Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

In the last year or so my wife Cecily and I have been learning (purely by compulsion - it's required for our son Campbell who has Autistic Spectrum Disorder) to slow our lives down.

You would not believe the improvement in the quality of our lives at every level since we have had to do this: from a parenting point of view; (my) relationship with God; a genuine appreciation of, and enjoyment of, others; enjoying hobbies at a far deeper level than for many years - just to name a sample.

Here's how my lovely wife has summarised our recent journey:

'We had to get to a point where we accepted what we had done with Campbell so far had not worked, and was not going to work. I’m talking about the regular parenting things like naughty spots and reasoning and explanations and smacking and time outs and all of the stuff we all do all the time. We had to completely change our tack with him. We also had to look at our attitudes of how we perceived our children, what we expected from them and why, and what our basic presumptions were.

I realised that I came from a point of view where even though I loved them, I saw the children as unimportant, impositions and also a source of pride and status. What they did reflected on me. If I could make them behave, I looked better and got more kudos as a ‘good parent’. I also wanted them to go away and leave me alone when I was doing most things because they took up time and energy and nothing was as efficient. I also saw them as naughty and gave them consequences accordingly.

People said here and there to me, “Well, even if he autistic, how much of his bad behaviour is just plain old sinfulness?” The assumption was that you had to handle the ‘naughtiness’ with smacks and punishment and time outs, even if he was autistic. Well, the reality was that that stuff just didn’t work with him, even if he is sinful, which of course we all are. I needed other ways to deal with him, so I started reading stuff. One important book was ‘The Explosive Child’ which basically taught me to relax and realise that there are many things that just don’t matter. It also taught me that punishments and time outs put up power struggles. Better to work through and see the child as a partner in solving the problem.

RDI (our rehabilitation programme for Campbell) as well has taught us to take a far more interactive approach with all the children. We command less, and invite more. We do more things together, we slow down, we get rid of things we don’t need and that cause stress. We enjoy our company together and choose less pressurised lives. We don’t worry so much about things that make us appear good and acceptable.'