The worst mother in the world?

I have felt judged for many years as a terrible mother. My son has never conformed to social norms and even from early days of childcare there have always been calls, meetings, emails etc from carers and later teachers about the behaviour of my child not being appropriate. And with it there has usually been judgement! When I asked people for help I was given parenting pamphlets, when I went to see a Dr about it to try and get referred to a peadiatrician he said my son just needed a father figure (and he apparently did not have a prescription for one of those on hand). Finally when Jaden was almost 7 years old I found a doctor who actually listened to me and did a thorough assessment of my child to find he has aspergers ( and he was later also diagnosed with tourettes once his tics started). All of a sudden his being different was normal, everything that had seemed so odd or wrong about him now made sense, but getting other people to understand that has been an uphill battle.

I posted a status on facebook about being totally lost as to what to do with Jaden stealing things at school and got some really unhelpful, juudgemental and almost nasty comments in my inbox about it. Fair enough if you post something in a public forum you're leaving yourself wide open to other's opinions, but I had thought that the people I have accepted as friends on facebook were people that I could honestly share my life with but I was apparently misguided in that. I had comments ranging from me being too soft on him, to being too hard on him, to I shouldn't be posting about him on facebook at all. Some people also tried to offer helpful suggestions that would not really work with an aspergers kid, but I just found it all very disheartening and ended up deactivating my facebook account for a while. I wanted to shut out all the accusing voices and just listen to the voice of God in what to do with a child who had been constantly in trouble since school started this year and incredibly emotionally volatile.

 I posted a few weeks ago that we had been working out options for next year for high school, one of which was distance education and we had decided on that course of action so I had all the paperwork here already and Brett and I felt that waiting out the year just wasn't going to work so Jaden would change in term 2. I posted the paperwork on the Thursday, then on the Friday I got a call from the principal again and as soon as I saw 'school' on my caller ID my heart sank. Jaden had stolen again, it was food again (an obsession area we are now working on) but this time the packet of biscuits were there in case the diabetic child in has class had a hypo attack which means they were basically medicine and it was therefore a very serious issue. I have tried so hard to get Jaden to grasp consequences but the cause and effect just doesn't seem to compute in his brain when he is obsessed enough about something. It is not from a lack of my teaching him it's wrong or not doing anything about it, he mised out on a camp he was looking forward to as a consequence of stealing and it still didn't deter him, but the mother whose child the biscuits were for was furious and wanted a meeting with me and that was the last straw. She used to be a friend and yet now I felt like I was on trial for my son doing the wrong thing, even though I have done everything I know how to do to try and stop it. I realised that if this was life 4 weeks into school, with both Jaden and I strugling to cope with at all, then it wasn't likely to get any better and we were done!

So Jaden has now been withdrawn from school and today we received our official welcome letter that his enrolment has been processed for distance education. I know people have many opinions about it, 'how will he socialise', 'he needs to learn to live in the real world', yep heard it all before, but I am done listening to opinions about my parenting choices and will instead listen to the God who created Jaden and knows how he is wired and that school and him just don't work. It's like sitting someone who is in a wheelchair at the top of a flight of stairs and saying "i'm sorry but that's just the way the world is you'll have to learn how to use the stairs", instead of offering an alternative that they can cope with such as a lift or ramp. Just plain ridiculous!!!!

So our family is entering a new era and  a more relaxed family centred lifesyle that even after 2 days is helping me feel able to breathe again. It's not quite home schooling because the work actually comes from a school and he is answerable to teachers, I just supervise, so it takes the 'teacher' pressure off me and I can just focus on teaching Jaden lifeskills and giving my boy the time and attention that he needs from his mum! And as a mum, I know I'm not perfect and have certainly stuffed up sometimes, but I have always done my very best to try and do what was best for my children and do not need to accept the judgement of others, especially those who have never walked in the shoes of living with aspergers and have no idea what they're talking about.

I actually found it interesting on '60 Minutes' last Sunday there was a story on Martin Bryant's mother and I was intruiged to watch it because that is one woman who I'm sure has copped a lot of 'bad mother' labels. Her son committed one of the worst mass murders in the world (it was the worst at the time, not sure if that has changed) and I was quite horrified to hear that Bryant has actually been diagnosed with aspergers, does that mean that a lack of grasping consequences can lead to something as horrible as the Port Arthur massacre? They actually showed a media interview of him as a kid after he was injured playing with fireworks and when they asked if he would do it again he said yes, he hadn't learnt a thing, a phenomenen I am sadly familiar with here. Things here are however different in many ways, for a start we are aware of Jaden's aspergers and have found a brilliant guy who works with aspie kids who is going to help us out in any way he can, we are surounded by many people who love and support Jaden and who encourage him because they see the best in him (which is important on the days when we who are with him every day sometimes can't step back and see the bigger picture). Most importantly we have God in the mix!! Jaden is immersed in prayer and God has a great future planned for him and we will keep seeking God for Him to unfold that!

If you're intersted in the story about Martin Bryant's mother here is the url, think it might only work for a week or so http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8216486/a-mothers-burden