I used to be a teacher in a school that was, shall we say, CHALLENGING. It was a Title 1 school, low income, in a neighborhood that often had visits from first responders. Sometimes, at recess, we would hear gun shots. Although the teachers would be very alert to it, checking for the safety of our students, our students had become used to it and often wouldn’t respond to the sounds at all. To them, it was just another sound in their daily lives.
Our staff went through a lot. It was elementary school but our students had already lived through enough that many were old, tired souls. We dealt with drug possession, weapons possession, sexual interactions on campus (at five and six years old), violence, custody battles and more on a daily basis (and often more than once daily). Our students were often unable to use their imaginations in the classroom. Their daily experiences had taught them that this was not a thing of value and they had practically had this beaten out of them. Therefore writing fiction, making art and being creative was extremely hard for them. They had to be practical to survive from a very young age.
We learned as teachers to become subversive to get what our students needed. There were rules but there were ways around them if you were persistent. I was very persistent. My students were not going to go without, not on my watch. I fed them, clothed them, cleaned them up, broke up their fights, separated their sexual interactions with as much grace as possible, loved on them hard and went home exhausted every night to crash out for a few hours before getting up the next day to do it again. I made home visits to illegal businesses when I couldn’t track the parents down at home. I tried not to inhale too deeply when I did visits at the actual homes. I attended funerals of family members who had been shot. And, after all of this was first accomplished, I still had to teach them the curriculum. I was not a one woman show – the staff at this school was an incredible team.
The students had a lot of “special needs.” I wouldn’t categorize them as the “people with special needs,” that I usually talk about on this blog, but they did, in fact, need to be handled and cared for in a different way than typical students.
Sometimes I did things that walked the line.
Suffice it to say that it was for the greater good and that taking a risk for myself to get my students what they needed seemed like a trade-off at the time that I was willing to make.
Anyway, I recall that one day I was going about the building trying to gather resources that my students needed when I ended up sidelined by the school counselor. I was absolutely doing something that I wasn’t supposed to be doing, to get things I wasn’t necessarily supposed to be getting, to give things to those who definitely were supposed to be getting them. My usual mode of operation.
The counselor pulled me aside and told me that I shouldn’t be doing what I was doing. That, yes, the students desperately needed what I was trying to accomplish, but that I could GET IN TROUBLE. I looked into this woman’s eyes and saw fear there, for herself and for me. She began to list all of the possible things that could go wrong if I made the decisions that needed to be made for the good of my students. I could GET REPRIMANDED. People might DISAGREE WITH MY DECISIONS. My superiors might be UPSET AND DISAPPOINTED with my choices. I might even GET WRITTEN UP.
I calmly waited for her to finish. Then I looked her straight in the eye and said, “If you are going to do this job and you are going to do it the way it is needs to be done, you can’t move from fear. You HAVE TO MOVE FROM STRENGTH. If I moved from fear, I would never get anything done for these kids. Fear has no place in my decision making process when I am here.” And I walked away, leaving her standing there, mouth agape. I had no time for fear.
Did I feel fear? Of course I did. But I wasn’t allowing it to rule my decisions or my actions.
Feeling fear is an important ability. When you have a mental or physical response to something that you categorize as fearful, your body is telling you to be alert to danger. The problem is when you allow it to overcome rational decision making. You need to be able to take the information that you have and make the best decision that you can make with it at the time. You also need to be able to see the possible outcomes, both positive and negative, while controlling your fear response so that you don’t get overwhelmed. These are not innate skills that you are born with. It is a learning process that takes time, practice and patience to master.
What does this have to do with living the special needs life? With being a parent or caregiver of a child with special needs? EVERYTHING.
You may have to move mountains to get what your child needs. You will be presented with situations you never dreamed of when deciding that you wanted to be a parent. Your child may do things that you never imagined having to deal with. And you will sometimes be overwhelmed.
THIS IS A NORMAL RESPONSE.
When you take a look around at all of the other parents who appear to have it all together and seem able to manage everything while you are struggling with even the simple things, I guarantee you that at some point you will feel fear. I mean, who wouldn’t? Your child is DIFFERENT. Your situation is DIFFERENT. Your way of doing things most definitely will look DIFFERENT (are you sensing a pattern here?).
And being different, doing things differently, having a different situation, isn’t easy. When you look around for support from others, they are not always going to understand. They will look at the sometimes outrageous things that you do while living the special needs life with fear. They will question your decisions. They will warn you – BE CAREFUL!!! Don’t get in trouble! Don’t rock the boat!
We who are living the special needs life do not have the luxury of living in fear. We can’t. Our children with special needs are depending on us to make some tough choices in a timely manner so that we may move on to the next tough choices. And the next ones.
When you get paralyzed in fear, that “oh, crap,” feeling of what if this or that happens, your power becomes diminished. You stop moving from strength. And you know who suffers? The ones that are most important. Our children.
Do yourself a favor and stop carrying the fear of the world on your shoulders when you make decisions for yourself and your child. Yes, there are possible repercussions to every decision that you make. Make the decisions anyway. Do your very best with the information that you have at the time, make the decision and accept the consequences whether they show up now, later, or never.
They say that teaching is a subversive activity. That goes double for parenting when living the special needs life. Do what needs to be done, in whatever way you need to do it to make sure that the one who needs it the most gets it. Then pat yourself on the back. And come back tomorrow to do it again.
How do you overcome fear to make the best decisions for your child with special needs? Please share in the comments below.