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The Truth About Resilience

8/18/2016

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The Truth About Resilience

Resilience, I think, is a misunderstood concept. Well, at least, I think I’ve misunderstood it for a long time. For whatever reason, I guess I believed, for the last 10 or 15 years, that resilience was the ability to handle challenging situations. Life crises. Major difficulties. I thought that being resilient was about being able to meet challenges, solve problems, and come out on top, or better for the experience. Now that I write it down, I can tell it’s a rather superficial explanation. And for all the things I’ve lived through, and the challenges I felt I conquered, or didn’t as is more often the case, I’m a little surprised my definition hadn’t evolved.

The truth about resilience is that it’s not the ability to handle a crisis. It’s actually about the ability to recover from NOT handling a crisis. It’s about bouncing back after failure, recovering from a breakdown (or a breakup), and picking yourself up after falling. It’s not at all about preventing yourself from falling.

Life is full of falls and failures. Some lives are a string of failures. A veritable hurricane of challenges. Like walking against not only the wind and driving rain, but also huge skull-cracking boulders and flying debris being hurled at you. At least my life has felt that way.
And I spent much of it thinking that I wasn’t very resilient because I was still getting knocked down, scraped and bruised, so very wounded by the debris of life falling apart over and over again. Failure does have a way of making us feel like, well, failures.

But as I now realize, I am amazingly resilient. Superhuman-resilient. I have not once failed to get up, even after being down a long time. Even if I’m so scarred and broken that I can’t conquer the next challenge. And perhaps it is this, the past mistaken understanding of resilience, that kept me down in the first place. It’s also the reason I get up too soon, thinking that falling and failing is the opposite of resilience.
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Perhaps if I wait a bit longer for a few breaks to heal, I won’t fall again quite so soon. Or if I do, the wound won’t be quite so deep.
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Practicing What We Preach (and why it’s okay to get mad at your kids)

10/13/2015

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No matter how much knowledge you have, good coping skills, and great tools, sometimes ASD (or any kid) behaviour just makes you angry. Sometimes your emotions get the better of you, and you can’t help your child calm down, because YOU aren’t calm. And that’s okay. It’s not a failure, or a setback to overcome. It’s just part of being human.

Some mornings, my 6 yr old starts off loud, banging things, scripting non stop, hitting everything, screaming at his lego creations, or bouncing off the walls. Okay, almost every morning. And some days, particularly if I haven’t had enough sleep (or coffee), it takes every ounce of my energy just to stay calm enough to help him let go, or cope, or whatever it is he needs. And sometimes I get angry instead. Sometimes I yell at him, instead of speaking calmly. Sometimes I put in my headphones to drown out his singing and banging, and I ignore him. Sometimes I hide in the bathroom. And frequently that makes him worse.

Sure I feel bad about the (too many) times I let my emotions get the better of me. I feel guilty for not being able to help him calm down every time. I beat myself up for the wrong tone of voice, or not addressing the problem sooner, or just my own lack of control. I question my ability to parent effectively. I berate myself for choosing to stay up too late, or forgetting to buy more coffee. But at the end of it all, none of that guilt is productive. It doesn’t help me get back on track.

I’m not perfect, and I make mistakes. But that’s OK. It’s allowed. I give myself permission to NOT be perfect ALL the time. The fact that I know when I’ve screwed up, and that I feel bad about it, is enough. I don’t have to make it worse by “beating a dead horse”. The mistake is made, what’s done is done. All I can do is move forward, and expect that I will at some point (and probably frequently) screw up again. I’ve learned that progress is better than perfection, and way more attainable.

As parents of extra challenging kids, we have to cut ourselves some slack. And we have to practice what we preach. That might just be the key. For every time you tell your kid to take deep breaths, take some yourself. And when you are teaching them to try again, and that it’s okay to make mistakes, take your own advice. I think more than anything else, THIS has helped me the most. I make lots of mistakes. And as a single mom, I don’t have anyone else to take the blame, or be the bad guy, or just to share in my guilt. It’s all on me. And reminding myself of the same concepts I’m teaching my kids is absolutely the only thing keeping my head above water most of the time.
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Practice what you preach, and they just might pick up on your stellar example :)
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How to Balance Full Time Kids and Full Time Work

7/3/2015

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So, I sat down two weeks ago to write this great post about how to balance full time work and full time special needs kids. And as I started to outline my thoughts about planning, re-designing life, and re-evaluating priorities, I found that I actually still had a lot of work to do for myself. I’m still in the midst of this, figuring out the balance one day at a time, and struggling. But as I come back to my notes for this post, I see that I’m practicing what I wanted to share. So here’s my not-so-perfect, work-in-progress advice.

