Monday, January 24, 2011

There is such a thing as a stupid question.....

Shel and I have spent a LOT of time educating ourselves on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. We have been to conferences, read books, searched the internet and taken every opportunity that has ever presented itself to us to learn about FASD.
Both of our sons were exposed to alcohol prior to their births and both of them suffer permanent brain trauma as a result of this exposure. So we need to know.
We want to be able to parent our sons the best way for them and for us, and in a way that will enable them to be the most successful they can be in this world.
With that preface...
One of the things that we know about this kind of brain injury is that judgement is impaired.
Here are some other things we know already about our sons:
1. They need a lot of time to make decisions.
2. They act very impulsively without thought for any consequence to their actions.
3. They are often unable to reflect on how an action "caused" a result.
4. They have trouble planning ahead.
5. They get frustrated VERY easily when things are not exactly as they WANT them to be.

Last night we were laying in our bed watching television as is the before bed ritual in our house. Max said to me "I hope my DS is in my room", to which I responded "What will you do if it isn't?"

I thought this was a GREAT parenting moment in which I was trying to teach him to think ahead and make a plan in case what he wanted didn't turn out exactly as he had planned. As the words were coming out of my mouth I was congratulating myself in my head on the amazing job I had just done of seeing and using an opportunity to teach him something. I expected him to stall, or to take a minute to think about it - or - as he USUALLY does when I ask him questions like this - completely ignore me. Instead, without a moment's hesitation he turned and looked at me and said sarcastically.... " I won't play it then!"

DUH, MOM.