May 05 2008
What Are We Expecting?
Hello! My name is Andrea - yoga teacher and mother of two lovely kids, one of whom is diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. One thing I’ve learned from many years of yoga practice is to try to detach myself from expectations. Now, I have not mastered this by any stretch, but I do try to incorporate the concept when I can. Detaching oneself from expectations is one way to release the mind and spirit from suffering. I wish my son’s teacher could adopt this attitude, especially on Mondays.
Most adults I know, at least the ones who work typical 9-5 jobs, hate when Monday morning rolls around. It often takes the whole of the day to get back into work mode, back into the routine.
So if neuro-typical adults often have this difficulty, why should the expectation be any different, higher even, for a child, particularly one with special needs, who has difficulty with transitions and changes in routine?
He had a pretty bad afternoon today. Apparently there was laying on the floor, spitting (that’s new), defiance…. When I asked him what was going on, he told me that he was tired. And, quite frankly, I couldn’t be too upset with him, because I can’t count how many days I’ve had a bad attitude on a Monday because I was just not ready to get back to ‘that world’ of work and expectation and someone constantly breathing down your neck for something. It’s not fair to demand better of a seven year old.
These days it seems that there are many unrealistic expectations for kids in general; the burden on kids with special needs is becoming downright ridiculous.
There are many unrealistic expectations, and it is so hard to know where to draw the line between expecting too much of your child and not expecting enough. Unfortunately any public expectations are never based on individuals, just on “Classes” of people. For some reason it seems to be acceptable to do this with special needs children, but not with others…