Sometimes life is tough, sometimes life is fun

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I would like to share some heartwarming tidbits from my children.

One day, I was taking them to their music-and-art lessons provided by a non-profit organization. We were running late, and the kiddos were dragging their feet. Worse of all, the backpack containing their music instruction books was misplaced and I couldn't find it for a while. I lost my temper, and yelled at my children. At that moment, Mindy came to me and told me: "Dad, sometimes life is tough, sometimes life is fun." It was like a magical pill. I told her: "Thank you!" And we left happily to the non-profit organization. We made it to the lessons in time.

Another day, I was taking a rest in bed, and the children came in. When I got off bed, I realized that our old violin and its bow were on one corner of the bed, partially covered with blanket. If I haven't paid more attention, I could have accidentally broken the violin. That violin was really not ours: it was on loan from my brother-in-law. It was an expensive violin. Obviously one of my children removed it from where I had left it before and placed it on the big bed. My immediate reaction was it must have been Ivan, so I scolded him, asking him why he did not realize that it was not a safe place to leave the violin. Ivan ended up in tears. But I realized Mindy was unusually silent. Then I asked her: "Did you put it there?" And she nodded her head. I turned around, Ivan looked at me with tears in his eyes, and implored: "Dad, sometimes life is tough, sometimes life is fun." At that moment, I just melted. I told him: "You are right... Thank you!"

Those were the first occasions that my children have reminded me that "Sometimes life is tough, sometimes life is fun."

The day after, at the dinner table, Ivan recounted to his mom what has happened. He asked me: "Dad, what happened to you yesterday?" I told him that I got mad because the violin was on the bed, and I thought that he had moved it there. Ivan was all smiles and said: "But it was actually... Mindy!" I asked him: "And what did you tell Daddy?" He said:"Sometimes life is tough, sometimes life is fun!" I then asked him: "So, was Daddy still mad after that?" He said, "Nope!" and went on giggling. I gave him a high five. Then I recounted the other episode about running late for the music-and-art lessons, where Mindy told me the same thing. And everybody had a good laugh.

I can't even describe how proud I felt about my children.

The thing is, I have always treated my children as equal-rights fellow human beings. The way I interact with them, is the way I expect them to interact with me. Nobody is above anybody. We are all equals.

My neurotypical wife finds all that to be surreal. She is just amazed how one moment we the three autistic people in the family could be mad at each other, and the next moment we could be happy and giggling, as if nothing has happened. And we can recount what happened and laugh about it all. Everyone gets to keep their confidence and self-esteem. And, we continue to have fun together, every day.

I let my children throw tantrums freely. Surprisingly, this way, they are happy every day, with big smiles on their faces. Furthermore, because of reciprocity, they also understand that it's within my rights to get upset. I've never told my children to control their temper... not even once. I've never asked them to apply ABA-style coping techniques, behavior replacement, etc. I don't ask them to change. I don't ask them to promise they won't do the same thing again. I don't ask them to apologize. The only thing I do is to point out that, sometimes life is tough, sometimes life is fun. Strangely, somehow it all works out. We can defuse tension in a matter of seconds, whereas other families would ruin their relationships when someone gets upset at home. This kind of magical moments in my family don't just happen overnight... we have laid out the foundation along the years.

For those new to the forum, here is more background information: http://www.eikonabridge.com/fun_and_facts.pdf

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And here is another recent thought. I often tell people: "Autism is not a disorder. Autism is just how your brain is wired." And people have the hardest time seeing things from my perspective. They don't know what I am talking about.

How can autism possibly be NOT a mental disorder, when we see with our own eyes how crippled some autistic adults are? Nearly all of them have verbal and social difficulties. Many are intellectually disabled. Many are unable to fully focus and pay attention. Many have sensory, rigidity, anxiety and irritability issues. Some wear diapers.

If autism is not the cause of all these problems, then what is?

I struggled with finding an analogy for people to better understand this point. I think I have found one: Autism and neurotypicality are like two different operating systems. You may excel at writing Windows PC application programs, but your programming skills may not carry over to a different operating system, like Linux. Your programs in Linux might be defective simply because you are not familiar with the Linux environment: you don't know the right tools, you don't know the right libraries, packages and routines. You can't blame Linux system for being a defective operating system. The defect is in the application programmer, not in the operating system. Blaming the suffering of autistic adults on autism is like blaming an operating system for the failures of the application programmers.

This is a happy post. It is lovely to hear your pride in your children. I have inferred (from another post, where you talk of how your father built you some devices that got you interested in engineering) that you had a pretty happy upbringing and that has clearly made you someone who really invests a lot of thought into being a good dad to your kids.

I hope you don't mind me sharing my own moments of pride from the past week.

A boy in my daughter's class (who is a fairly arrogant, big headed type) was laying into the girls at lunch-time, name-calling, bossing them about that kind of thing. My daughter stood up and said: "We believe in ourselves." It is interesting to me that she is probably the quietest and most shy in the class and most likely the only Aspie-girl in the class, but when it comes down to it, she will be the first to defend herself and others. Because it is the truth, she does believe in herself.

Another incident. I had a quiet word with her about how her sister struggles when she looses her temper and how unpredictable it is and that her sister is so much younger and finds it hard and it is really impacting on her self-confidence to feel she has to walk on eggshells. My Aspie girl is quite fixed in how she relates to her belongings and in the home she can often find it challenging when people move or touch her things or when she feels crowded. With a younger sibling rushing around this can be difficult. Later on, they were playing with their puppet theatre and I heard my younger daughter sounding worried so I listened in. This is what I heard:

Big daughter: What is the matter?
Little one: I'm worried I did something by accident and you will get angry?
Big daughter: what happened?
Little one: I accidentally stepped on your puppet whale....
Big one: (thinks a bit)... well, can you try and not do that again... it was good you told me.... and it is ok... but can you TRY and not do that again.... but it is only a toy... and it is not a problem.... just try and not do it.... but it was really good you told me.... (spends more time reassuring little one that it is not a problem and she is not angry and that these things happen sometimes).

Of course 5 min later she bounces in to the kitchen to tell me her news (as she rightfully felt proud of being a good role-model), I just told her I had heard and she hadn't needed me as she handled it perfectly herself (in my mind the best praise there is!)The student surpassing the teacher!

Great post, eikonbridge!