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In this contribution I would like to share about our son who has been diagnosed
with a form of autism. He is now 7 and 1/2 years old and has a sister who is
3 and 1/2 years old. We are doing the Son-Rise program with him. It's
a very exciting method of working with children with special needs. I will
write about it later. For now I would like to tell you about how I see the
continuum has helped our son and all of us to stay peaceful and loving despite
the challenges.
Our continuum with our son started quite some time before he came along. On
an autumn walk one day I became aware of his soul. I told my husband about
it and not long after he also felt the presence of our son. This was two years
before we felt ready to conceive him. During all that time I was continuously
aware of his presence. Then I got pregnant on my 30th birthday and started
to consciously communicate with this little fetus growing in me. I remember
thinking how strange it was that this being didn't join me in my mind
in dancing to the music I listened to everyday. I just thought: "Well,
I'm expecting too much from an unborn soul".
Our son was born at home and he was a boy just like we "knew". He didn't cry much and he latched onto the breast really well. Gosh, I had longed so much for this moment to breast-feed! He lay between us and breast-fed whenever he wanted and that was a lot. On the third day I cried looking at him sleeping, because I felt that he didn't need me. I would say now in retrospect that that was the first sign of me feeling his autism. Had it not been for my total passion to keep my child close to me at any cost it would have been easy to just let him be. The first 10 days he didn't leave my arms, but then I wanted a full-body hug with my husband and so we put him to lie by himself in our bed. Our son grew big and fat. When he was three months old I started going to baby massage classes in town. Although he was asleep I noticed that he was more restless and gave out a feeling of distress when I came to town. We live in a village that is pretty calm and the difference was probably too big for him. Being so in tune with him I stopped going to town once those five classes were over.
When our son was nine months
I was invited over to another mum's house. As I was walking past the zone where
I used to go for a walk with him he started
to scream and crawl out of the pram. It sounded as though I was torturing him.
But this time I was intent of getting out of my isolation a bit. For the entire
time that I was there he crawled away toward the road. When our son was 11
months we went to visit a big group friends. As soon as we came close to the
room where everyone was gathered he started screaming high pitched and loud.
One of us had to stay out with our son while the other went to join the group.
As our son started to walk and explore the world I followed my desire to give
him as many yes'es as possible in his life. I realize now what
a great basis that was to loving him unconditionally. I wasn't looking
to tell him what he coudn't do, instead I simply watched to see that
he would manage all his adventures without harming himself too badly.
Once he could walk he was basically going off in his own direction. And when he could run well I was running after him. I did think to myself that this continuum idea is not working here. It's him who should be walking/running after me. But no's just didn't work with him. The moment we left the house he was off which meant not opening the door before I could be out there with him.
Every day we went on the same round to the post office and the
shop. At the post office he was busy with going through one door and out the
other. I let
him do that every day for as long as I had the patience and that was about
20-30 minutes. It was so interesting to see how people were horrified at seeing
a little toddler playing by these doors. They would exclaim in fright: "Watch
out for those fingers". I would calmly tell them that he was safe and
that I was watching him.
Then our son turned three and I got pregnant three months later. I slowly realized
that I wouldn't be able to handle him running off when my tummy grew.
So I started being very decisive about where we were going to go and what we
were going to do. It took all my strength to keep him on track. Many times
I had to pick him up and take a screaming boy away. What made this process
doubly difficult was his muscle strength and size.
I started doubting my initial
intentions of giving him a basic yes to his world. I was full of self criticism,
because I thought that it was my fault that we
couldn't even open the door to the garden without fear of him creeping
through the fence and running off. He wasn't running away, he was simply
running.
When we started setting more limits in his life out of absolute necessity for
our home and his safety we came up with a new issue. He would scream very high
and loudly. It was very frustrating, because the sounds were so high they really
got to me under my skin. The screaming wasn't only in a situation of
limits being made, but any time he was frustrated about something.
By this time we understood that he wasn't developing like other children. He wasn't really communicating with words and rather screamed when something didn't work for him in his world.
I started asking him: "What do you want" every time he would scream. Then we taught him to say "No, I don't want to" instead of screaming. Then we taught him how to say "I want". That took much longer for him to learn. He didn't really say "I" that much, but rather talked about himself saying his name. I got a lot of comfort from a book called The Indigo Children, The new kids have arrived by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober. They describe other children who have difficulty to adapt into the normal social behavior. They also describe how special these children really are.
When I see how other children with different behavior patterns get treated by their families, in schools and society I am so grateful that I did give him so much time and patience. I am grateful that my husband and I deeply listened to him and knew that he was a very special boy. We kept our life simple and provided our son with the life that made him happy and calm. We felt that his presence was very healing and were grateful for him. I read somewhere that these children have the power to give you peace and strength. That is certainly true. We even argued over who was going to get him to sleep in the evening, because it felt healing and restful to lie next to him in that process. When I got up from having gotten him to sleep I felt filled with warmth and love even though that took two hours every day.
I guess what made things manageable for us at home was his early interest for computers. We found him the nicest pedagogical programs we could and he would sit there for long periods of time giving me the time to catch up with the household, myself and my work. Kindergarden didn't work and he didn't play with other children in any form.
Things got really intense when our daughter was born. After her birth I came out of our bedroom with her to his room and was quite scared of how far into himself he seemed to disappear. I didn't know what to do to bring him back. What I didn't realize then was that this baby was a big element of anxiety for him. Later I learnt that anything that is unpredictable causes a lot of anxiety in autistic people. It was difficult to get help with baby-sitting, because our son had a hard time being with people. Many people also thought that his behavior was our doing because he slept in our bed, breast-fed until he was three and that we didn't say no all the time. It was excruciatingly tough when my husband had to be away for several days in a row and I had to get him to sleep with a little baby making our son nervous. He was still a very sweet, peaceful and gentle boy.
When our son was 5 and 1/2 he was diagnosed with autism. The good thing about having a diagnosis is that people around us had an easier time accepting him when they understood that he has difficulties that you can't just reason away or educate away. We both knew about the Kaufman family who had cured their son of a severe form of autism. Through a friend we found out they had an institute, The Option Institute, and helped families do their method, The Son-Rise Programme. So we got started very quickly. We installed a special room for our son. With shelves high up where we put all the toys and things that we use in our play. The idea is to keep clutter out of the way, give us free space to move and get him to verbalize what he wants us to take down from the shelves. In the beginning we also gently and lovingly asked him to look in our eyes when he wanted something. The Son-Rise program is home based and parent run. It's simply a continuation of the continuum. Our son has made tremendous progress during the two years we have done Son-Rise. Today, I was sitting across from him at dinner and in a sweet loving voice I said: "My darling son". I didn't expect anything back at all, but he said with lots of warmth in his voice: "My mummy darling". Well, as we all know that's enough to keep a mum going for a long time!
Our son is in his Son-Rise room 8-10 hours a day. The first 1 and a 1/2 years we managed to give him about 6 hours a day without any help. Now we have got other people helping us and we train them. But more about that another time.
I'm grateful for my passion to respect and nourish individuals no matter what age they are. It helped me a great deal to stick to my love and respect for my son. The continuum concept encouraged my husband and me to listen to our inner voice and feelings. Following our inner sense of continuum helped us to stay connected to our child even though he coudn't respond in a normal manner. Our spiritual connection to our son also helped to make us feel deeply connected with him. We're very grateful that we get to be together.
If
you want to know more about the son-rise programme they've got a great homepage:
www.son-rise.org