Hopping Off the Merry-Go-Round

A comment on my post about potential got me thinking about one of the many differences between parents of children with special needs and parents of typically developing children:

When a typical child fails to reach his or her potential, parents blame the child.

When a special-needs child fails to reach his or her potential, parents blame themselves.

As Rachel wrote, "My worry about my son reaching his potential has to do with *my* efforts. I feel guilty each day I am too tired or too busy to really work on all the areas of development that have been assigned by the O.T., SLP, etc. What if I am preventing him from reaching his potential? How do I live with that?"

Boy, I know that guilt. I'll bet you know it, too. It's a hardy guilt, and hangs around even when you do work on all the areas of development, 'cause maybe there's a technique or treatment or therapy that would be the Magic Key if only you weren't too caught up in everything else to research and pursue it. Some other parent is, though, for sure, and you're going to look at that parent's child and think, "Would my child be doing that well if I had done X, Y, and Z instead of A, B, and C?"

I hate that guilt.

But I think I may have made my peace with it.

Maybe it's because I'm old and tired and can't keep up anymore. Maybe it's because my kids are older, becoming persons now in their own right and not little human Rubik's cubes I'm in a race to set right.

But somewhere along the line, I've stopped thinking about my kids in terms of "What do we do now, so this isn't who they are?" and started thinking "This is who they are, what do we do now?" Stopped chasing the brass ring, and hopped off the merry-go-round. My head isn't spinning anymore, and it feels good.

Recently, I sat in a waiting room listening to moms describe all the complicated and cutting-edge programs they were pursuing for their kids. At one time, I would have been mentally taking notes, and hitting the Net as soon as I got home to find out how to get some of that for me and mine. Instead, I mostly felt relief that I didn't have to do that anymore.

The guilt? Oh, the guilt is still there.

But I don't jump when it calls anymore.