Asperger's kids can have emotional outbursts known commonly as "meltdowns." We experienced them in great number when Bubs was much younger and thankfully now that he's 12, they've become rare. However, when the storms are raging, life is not pretty.
It starts out slowly, like the rumbling of thunder. Then before you know it, you're up to your knees in a storm-surge and wondering how in the world you stepped into this one. For Bubba, it's always much, much worse if he's hungry. Something about hunger sets his whole world on edge. He can get moody, sullen, irritable, - and while it's obvious to observe, we don't always put it together with food until he's eaten and is suddenly his sweet self again. Then we're like "Oh yeah! It was the hunger moodiness!" Oh, if only it were always that simple.
What sets him off more than anything else? Well, there are two things. One: school. Two: sibling rivalry.
School is a bad word in our house. He actually prefers you not even use the word. Yes, he despises it that badly and he always has. He's never been the kid who skips to the bus stop and can't wait to see his classmates. He has rejected school since the early days. In Kindergarten he remarked that he felt like he was inside of a monster all day. Things have not changed. Middle School brings new challenges, almost of all of which are in direct contrast to what an Asperger kid prefers. More socialization, more organizational needs, more sensory stimulation, more demands, more homework, more noise.
It has been a very bumpy road for Bub. And for us. But the meltdowns really occur when the homework demands become too much. He is easily overwhelmed by pages of math problems. It's as if he views it as a neverending sea of demand. He rejects it wholeheartedly, with such disdain - you'd think it had been a venomous page that sunk its fangs into him. Sometimes he refuses to even try even though we know he's capable. It's frustrating for all of us to try to get through certain assignments.
When a meltdown occurs, all rationality goes out the window. You can not reason with a flooded mind. We still try sometimes, out of habit, out of our own need for trying to resume control. We are still learning when to back off and just let the storm pass instead of trying to stop the howling wind. We are so thick-headed sometimes, we repeat our behaviors even though they've been proven ineffective for years.
But we continue to try. We're learning to let him spout what he needs to spout, to validate that his feelings about math and homework are real to him. Not to try to talk him out of feeling that way, or tell him how important this work is, or that his future depends on it. When the storm is raging, you can't reason. It's like asking the thunder to keep it down because you're trying to sleep. Thunder is going to be thunder whether you like it or not.
So sometimes you just have to sit through it with him. Understand where he's coming from, agree when you can. Empathize and sigh and nod. And the storm starts to pass. It can't go on forever, though sometimes it feels like it. But the good part comes after.
For Bubs, when he's done with the meltdown, he's ultra-receptive to our advice. He becomes refreshed, renewed, just like a tree after the rain. He's ready to receive the sunshine. And he grows from it. We can actually sit and talk, figure out what we can do to help him through the decimals and lowest common denominators.
After last night's math meltdown, when the skies had cleared and the sun was shining again, Bubba was found in his bed with his math packet, working on it on his own. He was in his pajamas without prompting, he was working without being pushed. And it never fails that he feels amazing when he has completed a difficult task. His smile is a ray of light. His confidence shines. When he pushes through the storm, he is a little stronger, a little bigger, a little brighter than ever before.
And that makes weathering it with him worth every second.
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