Mood:  sharp

While thinking of a title for this post, I was reminded of one of my favorite Christian singers from the 80's - Steve Taylor. Taylor used to sing a song called "Meltdown at Madame Tussauds" about a janitor at the famous wax museum leaving the heat on overnight. The song talked about all of the wax figures melting. Whether they were good or bad people, they all went down the same drain. It was a representation of all of our lives. Whether we have led good lives or bad ones, we will all someday die and have to face the Lord. If we have believed that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and ask him to be our Saviour, then we have nothing to worry about. Taylor often used representations from real life to push a point. Often like Jesus using an earthly story with a heavenly meaning - a Parable.

Often, however, the Tinkel family experiences a meltdown of a different kind when Joshua becomes frustrated. Joshua is our Asperger's Syndrome child. Asperger's is on the autism spectrum. Aspy's often have a hard time in social situations. They don't understand body language or voice inflections. They become very frustrated if something happens that they weren't expecting or that throw what they were expecting "off kilter". They really need to be on a schedule and need to know what's going to happen next. They often have sensory issues as well. Joshua for one, has very strong tastes. He doesn't take his medication with something like jelly or syrup, he takes it with mustard or barbecue sauce. Frequently we have to tell him to turn the TV down when he is watching a video. It's not that he can't hear, it's because he has such acute hearing, that he needs to turn his TV up to drown out the noises around him. He is definitely a child that marches to his own beat. Unfortunately, if anything disrupts that beat he can be thrown into a fit that looks like a spoiled child's temper tantrum. It's not a tantrum, though. It is caused because of sensory overload. He really can't control it. We call them meltdowns.

He had such a meltdown the other night. We had been invited to a birthday party at the city pool. The people had rented the pool for two hours to celebrate their son and daughter's July birthdays. Unfortunately, we had an unforeseen emergency, and arrived an hour late. Joshua had fun for about 45 min. until they called everyone out for cake. In all of the excitement, I forgot to give him a time warning. Usually when he is involved doing something fun, I will give him a 15 min. warning, then a 10 min. and 5 min. warning. But this time I forgot. When he went to get back into the pool, he was told that another party had rented the pool and we had to leave. That's when the meltdown started. And it was a major one! First he jumped into the kiddie, 2 foot deep pool, and I had to jump in to get him out. Then, he grabbed onto everything he could to keep from having to leave. I had to pull his arms from around a post, pry his fingers from the fence, all with him kicking and screaming the entire way through the crowded parking lot and to the car. And of course, everyone had to turn and look at the bratty child that was making all of the commotion. Only it wasn't a bratty fit. I knew that, but they didn't, and many snide comments were heard.

We wouldn't trade our children for anything, but sometimes life is so frustrating. Especially when people don't understand what you are going through. They think it's just bad parenting or that the child "just needs a good spanking". If they only knew all of the many discipline techniques that we had tried pre-diagnosis.

Since his diagnosis, Joshua has had many more good days than bad. We are learning how to handle him, and what to do to prevent these meltdowns. He is learning how to control his meltdowns and read social cues. But, there are still the bad days. The days when you feel alone. The days that you feel like no one understands. Those are the days when we have to look to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He understands. He knows our pain. He will sustain us! He knew all about Joshua and has special plans for him. We are just here to be His instruments. 

Thank you, Lord, for giving us Joshua. Please help us to continue learning how to help him and to teach him to be more like you. Please continue using us as your instruments to prepare him for the great works you have for him to do.

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