F is for...

Flexibility.

flex-i-ble  3. willing or disposed to yield; pliable: a flexible personality.

Flexibility as a quality is difficult to teach. It’s a concept, not a touchable, tangible thing. It’s also absolutely critical to instill in kids with challenges.

The way we describe flexibility is ‘being OK when something unexpected happens.’  Because if one isn’t OK when something unexpected happens – if one isn’t flexible – something is going to break.

Over the years, we have had tragedy strike over things that most families would take for granted.  We have had sobbing-screaming-swearing meltdowns lasting hours over a change in furniture arrangement.  Someone else’s breakfast getting cold.  Deciding on an artificial Christmas tree rather than a real one.  Having to sit at a different place at the dinner table in adjusting for company.  Having to use a different spoon.  These examples are a very small sample; I could go on, but will spare you, in case you are cringing as I am just thinking about this. 

Rigid, inflexible thinking is a problem for both kids, and the last breakdown wasn’t that long ago.  We’re getting better at talking about being flexible.  We can say, for example, “Remember, if the cafeteria is out of pizza, you can be OK with having a chicken sandwich,” or, "If we get home too late to watch the show we can check to see when that episode will be on again."  When we hear an exchange like, “I really wanted fish sticks for dinner but I can wait until tomorrow,” or, “I want to watch Redwall but you already said Mythbusters, so I can be OK with that,” we are very quick to compliment the child on his/her flexibility.  Really, we draw it to the attention of everyone in the room with positive affirmation – ‘Way to be flexible!  Thanks very much, that’s great cooperation!’ and so on.

Is it only the kids in this family that have difficulty being flexible?  No, in fact, I find myself doing little surveys in my head fairly often these days about whether I can be more flexible in my interactions with the kids!  Thankfully I find I can, quite often.  With a few exceptions, it doesn’t really matter what the kids wear, as long as it fits within safety/modesty/school rule guidelines.  You may think it’s no big deal, but in this family, allowing them to choose what they wear means sometimes I have to be OK if the same clothes are worn for two days and two nights.  It’s hard to know what an anxious child needs to ‘be OK’, and sometimes not changing clothes is going to make the difference between feeling fairly secure and feeling as if one might shatter into a million pieces. 

There are many ways I can tie flexibility in knitting, but I’ll go with one that involves what we are taught.  Every pattern gives the recommended gauge, and all knitters know the phrase “To save time, take time to check gauge”.  It means you’re supposed to knit a little swatch to ensure you’re getting the same number of stitches per inch and rows per inch as written in the pattern.  Gauge is one of the first things we’re taught when we learn to knit – it is not necessarily one of the first things we learn, though.

 

We knit happily away on projects for which, really, the exact gauge doesn’t matter.  It’s not too important that a scarf isn’t the same dimensions as stated in the pattern, or a dishcloth, or a shawl.  It’s critical in a garment, though, and even if one is using the same yarn and needle size as in the pattern, any individual will certainly knit a bit more tightly or loosely than the pattern designer.  These socks were knitted with yarn I bought at one of my first trips to a ‘real’ yarn store.  It’s called Zauberball Crazy and I love the way the colors are plied together.  It’s impossible to knit an identical pair of socks!  This was the first time I had knitted any kind of design in the socks, too, so I was feeling pretty proud of myself!  Too bad they didn’t fit me.  They ended up being just about a size too small, but my niece said she loved them and would be happy to have them.

Twists and Ribs socks on blockers I made from a tutorial! 

For this reason, one has to be flexible.  If size matters, gauge matters – even if it means using needles two or three sizes different than what the pattern calls for.  I learned my lesson, and Sarah loves her socks.  I can be OK with that.

E is for...

Expectations.

Mine are usually out of proportion.  I believe one's response to a given situation can be, to some extent, pre-determined by one's expectations.  It's amazing to me that I can still be surprised when something doesn't turn out the way I expect, in spite of the fact that it didn't work the previous umpteen times.  I tell myself it's because I'm an optimist.  :-)

One of the most helpful things we've learned in teaching social skills is to think in terms of 'expected' behavior.  Not 'normal', not 'appropriate'.  Those words imply judgement; that if one is not normal or appropriate, one must be bad.  If we tell a child his or her behavior is 'unexpected', it simply means that it came as a surprise.  Bursting into tears at the dinner table is pretty unexpected, especially if we've been telling a kid forever that some form of fruit or vegetable has to be consumed at dinner.

