Monday, November 28, 2011

Dispelling a Myth

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6 NKJV

I don’t think you would ever have had to set foot in church to be familiar with this proverb.  There is another saying, often used in a 12-step setting, which has a similar connotation: if nothing changes, nothing changes.

These pithy little platitudes don’t hold up very well under close analysis.  They are great, however, for reminding oneself to stay on track, even without knowing it’s the right track until reaching the destination – but only if one is sure of the engineer.

Training up a child in the way he should go implies a parent knows the best way, and that isn’t always the case.  In a dysfunctional home we can see that if nothing changes in regard to the direction, nothing changes about the outcome.  Children raised in dysfunctional homes often struggle mightily, as adults, recognizing the path along which they were raised was neither functional nor practical.  Fortunately, most children can decide at some point if the path is right for them, and may get off on a siding to head to a different station. 

Do you think the same holds true for raising kids with different cognitive or behavioral needs?  No.  In fact, even neurotypical kids growing into adulthood may not understand what it is about their upbringing that’s not working in their lives; it can be especially difficult for children with behavioral, emotional, or cognitive differences.  As parents of two kids with challenges, Dearest and I believe it’s best to tell the kids what is expected, as well as model it on a daily basis – and to explain why a particular behavior is expected and how it affects their lives either way.  If they don't understand the method used inside the home, they can't implement it in situations outside the home.

As anyone who has been knitting for a while knows, sometimes a project just doesn’t work out the way you think it should.  You frog back, check the instructions, count carefully, re-knit it… and it’s wrong.  If you’re lucky, you can check the back of the book, or the publisher’s site, the pattern page, or go to Ravelry and check the forums to see if anyone has posted errata, or mistakes in the pattern.  In the first shawl I knitted, I couldn’t figure out why my stitch counts weren’t working.  It wasn’t a big mistake, but the numbers didn’t match and the pattern wasn’t going to work unless one knew to adjust for the difference.  I chose to knit the shawl so soon after it was released the mistake hadn't been noted yet - but I found plenty of folks on Ravelry, including the designer herself, who confirmed the mistake was in the pattern.  It's been corrected, and I finished the shawl.

My first shawl -Traveling Woman - September 2009

What myth am I trying to dispel?  That the person who tells us what to do: our parent, counselor, pattern writer, etc – the ‘expert’ – is always right.  Even if the expert wasn’t wrong in whatever he or she was talking or writing about, the method might not be working for me, in my particular situation, in my particular family, in my particular project.  Trust your instincts, trust your eyes, trust your feelings, ask questions, and know that it’s all right to make adjustments.  No matter what happens during the process, the goal is to be happy with the end result.

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