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ARTICLE INDEX
ARTICLE INDEX
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Being Who
You Are
By Dan
Coulter
Lots of kids aren’t happy
being who they are.
Particularly if they have neurobiological conditions that make them
tend to act different from other kids. Conditions like Asperger
Syndrome, Higher Functioning Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder,
Semantic-Pragmatic Disorder and others.
This can be hard on parents, too. When your child doesn’t easily fit
in, it’s sometimes difficult to know when to keep him away from a
situation that might make him feel worse about himself – or when it’s
best to keep him in a situation so he learns to deal with the world.
Being rejected is hard. That’s when it’s tempting for a kid to wish he
was someone else – or at least wish he could be more like other kids.
A new neighborhood, a new classroom, a new group of kids may seem like
a chance to be someone else. He may think if he doesn’t tell kids he
meets about his condition, they won’t notice.
Too often, of course, they notice – and tend to avoid him. Partly
because they don’t know the reason for his “different” behavior and
don’t know what they’d be getting into by associating with him.
So how can parents help bridge the gap?
By giving our kids reasons to be confident.
Confidence is magic. Have you ever noticed how people who are
confident are social magnets? We tend to appreciate someone who is
confident and who can demonstrate an ability we respect. Of course,
being confident doesn’t mean bragging or monopolizing a conversation.
Projecting confidence without going overboard is an important social
skill for our kids to learn.
Recently, I was looking through my high school yearbook. I was
surprised when I came across one of my friend’s pictures. Frankly, I
remembered her as being a lot prettier. Then I realized, I’d confused
being pretty with being attractive. She had a confident personality.
She acted like she was attractive, so she was. There was much more to
her than that yearbook picture could capture.
It was a lesson that we have some control over who we are. We can
shape how other people perceive us by how we act towards them. Of
course, learning to project confidence is not like learning to put on
a coat. It’s more like learning to play the piano. Not everyone can be
a concert pianist, but anyone who works hard at practicing the piano
is going to learn to play better.
Of course, our kids need things to be confident about, so we need to
find and nurture their strengths. We also need to help them master
everyday skills so they’re comfortable dealing with real world
situations.
When my son, Drew -- who has Asperger Syndrome -- was growing up, it
was sometimes hard to know what he could learn to do on his own. My wife
and I discovered a bit about self-fulfilling prophecies. When we acted
worried that he couldn’t learn something and continued to do it for
him, he tended to let us. When we showed him we expected him do
something on his own, he learned to do it, even if it took a while.
Every kid has different capabilities, of course, but isn’t it
devastating to think you may be holding your child back by being
over-protective or underestimating him? Every kid fails a bit as he’s
learning.
I heard a self-help guru talk about teaching a child to walk. No
little kid gets it on the first try. Or the second. Or the third. How
would you respond if someone said to you at that point, “He’s still
falling down. I guess you’ll have to carry him the rest of his life.”
You’d say, “No way! My kid is going to walk!” And you’d help him keep
trying until he made it.
Like many other parents of kids with an autism spectrum disorder, I
watched a recent episode of the TV show “Supernanny,” in which the
host brought in an autism expert (Lynn Kern Koegel, Ph.D) to help a
family who has an autistic son.
The most important aspect of the program showed the parents learning
that their autistic child was capable of far more than they’d
imagined. Some of the training methods they learned were tough and
didn’t show immediate results. But in sticking with it, the family
helped the three-year old boy with autism begin interacting positively
and even start talking.
As parents, we all want to help our kids succeed, not make them overly
dependent. The need to help our kids learn independence also applies
to parents of kids without special needs. I saw learning expert Dr.
Mel Levine on TV recently, talking about kids attending college today
with unrealistic expectations. He said many have had their activities
managed so heavily by their parents that they hadn’t learned to plan
and advocate for themselves. These kids expected to get good jobs
right out of college and be granted quick promotions to exciting
careers – without any special effort on their part. It was as if they
assumed someone in the work world would take over their parents’ role
of watching out for them.
My son called his mom and me from college the other day and left a
concerned message. He was missing some paperwork he needed to deal
with the campus bureaucracy and make sure he got his first paycheck
for his student job on campus -- and he wanted us to look for it and
call him back.
We couldn’t find what he needed, but we called back and left him a
message, ready to offer advice on dealing with the situation.
When we finally connected, he’d found the paperwork in his dorm room,
met with the person he needed to see and solved the problem on his
own. That was a small victory in the grand scheme of things, but a
great moment for us as parents.
It reminded me of other moments, like when Drew started buying things
in stores by himself, after we helped him remember to focus on not
getting distracted when standing in a checkout line and how to deal
with the checkout clerk. It reminded me of him getting his driver’s
license after lots and lots of practice with us and a driving school
instructor.
And there were times when what seemed like liabilities turned out to
be assets in disguise. For example, Drew had real trouble writing in
grade school. Forming letters was difficult for him. His sentences
were tentative and awkward. It would have been easy to assume he just
couldn’t write. But we found it was actually a mechanical problem.
Because Drew had trouble with his handwriting, he often lost his train
of thought before he could capture it. When he began dictating his
work, his sentences became increasingly sophisticated. Later, when he
started working on a computer, keyboarding let him write freely on his
own. Now he’s an English major who’s considering a career in technical
writing and who’s working on a novel.
Mastering everyday skills, being a good writer and being an expert in
Japanese anime are just a few of the things that make Drew a lot more
confident and happy now than he was when he was younger. He’s hit some
walls in getting to where he is today. But the experience has helped
him learn to get over them or take another direction.
Having Asperger Syndrome is a part of who Drew is. He’s confident
enough to be open about it with anyone he feels needs to know. Among
other things, this means he doesn’t have to worry about his friends
“finding out” and wondering if having AS was something he felt he had
to conceal.
It’s easy for a kid who’s considered odd and who takes lots of
hits to his self-esteem to want to hide why he’s different. But if he
can gain the confidence to help classmates see his differences for
what they are -- and look past them to see his strengths -- he’s
taking a big step toward having people in his future appreciate him
for who he is.
Sometimes you find that the person you really want to be is somewhere
inside you. You just have to find a way to let him out.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Coulter is the producer of the videos,
“INTRICATE MINDS II: Understanding Elementary School Classmates with
Asperger Syndrome” and “INTRICATE MINDS III: Understanding Elementary
School Classmates Who Think Differently.” You can find more articles
on his website: www.coultervideo.com.
Copyright 2005 Dan
Coulter All Rights Reserved Used By Permission
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