We can tell a child what behaviors are expected based on age or situation: a thirteen year old is expected to brush her hair independently, and an eleven year old is expected to remember that, if food was just served out of a boiling pot, it will be hot.  Both of those things are usually understood by much younger children, but Girlie is just recently able to brush her hair independently, and Boyo doesn't burn his mouth most days.  Putting the desired behavior in terms of what is expected, along with repetition, has been an effective, non-judgmental way of teaching the kids better social and life skills.  Does this mean the vegetables on our dinner table will magically be met without derision or resistance?  No, in fact, that would be the most unexpected event of all!

We all have expectations, and it's no different in knitting.  Like I said, though, sometimes our expectations are unreasonable based on assumptions, misinformation, or... um... ignorance.  I planned carefully for a cardigan that I'd been wanting to knit for some time: Mr. Greenjeans by Amy Swenson.  It's a very well-written pattern and nearly two thousand projects had already been finished on Ravelry by the time I felt my skills were up to it.  I researched my yarn choice and got lucky last year in KnitPicks Cyber Monday sale; a sweater quantity of Swish superwash merino for less than $25!

It took six months to the day to knit my sweater (but it wasn't a very portable project, so I was knitting plenty of other things at the same time).  My modifications worked perfectly and the sweater fit exactly the way I wanted.  I was so proud!  After soaking it carefully and pressing it in towels, I arranged it on a drying screen.  It was the first thing I thought of on waking the next morning - imagine my shock and surprise to discover the 3/4 length sleeves I'd knitted now came well past my fingers, and the body length was below my hips!  Almost a paper bag moment: OK, breathe... 

This was the first time I'd knitted with 'superwash' wool, which means it's meant to be machine washable and often, dryable.  The yarn is treated to remove the microscopic scales along the fibers, which keeps the yarn from felting together and shrinking; I knew that, but was unaware it has the opposite effect, and grows out of control when it gets wet.  I figured at this point the sweater was useless to me, so it couldn't hurt to throw it in the dryer, right?  After about 20 minutes on low heat I pulled the sweater out and put it on - clearly, a miracle had happened in the dryer.  Beyond all my expectations, the sweater fit perfectly.

D is for...

Dam.

I’ve lived near flood prone areas of the Pacific Northwest all my adult life.  Folks here know the areas most likely to have high water, they know when they’ll have to use alternate routes, they know where to get sandbags and where to put them, and they know when they've done all they can.  They know when to get out of the way.  The water will crest, begin to recede, and clean-up efforts can start.

In the family emotional dam we try to keep a balance; a stability so there is no undue pressure going in any one direction.  When the barriers begin to break down the damage control starts immediately, but sometimes emotions escalate, behavior gets out of control, and pretty soon we’re surrounded by the wreckage.  It’s ugly and exhausting.

It’s hard work to identify weak areas and the influences most likely to start the leaks trickling.  Do we always see it coming?  No; in fact, although sometimes one can recognize a pattern, and learn to avoid situations and events that are consistently problematic, other times it feels like a flash flood.

Eventually we discovered ‘sandbags’ we could use if it seemed the water was rising: a change of scenery or activity (we used to put Girlie in a warm bath and it was like pushing a reset button!), a drink or snack.  Sometimes it becomes clear we’ve done all we can – time to get out of the way and let the dam burst and the flood happen.  It’ll be over, and then we can talk while we clean up.  The damage is limited to the kids’ bedrooms nowadays, and physical violence (one kid was more likely to have done self-harm and one was more likely to turn on me) has become rare.

As the kids get older, they become more self aware and able to articulate their feelings.  That takes work, and energy, and effort, for all concerned.  It isn’t quite a job for the Army Corps of Engineers, but we’ve had a lot of help shoring up the dikes and levees, learning the best methods to plug the holes.  We talk, one-to-one and as a family, about what might have caused a ‘trickle’, and what we could do next time to stop it.  Both kids are starting to understand their need for de-escalation, if things haven’t degraded too much, and can initiate an activity, sometimes even preceded by verbalizing the need!  Coloring or drawing, reading, or listening to audio books are some of the ways they calm themselves.  Video games work pretty well for Girlie; she tends not to become over stimulated like Boyo does (in his case, too much screen time is a guarantee of problems for everyone in the very near future).  Our family relies heavily on LEGOs and the sound of little bricks being sorted and scraped across the floor in piles is a familiar noise from both their rooms.

