Sometimes I get so involved in being an advocate for my daughter that I forget to just be her mom. I've noticed lately, that while I've been extremely active in IEP's, doctor's appointments, parent support groups, lectures, reading material on Asperger's, etc. - I've been lagging in checking in with her. Homework has suffered, focus on school is decreased and I've noticed that she's pulling away from our normal, everyday conversations - our silly time.
While I was sitting in a lecture at UC Davis's MIND Institute, I realized that I was in way over my head. Do I really need to know who Piaget, Kohlberg and Gilligan are? Seriously. Do I need to understand the prefrontal cortex? Do I need to know that higher abstract reasoning usually equals better friendships? Hahaha!! I would say no.
I understand that my daughter's brain is wired differently - and I think that my need to be better educated on Apserger's than anyone else that I come into contact with during advocacy for my daughter has led me astray. My thought was that if I know everything that there is to know about Asperger's, the when someone is talking to me about services, interventions and accommodations for my daughter, I could always be one step ahead if they tried to pull one over on me. And I could agree or disagree with recommendations from an educated place. Now - I still think that this is very important. Understanding the disorder and how it affects my daughter is key to getting her appropriate interventions in place. I won't move away from that position, and I'll continue to read about and research interventions, and practical solutions to the barriers and issues that we face.
More importantly, however, rather than sit through another lecture on the biophysical structuring of Asperger's, I'll have dinner with my daughter and encourage her to order her meal on her own. I'll play tic-tac-toe with her on the napkins and I'll laugh at her ridiculous word choices when we play hangman. I'll pay attention to her homework schedule and I'll tell her about other children and individuals with Asperger's and we'll work together to understand the world and how she can successfully live in it.
I'll leave the discussions on cognitive control and executive functions to the scientists and I'll focus on being a mom to a daughter who just happens to have Asperger's.
Remember - DIFFERENT IS BEAUTIFUL!!
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