CONFESSION: I’m hiding in my office.
The lights are out so they won’t know I’m in here.
I can hear my sweet Jack telling our nanny about how great his day was while Luca chomps away at his snack of very crunchy veggie sticks.
I listen as Jack shares the details of his day, and although my heart is full that he can be so well-behaved and polite for her, my heart also hurts because I’m hiding in my office, with the lights off and the music low.
I’m hiding so he won’t see me.
I’m hiding because if he does see me, his polite manners that he’s practicing for Ms. S. will turn into whines for me and screams of meanness towards her.
No exaggeration.
Our Jack is the sweetest love bug you’ve ever met.
He’ll grab your cheeks and say “Cute, cute, cute…” in a way that makes you melt and feel so loved.
He’ll blink his long dark eyelashes over those adorable almond shape eyes, making you forget what he asked for and simply say “of course, my love, I’ll buy you some ridiculously overpriced you-tube endorsed toy that I can only find on e-bay.”
Jack doesn’t fit your typically known mold of autism like Luca does.
He does not line his toys up around the house.
He has found the words that were missing at 18 months, and will have a full conversation with you, spouting them out with the cutest lisp from the two teeth that went missing six months ago.
Jack will give you love, all day, every day, if you let him. If you are in his bubble, he will shower you with affection in the most contradicting way to what is known about certain ends of the autism spectrum.
Where Jack’s autism shows up is in moments like this morning, where just the change of Mama coming to help put him on the bus took all the confidence of the 5-year-old pro who has sprinted proudly onto those steps of the yellow chariot the last three days, into scared and frozen feet that had to be carried up the stairs as he was paralyzed in tear-streaming anxiety.
Jack struggles with transitions in a way that if something does not go as planned, a full-blown meltdown can ensue, where our boy simply cannot get a hold of himself.
Our sweet boy will be brought to the floor in a roller coaster of emotions that to some would seem like a ridiculous tantrum - dramatic in nature and unnecessary.
What we’ve learned is that when moments like this happen, he does not have the wiring to simply T-swizzle the moment and “shake it off”. He needs time, and the understanding to let the rollercoaster happen until it’s come to the roaring stop, and he can get off and return to the moment it left him in.
Jack’s magic is that he can feel things in such an intense way, but as he’s so young, he’s yet to master that magic. Where he’s so differently wired, the disconnect between understanding how to “just get over it” versus “it’s the end of the world as we know it”, is present.
Each time it happens, I work with him to breathe through it, and to find a way to ground himself in the facts - something our last incredible nanny, Ms. K., taught us. We calmly explain, when he’s ready to listen, what’s real about a situation, so that he can learn to understand a situation better through what he knows about it, versus just what he feels about it.
The last three days when he got off the bus, and I stood there with Ms. S., he yelled and said how he hated her, and cried as he clung to my leg asking for her to go home. Yet, after we settled him, got food in his belly, and were able to remind him that he actually enjoyed his time with her, he opened up to her each time, asking to play.
So today, I hid in my office when they got off the bus. I was ready to sprint down our long driveway incase he refused to get off the bus for her, but as I listened to him telling her about his day when he got off, like this was the normal and acceptable behavior of the afternoon, the bus driving off in the distance, I ran in my office and hid.
Hiding allows him to build the muscle memory to know that he is safe with Ms. S., that it’s ok to feel safe with someone other than me, and provides a meltdown free afternoon until I re-appear.
If this situation feels familiar to you, perhaps your child merely suffers from separation anxiety, not finding themselves on the spectrum where this behavior is so amplified, I see you. I am you. You are not alone.
One of Jack’s teachers told me when I expressed concerns about his meltdowns that kids who are on their best behavior with others, but turn into emotional messes the moment they are with their person (whoever that person is) simply means that they feel safe enough to be their worst version of themselves while they are working to learn how to be their best.
Remember: It takes time to build muscle memory. You are not a bad parent because your child can be a monster, overly dramatic, or completely ridiculous only around you. You’re doing an amazing job giving them the safe space to be their worst version, so they can learn how to be their best. Keep doing what you’re doing. Of course, with the permission to hide when necessary.
XO