You may not associate knitting with dams, but you can sure tell when one bursts in my craft room.  There could be half a dozen projects on the needles, and in a particularly stressful time I might start two or three in one sitting, until I find the right combination of needles, yarn, and pattern that will knit some calm back into my cloudy skies.  Knit one, purl one… ahhhh…

Scrappy Shawl - Weaver's Wool Mini Shawl Pattern

C is for...

Confidentiality.

My professional training is in medical transcription and medical records.  Dearest and I began providing foster care in 1999.  For a while, I was a substitute paraeducator in our school district.  I understand confidentiality on every level.

I also realize that, if I’m to do any good by writing publicly, I have to be prepared to let you see the inner workings, the confidential stories, the hard truths.  Boyo just looked over my shoulder in passing and said, “Confidentiality.  Only for specific people.”  Yes, and the ‘specific people’ I have in mind are those who might find a moment of recognition in what I write.

Families handle the issue of adoption in whatever way works best for them.  In our family, it’s never been a secret.  Both children know they were adopted.  We started when they were very young, telling them some women can be mothers but not have babies, and some women can have babies but not be mothers.  Both kids know they have challenges that are not their fault.  (In the case of our son who was prenatally exposed to methamphetamine, we’ve told them that his biological mother’s mistake was not maliciously intended to harm the baby she was carrying.)  

Boyo isn’t quite as forthcoming in talking about his challenges, but Girlie has begun to advocate for herself and talk about having Asperger’s Syndrome.  She recognizes that she is giving personal information, but also that she has learned a lot and may be able to help others.  She has taken social skills classes for a few years, and has begun to accept advice from a couple helpful girls at her middle school about grooming and wardrobe.  Dressing the way they suggest isn’t necessarily her first choice, but she recognizes their advice may help her fit in better.  She has begun to understand what some of her challenges are and talk to teachers on her own about ways to meet them.  Upon learning a cousin was recently diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and being asked if she has any advice, she said, “Please tell him I have it, and it’s OK even though the word sounds inappropriate because it starts with ‘Ass.’”

How can I possibly tie confidentiality in with knitting?  I can’t tell you; it’s a secret.  No, in fact, one of the best things about knitting and most fibers arts is that there are very few secrets because folks want to share what they know.  On Ravelry there are thousands of free knitting patterns, ranging from very simple to complicated, intricate designs.  I understand why they aren’t all free - it takes a lot of time and effort to produce professionally written patterns, and someone has to pay to get those beautiful books published, after all – but I have an appreciation for the designers, both amateur and professional, who are willing to share their work for free.  Because I’ve gotten so much help from so many people, I hoped to pay it back a little by putting my simple ideas out there, too.  Click on the photos for a .pdf of the patterns.  J

With a Twist handwarmers

Duchess legwarmers

Deckle scarf

B is for...

Best-laid plans.

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" Robert Burns, 1785

It’s very easy to make assumptions about what ‘normal’ families do.  It’s also easy to assume that, just because a thing is what was always done, we should continue to do it.  Trust me – before you figure it out, that way madness lies.

When the two youngest kids were much younger, we did the things that families do: going to other folks’ homes, grocery shopping, eating out, running errands in the car.  Infallibly, disaster would strike during the outing (like refusing to leave the car, fighting for freedom, biting to avoid hand-holding, running away), or a ticking time bomb would explode when we returned home.  There would be violent tantrums, meltdowns, insomnia, or terrors.

We started noticing the symptoms of anxiety, realizing that public noises were startling and intolerable, and so much visual input was overloading senses.  Eventually we stopped taking the kids out.  It meant grocery shopping had to be done by Dearest, most of the time.  It meant volunteerism could only happen if there was a parent available to stay with the kids, because even if child care was provided at meetings, my kiddos couldn’t tolerate it.  Shopping started to be almost exclusively done online, even for some of the staple groceries.  Any deviation from the home routine had to be arranged with utmost care, and always with an ‘out’ in place, so that we could leave immediately if necessary.

