I am a text-book personality. I don't mean I have a textbook case of neurosis but simply that most of the time I don't have the imagination to think or see beyond a set of rules or prescribed actions. That doesn't imply I am completely inflexible, just that flexibility is a mindful attribute and does not come naturally. Maybe that is why I find it so hard to connect to my son. He is as un-textbooklike as any kid can get. He has very little in common with any other child of his age. He dislikes studying or maybe being taught by me - I am not known for patience. His brain works so differently that it is almost impossible to understand why it is so. Accepting that he has a problem which is forcing him to behave this way was hard because he seemed to be fine half the time and he looks like any other kid his age (only maybe quite a bit cuter ;-)). I cannot focus on anything else because this problem is in my mind all the time. I can be productive but instead i let myself dwell on the problem endlessly without finding a solution. Meanwhile my son gets irritated at me for being stressed. A vicious circle which I recognize and hope to break.
I feel very strongly that today's children must be schooled more in emotional courage than academics because they are so unbelievably smart that studying is no longer a challenge. But becoming good human beings are. I think we are raising a generation of emotionally stunted kids who cannot look beyond themselves at the larger world view. They are also extremely intolerant. How do you think a mother feels when her child is always outside looking on? The soft heart that one assumes children should have is not visible at all. So much anger, competitiveness and a single minded desire to get the best of everything is what I see when I look at my neighbours' kids. Sometimes I wonder whether children like my son aren't aberrations from the norm , rather they are blessings that show us how a child's heart should really be if all thoughts of 'only me' are taken out of it...
