a well known fact...

It is a well known fact that individuals with autism often have difficulty adjusting to schedule changes. Even a minor one, for example, of moving the fork off the placement at the dinner table, to majors one, like school vacations.  The traditional school year is a nightmare for families like ours.  Every August, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break, we get to start over adjusting "going to school".  You'd think that after doing this for 20 years that I'd have a handle on it by now.  yeah, you'd think wrong.

As Catholics we believe that we are the first, and primary educator of children.  God entrusts them to us and we are responsible to teach them the way to get them back to Heaven.  He gives us the knowledge and insight for each one of His little souls to help us and most often we know more than the "experts".  Not so with autism.  Everyday I put that sweet 7 year old on a bus and give him over to people that seem to know him better than I do.  They seem to say the right things.  They seem to know when to push and when to let it ride.  They seem to know how to get him to talk, and to read, and to write.  How is it possible that I don't have that knowledge??? How is it possible that non parents do????  How is it possible that after all these years, and a well known fact, I still haven't managed to get my child on a bus after a school break with out a major melt down?

Today I put my crying, upset, and frustrated baby on a bus.  I walked away from that bus feeling sick to my stomach; frustrated and upset that I STILL don't have the knowledge or skills to help him and the experts do.  So, I will continue to beg ask them to teach me because.....

a good mother would...