Parenting on steriods

Well it didn’t say anything that we don’t already know: “naturally gifted at maths;” “needs to gain more control of his emotions in social situations;” “temper can be upsetting to his peers.”

The school report we got this week sounds just like Jonah, TBH. It’s laser accurate and balanced, though couched in the multiple choice prose of state school teacher’s notes. But it worries me. Despite the encouragement of a resoundingly positive teacher, and Jonah’s resolutely determined growth, sprouting teeth left right and centre and gawky, angular limbs, one of which is currently nestled in a sling since a slide-based incident cracked his collarbone, he sounds, in this report, like the same fluffy haired stress bundle who tested his teachers back in reception.

In three years time, he will go to secondary school, and the gloves, and sugar coating, will be off. Mature though he might, that temper is here to stay, and he will only get bigger, stronger and more hormonal. Tough times are round the corner.

Only a fortnight ago,  Jonah’s demons got the better of him. A teasing, perhaps even a shove from another boy, his ‘best friend’  in fact,  elicited a rage so intense he had bruises on his upper arms from being restrained. It wasn’t so much the tease, although he’s easily wound up, it was the black and white myopia that will never accept shades of grey. And yet, dosed up on painkillers following the weekend after’s fall, he was a trooper, submitting to new found physical restrictions – although unlimited computer games – with stoic cheerfulness. The one upshot of all this is that the school has let him join Code Club to keep him out of the playground at lunchtime, and prevent more damage to his arm. Code club is a forward thinking initiative for London schools to nurture tech talent, future millionaire app developers, and parent’s bedroom psychos. It’s a good idea in theory, but I’m still undecided which route Jonah will take – but then, perhaps, I’m coloured by my more profound negativity. Tom would proudly proclaim the second option.

We read the reports in different ways, Tom and I.  Ava’s glowing description, that she is happy, popular, learning well within age rage, I took as the teacher’s neglect that we all inflict on her for her sunny disposition, and get along gang attitude – why isn’t she being pushed? I wondered silently, before checking myself for the innate attitude that probably causes some of Jonah’s frustration – I am only a barely reformed alpha, after all.

Reading between the lines of Jonah’s report, which from an academic basis was great, I forsee only difficulty ahead amid new pressures and challenges. Tom, of course, enthused and picked out the positives. Oh well. Jonah will be what he will be, and that. But I feel powerless at this stage to do much about it, dogmatic as he is.

The summer holidays loom, and he is getting harder and harder to persuade outside, let alone to a club or sports game. So Ava will trot off to her theatre group, or dance lessons, childminder in tow in the weeks to come, while Jonah, slumped on the sofa, one handedly challenges his manny to new levels of Pokemon, and I feel like I’m losing him. I’m certainly losing control, if I ever had it at all. But he’s happy enough, at least.

This article, by David Mitchell, which likens parenting an autistic child to parenting on steroids, is a useful comparison to my own experience  and though I can’t own mine is nearly so extreme, there are echoes of it that I need other people to hear so they might try to understand.