I think it is hard for most parents to let go and allow their children to become independent. Being supportive as your child learns to explore choices, make decisions,and possibly make mistakes is one of the challenges of being a parent. Our ultimate goal is independence but after eighteen years of supervising, nurturing, and protecting it's hard to watch your children take those first flights of freedom. Those steps have been pretty easy with my oldest child. He is a relatively cautious and responsible individual. With a year of high school under his belt, we have started exploring dating, working, managing money, researching colleges, and the early preparations for driving. It has gone fairly smoothly. Our role as his parents has been to act as a support system offering advise and boundaries. When given options, he almost always chooses good ones. I pray he continues to grow into the good strong man that he seems to be becoming.
Unfortunately, I find it so much harder to step back and allow my youngest son to take those same steps towards independence. At each step of his journey, he has had to push back and assert his need for independence in order for me to grant it. With my oldest son, I encouraged it. I welcomed it. I trusted that he could handle it. It grieves me that I can't give my youngest son that same trust and latitude. His independence is one of my greatest goals and desires. Ten years of protecting him, supporting him, and guiding him has become a habit I'm finding very hard to break.
As summer draws to a close and our son prepares to transition to middle school, he has voiced a desire to stop attending out-patient speech and occupational therapy. He loves his therapists but it is his desire to start middle school like everyone else. He wants to join band and chorus. He wants to attend camps and activities like all his same age peers. I want that for him as well. I want him to blend. I want his transition to be a smooth one.
I'm afraid. I fear that he's going to need the support of his therapy team now more than ever. In the past, stress has increased his stuttering and blocking. Stress makes him more clumsy, less focused, and more prone to angry outbursts with us. It also increases his night terrors and sleepwalking. His therapy team has been a secondary support through these challenging times. It is easier for him to take direction and instruction from them, than from us. They can tell him the same information that we have shared with him but he listens to them because they don't live with him every day. My biggest fear is that his desire for independence will sever him from a support that he is going to desperately need.
On the other hand, he has shown growth. He is learning to advocate for himself. While undergoing the school evaluation for his new IEP this year, he talked openly and honestly with the school psychologist about his strengths and weaknesses. He showed an awareness of who he is and what he needs that was surprising but encouraging. In recent weeks, he has had very candid conversations with his therapists about his concerns about transitioning to middle school. That openness is also encouraging. When I asked him to pick up the Legos in his room so that I could vacuum his floor, he told me he would pick up and vacuum. He wanted to clean up all by himself. It took twice as long and wasn't nearly as thorough as when I do it but this desire for independence was extremely encouraging. He is voicing a desire to do more for himself more frequently.
I have many fears regarding our son's transition to middle school. There are so many factors that are out of my control. On the other hand, he is trying to rise to the occasion and become the independent young man he is going to need to be in middle school. So ultimately, I need to respect his wishes. At the end of summer, we will take a break from therapy. We will transition to middle school prepared with knowledge and skills from his therapists, past and present. We will develop organization systems to help him manage himself and his materials. We will stay in contact with his new school team and attempt to handle problems as they arise, rather than further down the road. We will also pray. A lot.
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