TWO STEPS BACK

It must be obvious from the tone of my writing that I’m a bit apprehensive about this whole adventure. My initial thought was that it was too much for him. I also thought tennis was too hard, but it’s not. It did take him 3 years of Sports for Exceptional Athletes tennis seasons to finally get to where he could return a ball at all. I didn’t think he could coordinate the ball and his eyes at all. He worked on it and slowly but surely every year he’s gotten a little more able to focus on the ball. In the same manner, I think he needs more time before he goes out to ride the bus by himself. Maybe he’ll mature a little bit in a year. The routine will be there.

His behavior has not improved. He is constantly moaning and groaning about his regular chores around the house. He’s refusing to go places or do his routine chores. Everyday I threaten to take away his computer privileges. His speech is more fractured than normal. He’s jabbering a lot about nothing and asking repeated questions, which is one of his forms of self stimulation. I questioned if it was just menopausal me getting irritated all the time, but everyone else in the family has commented to him about his negative behavior. It’s bugging us all.

I am convinced it is a manifestation of the stress he’s encountering with the bus training. I’m not sure if there is any one thing that is stressful. Crossing the streets? Waiting for the bus? Not having the aide show up for a training session? Not going out for training on the same days each week is killing his routine. Maybe it’s the fact that he has to pay attention the whole time he’s in training, which is particularly difficult for the autistic mind that tunes everything out. Whatever it is, I think right now it’ more responsibility than he can handle.

He’s nearly mastered the steps that the TRACE program requires for him to ride the bus himself. He knows what he must do and is good at following orders. I have no doubt that he will pass the test of riding by himself as he knows that someone is on the bus watching him, even though he doesn’t know them. He enjoys tests. The training and test he can handle. It’s after the training I’m worried about. When he is comfortable riding the bus. Maybe he thinks he ‘s just going to slip into the minimart to buy him a drink, and he misses the bus, or now he’s crossing a busy street because he sees everyone else doing it. HE thinks he ought to be able to do what everyone else can. Hell, he thinks he should drive.

The last time Patrick behaved this way, he was in high school and things were out of control in his classroom. There were a lot of kids in his classroom, none of them spoke English as a first language so there was a constant noise in a language he didn’t understand, and his teacher couldn’t keep an eye on him. One day he was supposed to go out into the community to work and buy his lunch at McDonalds. The community aide didn’t show up. When lunchtime came he went out of classroom alone, left a closed campus without the security guards seeing him, walked across major downtown San Diego street and ate at McDonalds. Somehow he snuck back onto to campus. The other kids in his class saw him with McDonald’s food. I feel we are going to see a repeat of this. When he snuck out of school, his response was, but I made it across the street. Next he’ll be crossing a different major street the wrong way because he sees ice cream that everyone has so he’s going to get it.

This morning I found that he’s been reading in the mornings and not getting ready for TRACE. When I get home from taking his sisters to school, I’ve been noticing that he’s still way behind in grooming chores. I know he moves in slow motion, but it seems extreme to me. Today, I noticed a Spanish dictionary in the bathroom. No one else in our family reads the Spanish dictionary. It might have been understandable if he needed to use the toilet, but he does that at night. He’s just reading. Distracted by what catches his eye. Instead of doing what he needs to do. I don’t know how long he’s been doing this. A couple of weeks I would guess. I try to explain to him that this is irresponsible. He doesn’t understand the concept. This is a conversation you might have with a 6^th grader who didn’t come home right away after school. Once he gets comfortable riding the bus will he just start reading or writing and miss the bus altogether? I wish those years ago in high school when he was acting out, I had pulled him from the school. I don’t know how I could really do that in his senior year. Maybe I should have gotten him a private aide. I should have intervened. This feels just like that. And it’s not right.

The same day I wrote this, I spoke with Patrick’s teacher and expressed my concerns. She noticed a slight increase in negativity in him lately, but not much. His teacher assured me that he won’t begin going out alone on the bus for another year. I thought he was starting to go alone next semester. We agreed that if his behavior didn’t improve between now and after Spring Break, we would reevaluate the independence plan. I felt a lot better.