The Fork in the Road
Observant, this is one word I would use to describe my child. He notices aspects most adults would not think twice about. Such as the teacher on the oval without a hat, telling students not wearing a hat to put one on.
I remember that after-school conversation with the Year 2 teacher. My son had told her he would not put a hat on during breaktime. When asked why, my son replied, “When you go to the oval at lunch, you do not wear a hat, so if the adults can break the rules, it cannot be an important rule.” His sense of justice, equality, and compliance is strong.
As the years went on, we continued to build on these as strengths. Understanding that to do something fun, such as go to the park, we first must complete the spelling list for homework. However, there were times when this sense of justice certainly landed him in hot water. As the demands of school increased, so did the social expectations. Understanding and thinking through decisions was certainly a work in progress.
My phone rang whilst I was in my own classroom; I knew my child’s school number by sight. I answered the call. I was met with, “There has been a slight accident, but you need to come immediately; your child has a decent cut on the top of his head, and we can’t quite get it to stop bleeding.”
Panic.
When I got to his school, there was my son and his friend, both bleeding from their heads. I took my child to the hospital as directed, as did the other parent. Once the mess was cleaned up, this was the version of events that unfolded.
The ball they were playing with had become stuck in the tree. My son had decided that the duty teacher was too far away to ask for help and that the group could solve this issue on their own - quickly. So, as the leader of the group, he decided that an effective way to get the ball down was to throw sticks at the tree. This was quite ineffective. Larger sticks, much to my son’s disgust, were equally ineffective. So, he decided that the only logical way was to throw bits of crushed brick into the tree.
As the three boys hurled the bits of crushed brick into the tree, they had not thought ahead to move out of the way. Obviously, the best approach was to surround the tree and throw at once. The forethought of gravity was long forgotten in this moment, resulting in two split heads. The cut on my son’s head was approximately 5cm long and required glue to put together. Thankfully, the other parent understood the method behind the madness. To my sons’ disgust, the ball remained in the tree.
I had spent years attempting to fix all the issues we were experiencing, but had I ever stopped to understand why I saw the behaviours I saw? I am and was by no means an expert. I had known my son since birth, yet I knew there were days when the choices I made as a parent made it harder for him.
We were late… again. It seems that most days we were late or arriving with half of the items needed to be successful for the day. Shoes were a nightmare for us! I cannot count the number of times I have reached school to find that my son was ready without his shoes on. Usually, I would attempt to meet my son halfway, reduce the demands of the morning the best I could. This looked like putting the toothpaste on the toothbrush and brushing my own teeth while he did his. Laying out the uniform in the correct order of putting the clothing on, so that underwear was not missed.
However, this was not the case this day. I was tired. I was feeling the pressure at work, and I needed to be at school early myself, which meant the children needed to be at theirs even earlier. I did not have the time to stand and brush my teeth with my son. I was fed up and frustrated – surely not every household’s morning looked like mine? I walked past the bathroom; he was waiting for me, waiting for step one of the routine. I told him that I was late and did not have the time; he knew how to brush his teeth; he needed to make it happen. I walked off. I circled back to the bathroom 20 minutes later, my daughter in the car and the car running.
My son is sitting on the floor.
Teeth, unbrushed.
I snap; we were now extremely late. He turns away from me and grunts. I told him to get up and stop being silly; we had to go. A grunt was my response. I reached in to pick him up and move him to stand, and that was it, game over.
If I had taken the time, kept the routine, and made space for him to trust I would be there, to reduce the demands. I would have been all of 5 minutes late. In my own rush, and due to the actions I chose, I did not make it to work that morning, and only one child made it to school.
Something shifted that day; this was not about the ability to be able to brush his teeth. This was the need to have a consistent, predictable routine, which felt safe. That routine gave him half a chance of walking into the school environment, which he found incredibly difficult to navigate every day – despite the accommodations of educators who cared, in a state that allowed him to learn and connect with his peers.
My sudden change in routine took away consistency, predictability, trust, and safety.
This was my fork in the road.
For 9 years, I had been looking for the strategy that would make him do the things that his friends could do. That morning, sitting on the floor, I had to ask myself, what does my son need to be able to do what his friends do?
He knew how to brush his teeth, which was not the problem.
He needed the predictability of our routine. He needed me beside him completing the same task. He needed fewer demands competing for his attention before entering the school environment that required every ounce of his being to appear to fit.
I removed the supports we had because at the age of nine, I believed he should be able to complete the task. When he could not, I took that as defiant behaviour. For years I had desperately wanted to change what was happening in our world. Now, I was leaning into curiosity about what I could not see from the outset.
This shift did not mean the difficult behaviours became easy. Understanding behaviour as a means of communication does not mean I accepted unsafe behaviour. I did not remove all boundaries. We had consequences for actions, and there were still limits. Some of our days felt like eternity.
Understanding changed the question; instead of asking how I can stop this behaviour, I began to ask, what is this behaviour telling me?
My son had been in therapy since the age of 6 months old. These therapies began to provide him with strategies to understand and communicate his needs. I am fortunate that the therapists I have worked with have been incredibly kind and understanding; they want to make a difference and share their understanding, not fix him. We began developing common language and ways of communicating at home. When that language was mirrored at school, some of the barriers between us as a family began to come down.
Once I began to look beyond his behaviour, I started to notice all the little bits I had missed.
My son on the outside successfully navigated his school days. He would follow instructions when he wanted to resist. He could navigate noise, transitions, friendships, and changes in routine. He was able to suppress frustration and learnt to watch others and copy so he knew exactly what he needed to do.
He became the master of appearing fine.
Until he reached somewhere safe enough not to be.
Home.
At times I would have conversations with the classroom teacher about my child, about his amazing day, completing a beautiful piece of writing that he should be immensely proud of. Sometimes, during these moments, I would wonder if we were talking about the same child.
Then we would walk to the car.
He would throw his bag in the boot.
Eventually, I did not need to ask how his day had been.
I could hear it in the bag.
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