Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Coming back.


Three weeks without a post - not much of a vibrant social computing professional. This absence reflects an absence of new big thoughts about Isabel. Which gets back to the 'Things that don't work'. What does not work is that big new thoughts will emerge and all will be fixed. So noted.

So the small idea is 'coming back again' and 'appreciating small steps'. Hard to appreciate small steps when what seems so wrong is still so wrong. But I advise you and me and Isabel; Come back. Small steps.

Yesterday a creative idea came from her science teacher Stanley.
  • Isabel wants to be an equine surgeon.
  • Isabel does not like homework.
  • Isabel does not often DO difficult homework.
  • Isabel learns kinesthetically which does not lend itself easily to the study of biology.
  • Therefore Isabel doesn't often do biology homework and thus is not well prepared to become an equine surgeon in this galaxy.

Her science teacher offered Isabel a deal yesterday and Isabel loves deals. The name of the deal is 'Improve Your C Biology Grade to an A and You Can Work on a 'Special Project' of Your Design as Opposed to Standard Frameworks-Aligned Biology.'

Isabel was inspired that she could create a horse project. Isabel's beautiful National Showhorse, IceHot, lives with us. Her picture of IceHot in the snow is included.

This deal inspired Isabel to do her homework LAST NIGHT. Small steps.

NOT that she will spend 8 hours in careful preparation for her mid-term. NOT that she will do her homework EVERY NIGHT. These are 'everything will be fixed all at once ideas' and those ideas do NOT work.

Instead, small steps. I realized that getting her homework done LAST NIGHT was sufficient. And if she does her homework tonight, that is also sufficient - and so on. So coming back every night is a strategy. And doing one homework is sufficient.

This is the practice of reminding myself of the validity - and even sacredness - of small steps.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Moving Forward

How to get Isabel to connect with the world in its largeness? Here are three small acts:

1. Listen to "This American Life" on the radio in the car when picking her up from "Candy Striping" duty on Sunday afternoon. The intensity of the story hooks her every week.
2. Take her to a high school football game as a rehearsal visit. Explain the band, the seating, the cheerleaders. Stay for 30 minutes and then go. Do it in steps. First get her to agree to get out of the car. Then get her to walk down to the gates and just look. Gradually convince her to walk into the game area - but not to stay. Get her to buy food - as a practice and because she likes to eat.
3. Take her to Barnes and Noble to read on Friday night to lose herself in Manga and photography books.

This is all I have to share tonight.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

The Fourth Thing That Doesn't Work

Hiding Out

Limiting the social events that give rise to comparisons. The hardest by far was going to my son's high school plays. The tribe of Winsor girls, my daughter's age, carelessly confident and blazing with potential, relentlessly moving amongst the front rows with the bedazzeled RL boys in tow - oceans and nations apart from their parents. My husband and I bookending Isabel - angry and sullen at their behavior. We were oceans and nations apart as we protected Isabel - a sad responsibility. The rest of the evening I would be filled with anger about the Winsor girl that my daugher would never be. Better not to go.

The message to Isabel must have been being social makes my family tense so it must be dangerous.

Michael moving to Harvard has healed me.

The Third Thing That Doesn't Work

Curing It Once and For All

Becoming angry and frustrated; arming myself with the assumption that finding the right neurologist, psychologist, psychiatrist or educational consultant will fix it all. Then campaigning to find that silver bullet - hitting hundreds of web-sites and signing up for studies or asking for references - until that bolus of desperate energy wanes. This sends no message to Isabel because the outcome is really no discernable action other than a signficant catharsis for me.

There is no silver bullet. All the amazing case studies of children with significant brain trauma that have developed compensatory skills are still not Isabel. The learnings are not transferrable.

Attending conferences where these amazing studies are presented generates a hopeful energy ("Things can be done. Things are being done. Isabel is not the worst case.") but in the end, it is just living with Isabel that matters. Isabel is not one of the amazing case studies on the Powerpoint slide.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

The Second Thing that Doesn't Work

Averting My Eyes

Deciding not to see and not to interfere. Doing nothing: not asking about homework, not reminding her to go to bed, not checking to see if she has brushed her teeth, not caring how long she spends in front of the computer.

Deciding that her future is fate and that the only way to move on is to move on independantly with my life. Letting hers play out without my involvement.

This results in chaos and sadness for me. It sends the Isabel the messages:

1. Everyone is leaving me alone so I must be ok.
2. The world allows me to sit in front of the computer all night and not brush my teeth so,
3. My world is easy and requires little responsibility; only the aptitude for being invisible.

The First Thing that Doesn't Work

Being Isabel

You cannot become your daughter. You can't decide that you will become her damaged right lobe and you will direct her actions and schedule like a puppet. You cannot animate her spirit. She will not absorb what you want her to absorb and rise up out of disarray.

When she is not in line of sight she will be as she will be.

The practice of modeling the behavior you want her to emulate is illusionary. It teaches me but not her. It gives the seductive sense of control and betterment when none exists.

Writing her homework, coloring her pictures, cutting our her cards, doing her art projects to give her a vision of what can be done. These are bankrupt strategies that only send these messages:

1. I, Isabel, cannot do this on my own.
2. Someone will always do for me so I do not need to
3. My mother inhabits a different reality in which I am insufficient to participate so I am gone away.

s.