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Emerging from the Plunge

8/29/2015

“This isn’t ideal!”
That phrase has grown to be a comfort to me.

I had a lot of reading scheduled so escaping to the wilderness seemed like the right thing to do until this happened.

I love to camp, and Colorado provides the ideal setting. As a local, I’m particular. I eschew formal campgrounds, insisting on free range picturesque sites by creeks and hiking trails with 5-star scenic overlook finales. This weekend was no different.

Pickings are slim that meet my specs without a several hour drive. So I set out for a local standard hoping to stake claim to a particular spot popular with others who shared similar aspirations.

My favorite roost was occupied, but undeterred I eyed another isolated clearing that could have hosted me beautifully for three days. Problem was, the creek separated my van from the mossy gap that beckoned me.

I don’t pack light.

It took me an hour to haul my equipment, piece by piece across precariously seated stones that offered me passage. Well after nightfall, I realized my heavy cooler still sat packed by my camp table and I routinely stored all my food in my vehicle.

Overnight bear feeding was my worst nightmare.

Next in rank was attempting to cross a swift creek at night and landing in frigid waters soaking my only jeans, hiking shoes and down coat needed to ensure a toasty night snuggled in my tent.

Yes, that scenario happened.

Confidence shaken, alone and bruised, I stripped out of my wet clothes and mused, “This isn’t ideal!”

That phrase has grown to be a comfort to me. My husband and I speak those words to one another when one of our children meltdown creating scenes that used to humiliate us or leave us feeling demoralized. It’s not ideal, but it is ok. We will get through this season, and so will you.

This morning I’m enjoying the campfire in my dry flannel pajamas while jeans, coat and shoes dry out. I have all day.

And I smile, because I have grown to learn that life can be really good even when it’s not ideal.

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Funny?

8/16/2015

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Discipline will never cure neurology.

Innocently, my friend who successfully raised wonderful neuro-typical children posted a picture on Facebook of a wide leather belt with the words emblazoned across the photo, "The original ADHD medicine". The obvious implication is that good ole discipline will "cure" all that ails the ADHD child. The joke hit me as being about as funny as racist humor. It just isn't. Period. Ever.

We know what it feels like to be “that” family.

For families who are raising children with authentic neuro-psychiatric differences, judgment is cast upon both the child and parents ad nauseam. The children are "misbehaving brats" and the assumption is that either:

Parents are too undisciplined and create mirror image children...

Parents are too ignorant to provide an acceptable level of accountability or training for their children.

Families raising children with hidden disabilities deal with the added challenges of child rearing AND the unrighteous judgments made against them. Judgment isolates families and undermines every ounce of support a typical family may enjoy facing normal parenting hardships. The net result is that families who actually need the most understanding and support, actually receive the least.

For the countless re-posters of the Internet meme, don't think for a minute that such "humor" made at the expense of struggling families is throwing Big Pharma under the bus. Big Pharma is not listening. But someone is listening. All the families who are in your sphere who are dealing with neurology issues in their own homes are listening. And your message produces bad fruit.

For the parent who is still ignorant of the reality of neurology’s impact on behavior and self control in their children, judgment may compel them to exert even more ineffectual pressure on their misbehaving child in the form of harsher and hasher discipline culminating in abuse. Discipline will never cure neurology.

For the parent who is aware that the challenges they face are resultant from a hidden disability, judgment through insensitive jesting may hurt and isolate them further.

I fail to see the humor in either of these outcomes.

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Now Available - Toppling the Idol of Ideal

8/12/2015

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My book about raising children with hidden disabilities is now available in print or Kindle format.

by Melanie Boudreau
Available from Amazon

Get It Now

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How Straight Are You?

8/7/2015

Courtesy of Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network

Building our own lives and the lives of our children are too important building projects to rely on our ever-changing situational assessments.

Back when I taught Sunday school, I had the children come to the front of the class one by one and hold up a yardstick, “straight up and down”. Then I applied a plumb line to their best guess. Not surprisingly, some children were as far off as six inches, and others within a few centimeters.

Eyeballing usually isn’t even good enough for hanging pictures, and certainly not good enough for building a lasting structure. In today’s world, many have cast aside the Word of God for a standard that “looks good”. Building our own lives and the lives of our children are too important building projects to rely on our ever-changing situational assessments.

Raising children with hidden disabilities may make us feel as though we are the exception to clear standards outlined in God’s Word. It’s easy to see through the deception when our pastor claims he missed his soul mate, and “God told him” it was upright to pursue his secretary, as though God’s standards changed for his “unique” position.

But the standards of how we as parents talk and act towards our children who are incredibly difficult to raise are also not up for eyeballing, for doing what is right in our own eyes beyond what God would agree is the loving or correct approach to address a problem. If it’s not all right to verbally degrade a typical child, it’s not all right to do so with a child who is unmovable by more acceptable parenting techniques.

Create for yourself an imaginary godly audience who watches your interactions, and who wants only the best for you. I’m not proposing a galley of condemning stone throwers, rather, the voices of wisdom who speak into your life encouragingly. We are our own reality show before a great cloud of witnesses!

One day, those babies will be grown and able to process through not only their own behaviors, but also yours. Keep your behaviors pointing to a loving, grace filled God who also remains committed to standards of right and wrong. He is standing by to be your ever present help in time of need!

Emerging from the Plunge

Funny?

Now Available - Toppling the Idol of Ideal

How Straight Are You?

About Melanie

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