I spent more time finding websites where I could research the most pertinent information (and for prenatal methamphetamine exposure, there wasn’t much!), and taking all the online classes offered to foster and adoptive parents.  I read.  A lot.

We’re not a ‘normal’ family.  Was it unexpected to think we would be?  No, in fact, I have two older children.  I had first-hand experience about what families do, taking children in public, going out to restaurants, traveling to visit family members, even going to theaters to see live performances.  With a three-year-old.  Really.

In a quiet moment, a realization came – our family will be the hub of the wheel.  It’s all right to watch the activity happen around us, and we can be gathered together, securely in the center, and watch if we want, or turn our faces inward when it becomes too much.  We discovered that, even if ‘everyone else is doing it’, it may not be what works best for our family.

Considering I spend so much time at this computer, you can bet I look at a lot of knitting patterns.  Sometimes I see one that strikes a spark in me, and I fall in love with it.  The Emmaline sweater is one such pattern.  I chose my yarn carefully and couldn’t wait to receive it.  I even swatched for this sweater, mind you; eagerly cast on and started knitting.  The yarn I chose was lovely to knit with and I knitted happily… 

When an unwelcome thought started niggling at the back of my head I at first pushed it away, but it had to be faced: this sweater is not going to work for me.  Ever.  It isn’t the right style, and at this point in my life I wouldn’t have been able to tolerate much more than a tank top, even in winter – how could I have ever contemplated wearing a sweater knit with bulky yarn?

I removed the needle from my knitting resignedly and rolled the raveled yarn into a ball.  It felt like the right thing to do, even though it wasn’t the easy thing to do.  Changing plans can be like that, sometimes.  Telling the family you can’t come to a gathering, turning down offers for social events, realizing that a family dinner in a restaurant is not a treat for anyone – those things can be hard to swallow, at first.  The enlightenment, when it comes, is a relief; the realization that you don’t have to keep putting effort into a plan that was never going to work in the first place, and that changing that plan is not equal to failure.  When we accept our differences and realize that the real best-laid plan is the one we make with foresight and honesty about the result, we can give the yarn to someone for whom it’s much better suited, and knit another pair of socks.  J

A is for...

Assurance.  Bet you thought I was going to say Asperger’s.

I wonder if people are used to thinking more in terms of reassurance?  I know that with my kiddos, we try to be repetitive with the good messages and provide a lot of reassurance when they’re on the right track – or when they aren’t on the right track and we’re trying to convince them they can be!

The holiday season is upon us, and Boyo is dancing as a Party Boy in Ballet Northwest's The Nutcracker again this year.  As it gets closer to opening night, the rehearsals get longer and more frequent, and the schedule gets more complicated for the family.  I’m happy about that, because he loves it.  Even more importantly, it makes a huge impact on his attitude and behavior, because it’s a wonderfully positive, supportive atmosphere, and he rests in the assurance of his dance teachers that he will be successful.  Boyo works hard at dance and it burns off energy and anxiety, leaving him much more relaxed and allowing him to be more patient and kind to his sister.

Do we ever stop needing assurance?  No; in fact, if you think about it you have some sort of assurance in place every day.  Your insurance company assures you they’ve got you covered if anything untoward should happen while you’re out on the road.  The weatherman assures you that whatever is in the forecast is what you can expect to see in the sky.  You can rest assured that, with your usual ingredients, your go-to recipe is going to turn out exactly the way you like it. 

We rely on this.  It’s what faith is made of.  My friend Rhondi assured me that I could write a blog – I love her faith in me J

In my knitting, I’ve learned that with most sock yarns I can use US 0 (2 mm) needles and be assured of getting 9 stitches per inch – so much so that I can check the gauge by eye and know if it’s close enough.  If I’m following a pattern I may have to adjust the stitch count; otherwise I just go on with the basic toe up guidelines as written on Fleegle’s blog, and I've done it so many times I know it by heart.  I get a sock that fits, every time.  

That’s a long way from the days when I was convinced I’d never be able to knit socks, and a friend assured me that yes, I could, all I had to do was follow the pattern one step at a time.  Two dozen pairs later, I think socks have become a metaphor for me, and an assurance that everything will be all right.  In knitting, and in life – one step at a time.

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.