There are many things that are scary when you are a parent. Their seemingly constant habits of falling down for no apparent reason, choking because they eat EVERYTHING except the food you make them, drowning in an inch of water when they are in the bathtub, strangers,and germs; to name a few. Then there are the developmental milestones: their speech development, their motor skills, their social skills and all those things that you can try and control but can’t. As they get older these uncontrollable things become more apparent. They should be crawling by this age and walking by that age. They need to have this many words. They need to be playing with toys this specific way. Maybe not everyone stresses about this as much as I do but if you have read any of my other blogs you know I sure as hell do know matter how much I try not to.
On top of all those things I also always have something else in the back of my mind: the signs. Does she smile at people? Does she make eye contact? Does she respond to her name? Does she form attachments to hard objects over soft? Does she enjoy touch and find comfort in physical contact? Does she engage in “conversations”? Does she have aversions to certain textures? I know these signs. I have seen these signs. I work with these signs. I have lived with these signs. These are some of the many early signs of the A word. Autism.
I have written before about whether or not I was afraid of having a child with Autism when I was pregnant. It is not about being afraid to me. It is about being ready. It is about knowing. And you know what? It is about being afraid. Not for me so much, but for her. Would I love her less? Never. Would I love her differently? Not even. To me she would be the exact same kid before as she is after the words came out of the doctor’s mouth. It is the world that will change. It is the world that will see her and love her differently and that’s what scares me.
Every time she starts something new she will be the Autistic kid. When she starts school she will have that little red flag beside her name. Forms that ask if my child has a diagnosis or behavioural concern will have something written on it and that will automatically make people see her differently. That scares me.
I know exactly what I would do if I got the diagnosis. Who the first people would be that would get my call. I know what strategies I would want to try. I know all of that. It’s what I do for a living. It’s what I grew up with. But I don’t know how to be an Autism mom. I know how to be a therapist. I know how to be a sibling. I know how to teach people about what Autism is according to the DSM. But I don’t know how to be an Autism mom. I don’t know how to deal with people seeing my kid as different or as a potential problem before they even know her. I don’t know how to help her to feel better when she is feeling left out because people think she is different from them. I don’t know how to deal with the empathetic looks from people when they hear that my kid is not “typical”. I barely know how to be a mom as it is, how am I supposed to know how to be a mom on a whole other level.
So I look for the signs. Partly because it is what I have been wired to do through my job and partly because I have a relationship with Autism that a lot of people don’t get to have. I look for the signs in people and kids all the time. The kid having a meltdown at the store, the kid playing by himself in the sand at the park. I try not to but I do. Not out of any sort of mean intention but more than anything out of curiosity. It is hard for me to know whether when I am doing it with my own kid if its the same thing or not. She hoards toys, talks a mile a minute and has a thing for always wearing at least one (but usually multiple) hats and/or necklaces and man does she likes tv way too much for her young age. Are those signs that she is a goofy kid or is someone going to tell me that it means something more?
So while I have enough things to think about on a daily basis I add one more, because why not? I guess in the end we stick with what we know. She could have any of the other million diagnoses out there and I wouldn’t have any idea. But this one, for better or for worse, I know the signs so I keep looking for them.