It doesn't matter if your kids are special needs or not, kids drive their parents crazy. As a member of both parenting and special needs parenting communities, I'm often trying to find ways to help people better understand what the special needs community is going through.
One of the best ways to do this is by finding common ground.
For a long time, I thought that common ground was the fact that we all love our kids. It's true, we all love our kids, regardless of anything and everything.
It occurred to me this afternoon however, we have something else in common as well.
Our kids can and will drive us crazy. There's no way around it and no way to avoid it. Kids drive their parents crazy at times.
Perhaps it seems like it wouldn't be okay to say that *my special needs kids drive me fucking crazy. *Maybe it seems like we should never elude to the fact that kids with special needs can drive their parents crazy because it's assumed that they can't help it.
Kids are put on this Earth to help us better understand what we put our parents through.
It really doesn't matter if a child has Autism or not. Any child can drive their parents crazy. Perhaps kids with Autism may go about it a different way than their neurotypical peers, but the end result is the same.
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Let me give you an example of this from my perspective as a special needs parent. This is going to be brutally honest, so let me finish before you take offense.
Gavin is my oldest. He has serious mental and physical health problems that have him unable to ever live on his own. He's very low functioning and with his serious health issues, we sometimes live day to day not knowing if something is going to happen that will take him away from us. I wouldn't wish this on anyone and if I could take this unfair burden away from Gavin, I would do so in a heartbeat.
As I said, Gavin's low functioning and can hold a basic conversation, but only if it's a topic that he's interested in. In other words, if it's not about Lego or video games, he doesn't have anything to contribute to a conversation.
That's just Gavin and we love him to pieces anyway. ☺
Having said that, Gavin's also a talker. I mean, my God, this child will talk and talk, without a thought given to the person he's directing his speech at. It's also important to note, he doesn't talk with someone, he talks at someone. There's never a two-way road here.
I'm as patient as they come, and perhaps more so, but I can only take so much.
It feels like every five minutes Gavin wants to talk about his tablet games. If he changes something in a city he's building or a character he's customizing, he has to interrupt us, regardless of what we're doing, and show us/tell us all about it.
If this was an occasional thing, whatever. It wouldn't be a huge deal because it would be the exception not the rule.
The reality is that it's become the rule that Gavin has to talk us to death about his video games and it drives me fucking crazy.
Is it terrible of me to say something like this about my son with fragile mental and physical health? Maybe it is, but not in my opinion. The reality is that while my son is low functioning, has special needs and serious health issues, I'm still a plain old human being.
Like every other parent out there, I have limitations and weaknesses.
Do my kids drive me crazy? Of course, they do. In fact, very few days go by where I don't feel like I'm on the brink of insanity. Frankly, I don't think it matters what challenges your child does or does not have. As long as there are kids in this world, they will drive their parents crazy. They may go about it different ways and for different reasons, but the end result is a parent questioning their own sanity.
