More reflections on MOMMY RADAR

I thought I had my mommy radar in check. I thought that my own self-awareness of the mommy radar I have with my child w/ autism was in an appropriate place. I thought that I've not been using it as much.

Then, at a disability awareness event, I was given a set of EAR PLUGS and a pair of NOISE CANCELING HEADPHONES to wear. My child with autism was given the same items. We were to interact with one another from a perspective of a disability - and each of us were assigned a hearing impairment.

Interesting.

I was amazed at the self-awareness I discovered. I rely heavily on listening to my daughter.

I used to watch her all the time, and I knew that my enhanced mommy radar was keeping her from being responsible for watching those around her. Her experience was, "I don't have to check in visually to make sure I'm with Mom in the grocery store; Mom watches me and reminds me when I'm too far away." Or, "I don't have to check in visually to make sure Mom is listening when I'm talking because Mom is so in tune to me."

I was creating and contributing to learned helplessness. I had to learn to watch her closely, yet disguise my radar and pretend that I wasn't always watching her. I had to shift what she should be responsible for - in terms of attention, paying attention, sharing attention, shifting attention -over to her.

During this disability awareness assignment, when a good deal of my hearing was shut off by ear plugs and head phones, I realized that instead of watching her all the time, I simply switched senses. I began listening to her more closely. I realized that she counted on me to be listening more than I imagined. Our parent/child dance includes her counting on my listening to her! And my not being able to hear little things, like her footsteps, to tell me if she'd wandered in another direction, raised my anxiety and made me want to monitor her more closely with my vision, a compensation of one sense by another.

I've begun to make adjustments again. Oh, I still watch her closely. And I still listen closely. I pretend not to, though. I'm trying to refrain from acting on my radar in situations where my daughter can take responsibility for her own watching and listening (attention sharing, attention shifting).

I'm a work in progress.

I blogged about mommy radar HERE and HERE.

More reflections on the "radar" of parent of children w/ developmental delays

"Out of rational fear, many of us tell the child (usually nonverbally) I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU NO MATTER WHAT. And it can be just that unnecessary 'taking care' that keeps the child in a learned helplessness, or as I prefer, a LAZY mode of operating."

"Think of your job now as catching yourself when you are about to do for your child when he needs to do for himself... "

--Dr. James D. MacDonald from Communicating Partners

We spent over three years working with our daughter from a strict behavioral perspective, demanding behavioral compliance from her, and teaching her many words and concepts. After all of that heavy-hitting early intervention, I still needed to use my radar for things that I shouldn't have. None of that early intervention translated to success in an age-appropriate kindergarten classroom or at Sunday School or birthday parties or grocery shopping.

We completely MISSED non-verbal, pre-speech foundations of communication with this behavioral approach. We missed the things infants and babies experience, like reciprocity, emotion sharing, referencing faces for meaning. Interaction begins NON-verbally, and through all of our early intervention efforts, we missed that.

A switch to a developmental approach was quite a shift for us, for me.

Almost five years ago, we chose RDI(r). RDI(r) was the only developmental program out there for a child my age, I THOUGHT. (I was so wrong! Now, I know that there are others. Communicating Partners is one. Floortime is for younger children, and Son Rise, Gentle Teaching, and Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment all come from that developmental perspective.)

Overdeveloped "Mommy Radar" is necessary, but left unchecked, can create learned helplessness and passivity, a "lazy mode of operating" in a child. One of the things that Dr Gutstein from RDI(r) helped me recognize when we began is the fact that many children with delays in communication and interaction are very passive. He taught me that my daughter needs to physically feel herself taking an action, reaching, stretching, gathering her own information. NON-verbally. WITH me. Combining active participation and interdependence.

Here's an example: Before I began learning about a developmental approach, I would dress my daughter without her help. I could put a coat on a limp child in no time, sliding her coat sleeves up her arms, zipping the coat in a flash. I'd be working with her on some behavioral program while I was dressing her, asking her to show me an action or touch a body part. At meal time, I'd place her food in front of her while working on another verbal, stimulus/response-type q & a from our behavioral program.

