We’ve had a fairly non eventful week. I’m sure most of you know what it’s like when you’ve got kids, there’s excursions, swimming lessons and other after school activities, it just never ends and sucks all the money away! We’re so conscious to make our other kids lives as non autistic as they can be if you know what I mean. I don’t want their life to be run by autism as it’s not their fault that Beth is autistic. I also don’t want autism to be a big deal to them. I think we’ve managed this pretty well, on the whole all of our kids are nice human beings.
Nice can be a word that we belittle at times, nice is boring, not fun at all, but when you’re talking about kids I think there is no better compliment. I love to be told that my kids are nice. I’ve met lots of kids who are ‘normal’, whatever that is, and are horrible kids. There’s no excuse, that’s just the way they are. My kids are a handful, I’ll give you that, but at the core they are kind to their friends, respectful of others and happy to please. Bridie and Bill are wonderful with Beth as their sister, often helping her to do things or telling her the right way to say things. Beth too is lovely to them. Bill came home from cubs on Tuesday night and Beth ran out of her room to ask him if he had a good time. I found this so sweet, as was Bill’s response to let her know that yes indeed he had had a lovely time, thanks for asking.
I’m a true believer of this thing called autism being here to show others what compassion is, what tolerance is, what differences mean. And there’s a lot to be said about how our kids behave. Beth enjoys life with such abandon that I often look at her with awe and a tinge of jealousy, I wish I too could be that carefree. I feel uncomfortable looking at the way other kids look at her, I get teary and at times this awful hatred creeps into me and I in turn hate that feeling. Beth however is usually oblivious to the looks and I wonder if I pointed it out to her if she would really care. I think it’s the parents that take it on, we take their hurt for them. Mind you, I’m probably a bit paranoid. Kids stare and point at other kids who don’t have anything wrong with them. That’s just the nature of the beast. I feel lucky that my other kids have been exposed to Beth as this has taught them to be understanding, something that is such an important lesson in this day and age of inclusion of special needs kids in mainstream schools, and autism of an almost epidemic proportion.
There’s not much been going on this week so I just thought I’d share that with you, how very blessed I am to have such nice nice children. And how very blessed we are to have Beth here to teach us tolerance and compassion, and for giving us so many laughs along the way. It’s not all bad you know. These kids are here for a reason, and we’re here to guide them the way to go, to inspire them to be all that they can be. That’s our job as parents of all children, some just need a little bit of help. xxx