When you struggle with balance, you need a re-design.

Since our kids’ needs shift so frequently, our expectations for balance must shift too. And sometimes that means a total revamp every time a major development leap is made (backwards OR forwards).

While I don’t work for a boss (except me!) or have to be at an office, like many moms (and dads) with special needs kids do, I still have to juggle a lot of responsibilities, make time sacrifices, and re-balance when things change. I’m trying to build an at-home business from scratch, manage a household as a single parent, and still maintain my relationships with family, friends, and myself. I’m at my wit’s end. But I know it’s temporary. Since I’m a super organized person (at least in theory), I have to plan for this.

Identify your obstacles.

Summer is upon us, which means the full day of school I relied on for my 6 yr old has ended. So his time needs have increased. And my teenager’s growing refusal to participate in anything at all besides gaming (as a result of many things, including anxiety and demand avoidance) makes it nearly impossible to get any work done when he’s awake.

Autism has taught me many things, but so far the most valuable is how to be flexible when my kids can’t be. So everything is changing. And that means I must also adapt, regroup, and rethink the way I’m running my business, household and trying to fulfill my own life goals.

Know what your needs are, and what the kids need from you.

For instance, I know my 6 yr old is a morning person, and his most active, and therefore most needy, hours are in the morning. Unfortunately that’s when I usually get work done, cause I’m most productive then too. But it will be good for me to spend the morning being active and learning with him.

My older son needs different things - to wake up a little later, have a good chunk of alone time, and have the option to join us on our trip of the day. He might never choose it, but he needs to feel like he has some control over what he does all day.

Make a plan of action, with lots of room for adjustment.

I started out with brainstorming ways I could meet the needs of each kid and myself, and map out best times of the day for each. It was more involved than it needed to be (I love lists too much) but it was a good place to start.

So for my 6 yr old early bird, I planned activities for several mornings a week, like beach and pool trips, nature walks and hikes, and a library or museum day. So far we’ve gone to one of the local pools twice, hiked Lynn Canyon (in Vancouver, BC), visited a park we’ve never been to, and we are planning a beach trip for Friday. I have a calendar full of possible trips to do each week, all before lunch time when he’s at his most active.

For my teen, I posted our trips for the week on the fridge (and what we were having for dinner). And I made up several containers full of healthy snack/meal stuff so he won’t get hungry (although there’s never a guarantee he will feed himself). This way he knows where we are, and can choose to come on some trips, and eat something, in theory.

For myself, I’ve hired one of my 6 yr old’s school aides to come one day a week. This is the day I can do some focused work. And I can adjust some of my work to smaller chunks for after bedtime, and any small times I find during any given day. And some of my work I can share with him - like going to the library, or doing household stuff and running errands. This part hasn’t been put into motion yet, but will be soon.

Take notes. Reassess. Above all, be FLEXIBLE.

I have already noticed that the amount of activities I planned weren’t all feasible in the heatwave we’ve been having. Even my dinner planning has gone out the window. And other unexpected things (FedEx, broken kitchen light)  have derailed our plans. I also assumed that we would do these great morning things, and the afternoon might go smoothly enough to get some work done, run errands, etc. Nope, not so much. So I’ll be readjusting next week. And the week after we’ll be out of town, and who knows how much that will throw everything off.

Again, be really, really flexible with your expectations. And get some help too.

Balancing high needs kids with full time work means being flexible with your expectations, and learning how to adapt when things change. Planning, organizing, asking for help - these are all important things. And don’t forget to breathe.
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    Adrienne Sweat

    Business owner, household manager, mother, organization guru, virtual assistant

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