I gave her the experience, "Getting ready means Mom dresses me. I don't have to do anything. It's all her job. I don't even need to pay attention to events happening around me. Mom will prompt me for anything I need to know, including when it's time to leave, time to eat. Instead, Mommy and other adults will ask me lots of questions and I have to give the right answer."

Dr. MacDonald from Communicating Partners and Play to Talk delivers a similar message using a different word picture. I love Dr. MacDonald's phrase about putting a child in a lazy mode of operating -- that's an accurate description of what we did, accidentally, while we were working on other skills in early intervention, with hearts of gold and good intentions. I've always thought of it as mindlessness (because RDI(r) reminds parents to be "mindful"). I do like that word picture: putting a child in a lazy mode of operating when we do not allow the child to do the things he can do for himself.

We also gave her the really bizarre experience that communication is about our asking her questions and her responding with the one correct answer. (Can you imagine the anxiety you'd have if the only communication you were only allowed is to answer questions with one right answer?)

So, not only was she not feeling herself taking an action, but she was also experiencing communication very differently from the rest of us.

I listened to Dr Gutstein's words (she needs to feel herself taking an action with me) and wondered how I'd begin to create opportunities for active participation with a child who was not interested? The only way I could interact with her was to engage in one of the stimulus/reward situations that we'd both memorized and practiced over and over. If I didn't prompt her verbally in some way, she simply ignored me, shut me out.

After I made the switch away from a behavioral approach, I began using myself differently. Silently, I'd hold her coat open, wait for her to take her own action and notice, and then I'd wait for her to insert her own arm into a sleeve, and wait for her to insert her other arm. I might start the zipper, get it on track, and wait for her to notice that it wasn't zipped all the way, and allow her time to notice and zip it. Slowing down and being quiet were required of me to make these opportunities happen.

And at snack time, I learned to hold a gfcf cookie or banana toward her and wait for her to notice, and reach her own arm out and accept it, and to avoid the temptation to use it as a reward in order to get her to touch her nose or name the fruit or some other verbal, behavioral task. Accepting a treat as a reward for responding to a stimulus had not given her the sense of being an active participant. I had to learn and recognize that non-verbal reciprocity, these silent interactions, were necessary foundations of communication that we had missed and needed to go back and get. (I changed my focus to non-verbal precursors and foundations to communication, giving her experience as --to borrow from Dr MacDonald-- a "communicating partner", and shift from a focus on "verbal behavior".) I needed to recognize ways in which I had been doing both parts of the interaction, hers and mine, and begin to give her responsibility for her part and the time she needed to accomplish it.

I began to learn, as Dr MacDonald says "to catch myself when I am about to do for my child when she needs to do for herself." And that involves allowing her to reach for herself, shift her own head, eyes, attention (without my prompting), which means I must slow down in order to give her the processing time and space she needs to become active with me, not passive or "lazy".

For children with delays in communication, those "catch yourself" times include times when the child needs to shift his own gaze and his own attention, insert his own arm into his own coat, or his foot into his sock and shoe, accept his own plate, fork, spoon, cup as you are setting the table, carry his side of a bag of groceries with us, and more.

And, the more I think about it, the more I look at how I am with all of my children. It's not just about kids w/ developmental delays! I think I need to cross stitch Dr. MacDonald's words or print them onto a poster for my wall, because I still recognize that I "do" for all of my children when they need to be "doing" for themselves. And they hate it when I make a new discovery and begin to hand over to them the responsibility that should be theirs. I realized in the last few weeks that I have one child who ASKS me for reminders. That child's experience is, "I don't have to remember because Mom will remember for me."

We are all works in progress, some of us (me) have more work than others. The more I learn about myself, the more work I seem to have to do. :)

Mommy Radar and Learned Helplessness

We parents of children with developmental delays like autism (not limited to autism, though) realize intuitively, very early, that our kids aren't able to share attention with us, and, as an unintentional result, we parents over-develop a kind of "radar" that has us thinking one step, five steps, ten steps ahead of our children. *grin* You know what I'm talkin' about -- the way we can scan a strange room on a first visit, or a park or playground, the way we look for exits, objects that could be mouthed, articles that could be broken, it's like the stuff we do with typical toddlers, except it's on overdrive (maybe even on steroids!) and it lasts waaaaaaaaaaay past toddlerhood!

