Every child is unique
Yesterday, abfh wrote something that captures perfectly how I feel about being a parent - not just of an autistic son, but of both my kids (emphasis is mine):
Children are always different from their parents and from one another in a great many ways, and each child is uncharted territory. No one ever knows how well they can deal with parenting any child. It's always a matter of gaining experience on the job, observing how the child grows and learns, and loving the child enough to let the natural process of growth take place, unconstrained by the parents' needs and assumptions.This has now found a place in my trusty notebook of things I want to have handy. If anyone asks me how I "deal" with parenting an autistic child, I'll simply show them this.
3 comments:
Brett, thanks for the link and your kind words, and I'm glad you found my post helpful!
"unconstrained by the parents' needs and assumptions." Reminds me of a Philip Larkin poem
'They fuck you up, your mom and dad,
They don't mean to, but they really do,
They fill you up, with the faults they had,
And add some extra, just for you...'
Cheers
Lotus eater
I enjoyed that post too, thanks for promoting it.
I do worry about the fact that it's always the parents fault, but at the same time at least that puts us in the same world as all the other parents on the planet!
Cheers
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