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When did "best" become such a dangerous word?
"It's too competitive!" "It creates too much pressure!" "It's greedy." "It's not realistic." This is what has become the mantra of our generation. Many people are starting to realize the flaw in this thinking, this settling, this dull acceptance. We live in a society constantly looking to say services are good enough, everyone should win, and work needs to feel good all of the time. And yet so often this proves that no one actually wins. This is the true epidemic, the acceptance of "I tried, I offered something; therefore I have done enough." People are afraid to feel the intensity of physical and mental workouts but want the results and the quick fix. This attitude has created sometimes lazy, sometimes just overwhelmed systems and an acceptance of status quo and defeat. Individuals are afraid to challenge themselves and others to know their best because if it is not easy, they may not feel good. And this is the era of immediate gratification and "we must always feel good, medicated, or tuned out". People seem to have forgotten that life is intense, being human means we feel strongly, we need engagement, we require the effort and time of others and they in turn require the same of us. It may seem no longer to be a priority but the effects are tremendous. Albeit, there is a silver lining on this cloud as children, workers, therapists, teachers, and families are realizing "this is not going to make me productive. I don't have the tools I need for the greatest success possible. Something must be done. We need help and we need to be the helpers!"
We must empower our children, friends, families, and colleagues not to live in a world comparing themselves to others but to strive for their own greatness and to know they are capable of so much more. Passion is liberating and inspiring and nice; it is important, but we must not forget the power of coping skills, problem solving, fairness, and high expectations.
So often in our work, teaching social and communication skills in an education setting to children with Autism and other differences, families and therapists want to avoid the messy behavior, frustration, emotion, and logistics of programming. We comfort them and ask them to trust us, and more importantly to trust their children and themselves. To be confident in making mistakes and learning from them. Sometimes we make our greatest strides in the context of recovering from our greatest failures.
Do not avoid the rock, my beloved readers, move it, break it, use it to build! My father always said to me, "if I do my job right as a parent, you will be smarter than me, more successful than me, and even happier than me. It will not be easy. You will not always like me, but I hope that when you are thriving in life, when you have established your own code, and when you are reflecting in your maturity that you will respect me; I hope that will be enough to prove my love for you." As he now looks back on his life, this attitude and neverending nagging, reminding, and prodding for me to do more, think more, and be more gives him great peace of mind, for he feels accomplishment in my success, my learning, and my constant desire to do and be more. This motivates me, in turn, to do the same everyday, with ALL of my students! Today people want so much to be liked, fast, and for themselves (whether that be them as an individual, a company, or a state department, etc). What is worrying is that the notion of thriving and challenging individuals is looked at not as our job as teachers, principals, judges, districts, etc, but as an average formula based on threat and cost.
In regards to Autism and special education, families are often deemed the enemy of public schools when they are looking for a free and appropriate education (FAPE) for their kids and in despair by lack of programs available go to private schools and programs that can handle their children's intensive physical, emotional, and cognitive needs. They must mortgage their homes, cash in their retirement funds, humble themselves with friends and family to borrow tens of thousands of dollars to have their kids in a program that does not exacerbate their differences and cause greater deficits. They must hire lawyers and defend their children by sharing with strangers their greatest weaknesses and heartache in trying to get their children basic services. Often they have to shift uniqueness into a pigeon hole scope called "problematic behavior" because no one sees the beauty in their difference.
Heaven forbid in a hearing one should state the desire for what is "best for their child" , parents must be diligent in stating they will accept what is deemed by officials who have never seen their children, as "adequate". What is lost in this fight is the fact that they all want to have their kids be able to attend a "typical" program, to sit with 20 or 30 friends in a classroom, to have buddies to share secrets with at lunch and recess, to transition from one class to another, and have their biggest problem be rememebering the combo to their lockers. Life has handed them another path in trying to help their children understand safety and not run in the middle of the street to follow a shimmering ray of light, or to contend with hour long melt-downs over sounds, or smells, or people moving too fast due to a sensory system that inundates the mind and body in ways none of us yet truly have the capacity to understand. For some families, they are fighting for their children who have few visible symptoms of Autism and other developmental/physical challenges yet emotionally are not thriving, academically are not being challenged and have unique learning styles. This includes the much neglected "twice exceptional" child who has a high intelligence paired with social emotional or physical challenges. They are students lost in the abyss, who are told to either pull themselves up by the bootstraps and accept status quo or who are labeled uneducable (a word I strongly believe should be obliterated from all vocabulary related to people in any context!). I believe that schools and districts could be working together to make change. I believe we can ask more of our students whether they are verbal or not. We must empathize with them without pitying them, and we for sure should not be advocating on their behalf without including them and giving them a forum to speak!
Can we find an in between where we do not ask everyone to be "better than" but simply "the best they can be" ? Can we give the guarantee of a common good with education and with health so that we are proud children, thriving adults, and an engaged and caring society in this great country that so proudly boasts we are ALL entitled to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?! I believe we can! We just have to believe in ourselves and each other and... do our BEST!
