to postpone that chat to the morning.
As I was eating dinner Nae-Nae called MrJK to play Awari. She doesn’t ever remember what the game is called but she refers to it as the ‘Ghanaian game’ lol. Although I don’t actually think it originated in Ghana, Nae-Nae is claiming it for Ghana lol. Nae-Nae has seemed to have built family game time into her schedule every evening now. Well I say family game time but it’s Parent and Daughter game time everyday apart from our scheduled family game day. At the moment she won’t play Awari with me that’s now the game she plays with her dad but she will play Ludo, snap or noughts and crosses with me.
Nae-Nae floored MrJK again so when they finished and she went to her room, I had 10 minutes before I had to leave for my meeting so I challenged MrJK. We are both very competitive when we play against each other so you could hear both our hearts beating and our brains ticking away as we watched each other’s move. We drew one game and then the second game MrJK won but I think he cheated so I didn’t accept it but I didn’t have time to play another game so left him to it and went out.
When I got back the children were already in bed so I bathed and went to bed too.
Gosh the days are flying!!!

Peace and Love

MrsJK