Category Archives: language

Parenting and Understanding Oneself

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When I was a kid, I was always restless and clumsy. I loved running and feeling the wind on my face as I ran. I ran until my sides hurt. I enjoyed climbing fences and trees and then jumping down from the fence. I often made my mother angry when I came home with bruises on my legs and knees because I hurt myself whenever I played outside.

Many times my father got annoyed with me because I was always breaking a plate or a glass and ruining my shoes. I was very, very clumsy. They would buy me a new pair of shoes, and the shoes would last only a few months. My father once said I needed a pair of steel shoes!

That may sound like I had terrible parents, but they weren’t. They were quite good to me and my sisters and raised us the best way they knew how. And I loved them both and still miss them very much.

But now, as a parent of a 13-year old in the Autism Spectrum, I am beginning to understand some of the quirkiness I had as a child as I see some of them in my son.

My son can be very restless; he can pace for a long time until someone watching him gets dizzy. He likes watching me do my dance workouts and tries to copy my movements but he has very poor coordination and can look like a worm trying to get out of a knot. He slams doors, moves quickly with jerky movements and speaks quickly, oftentimes skipping words which he probably thinks he has already uttered.

Like my son, I also spoke quickly and had poor eye-hand coordination as a kid. I liked dancing but my mother laughed at my movements, saying I was not a graceful dancer. Nevertheless, growing up, my sisters, cousins and I always had dance numbers at our Christmas parties. Even though I wasn’t a good dancer, I joined them. Wonderful memories.

Even when I was already in my 20s, I was still clumsy. I realized this when I was getting out of a friend’s car one day, and he told me I didn’t have to “move so quickly,” like, I could open the door “more gently.” That made me pause. He was right, and to this day I am grateful to him for pointing that out to me. I tried to control and learned to control my movements. It wasn’t long after that when I took Latin dance lessons, and Taebo and Zumba, and those lessons helped me so much with my coordination.

My parents did not have the knowledge that I now have about how and why some kids behave the way they do. Though I find my son’s movements funny, I try to help him improve them. We do the same thing over and over until he gets them right.

I have hope that the exercise I do with him will improve his coordination, and one day, we will be able to dance together.

Kindness and the Power of the Pause

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“A pause may give way to understanding; it may silence hurtful words; it may avert a broken heart.”

Cameron, Donna. A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You . She Writes Press. Kindle Edition.

It was only last week that I discovered Donna Cameron’s book is available on Kindle, so I bought it right away and read it. It’s interesting how reading about kindness can be very relaxing and actually want you to become a kinder person.

The chapter on “The Power of the Pause” came to mind yesterday when I saw an unfortunate incident at the mall. I was in one store when I heard a woman yelling at a little boy, must be 3 or 4 years old. He was running around, and the woman who was probably the mother, kept yelling at him. I was thinking to myself, why does she have to keep yelling? At one point, the boy hid under the clothes hanging in a rack, after which the woman grabbed him so hard that he was lifted off the ground. Then she hit his head a couple of times. I let out a cry and covered my mouth, and the other customers who saw the same thing looked at me and looked at the woman. The woman also looked at me, and walked away still yelling at the now crying boy.

I know better than to get involved and speak in a language they do not understand. I know she would only be yelling at me in a language I do not understand very well. It’s a different language in a different country with a different culture.

I was shaken. I felt so sorry for the boy. I was ready to condemn the woman for being so violent and irresponsible — why have a baby when you do not have patience dealing with growing children? But I also got to see the look in the woman’s face which was filled with anger. It made me think, surely it was not just the boy’s naughtiness that made her angry? She must be going through something that made her have that evil look on her face while watching a little boy who was only playing happily?

I left the store praying for that little boy and the woman. People may think I should have done something more than just pray for them –if I were in my country, I would, without a doubt. But in another country, I am grateful for the pause.

May we all learn to pause, not only when we feel anger building in us, but also when we are tempted to judge others for what they do.