Those parents don't get to relax, because anywhere they go with that child, that radar must always be working due to the child's underdeveloped joint attention.

That radar becomes a necessity, because if we're not a few steps ahead of them, POOF, they can be gone out a hole in the fence at the playground in a flash! Or they can pick up a glass "pretty" at someone's house and demolish it faster than we can blink! Or eat something they shouldn't.

So, this radar overdevelops, and we don't turn it off at home -- we quit being aware of it and it becomes our way of being with our kid. We get so good at it, that a GREAT DEAL OF THE TIME, we can intuitively read that child's communication SO WELL, that we reinforce learned helplessness in them.

Sound familiar? The child's experience is this one: I don't have to communicate my needs, because Mom watches me with her radar and does that for me, even when we're at home and in familiar territory.

And then all h-e-double-hockey-sticks breaks loose on the rare occasions when Mom's radar FAILS and the result is that we set off an incredible tantrum or meltdown, (the HANDLE approach calls 'em "flare ups").

The "radar" works because we, the parent, assume responsibility for the child, too. I can remember hanging on to my daughter's wrist to keep her near me, or she would bolt while we were running errands. But, I'd wind up overcompensating in places where I could have chosen differently, like at home. You know what I'm talking about: We do OUR part of the interaction, and the CHILD's part, too.

Holding BOTH sides of the responsibility ALL THE TIME is a heavy weight.

Here's something I learned, and I am still learning: If you want to shift the responsibility to your child of communicating her own needs, you need to change yourself, change what you are reinforcing with your "radar".

Are any of these your child? (they were mine, ironically after more than 3 years of early intervention and ABA)

"I don't have to shift my own attention because someone always does that for me by calling my name or using some other prompt"

or

"I don't have to show Mom what I want because she always knows what's in my mind. I don't have to know what's in hers."

or

"I don't have to watch for clues around me that a transition is about to happen, because someone will do that for me with prompts and reminders and compensations."

I posted my realization on a Yahoo group where Dr. James MacDonald of Communicating Partners joins parents as we learn how to use ourselves differently with our children, and his response to my post was helpful to me as I continue to think about how to use my "radar". He generously gave me permission to use his words, here. Here are some brilliant highlights from Dr. MacDonald.:

"The dilemma we all have is that we need to predict and protect our children but at the same time give them time and expect more of them.

It is difficult but critical to know the difference.

Let's try to develop in our selves some kind of wisdom or intuition that tells us DANGER or NO DANGER so we can stop and protect when we need to, but also, so we can let the child be himself and respond when we can.

So let's get in the habit of asking ourselves--DANGER OR NO DANGER?

When it is NO DANGER, let your child be free and then respond and make it interactive.

Out of rational fear, many of us tell the child (usually nonverbally) I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU NO MATTER WHAT. And it can be just that unnecessary 'taking care' that keeps the child in a learned helplessness,or as I prefer, a LAZY mode of operating. So let's get into a habit of knowing quickly when to PROTECT--and when to MOVE ON. Think of your job now as catching yourself when you are about to do for your child when he needs to do for himself...

Remember our job is to prepare our children for relationships with people who will not CARE as much as we do.

Carolyn was right=== put on a stranger hat and act like a stranger would by not doing for the children what he can do for himself. You will find that most of the time you and your child can move on and only rarely do you really need him to protect."

The highlighted text are the parts that stuck out for me as I continue to figure out how best to use my "radar" to help my child to interact and communicate.

Charlotte Mason wrote extensively about habit formation -- Dr. MacDonald's words about a "lazy mode of operating," remind me of Mason's words about the importance that children develop a "habit of attention", which prompt me to dig up some Charlotte Mason materials in order to study her words more closely. Here's one link, if you are interested, too.

Thanks, Dr. MacDonald, for allowing me to share your words.