It's always the same thing - at some point during a party, someone is going to want to take a group picture and there's a very good chance that in doing so the whole party is going to go down the drain. At least for me it is, because I am going to be the mother of the kid who is screaming and crying like he is being physically harmed because you dared to try and take his picture. I am going to feel guilty that my kid ruined your picture and I am going to feel frustrated that I will have to try and explain to some relative we see once a year in a few short words why he's acting this way. I am going to feel like you are talking about me behind my back because I must be doing EVERYTHING wrong and my kid must be SPOILED ROTTEN since he can't just sit there and smile like everyone else.
To be fair - he's better than he used to be. We can get him to actually get in a group photo here and there, now and then these days. But most likely, he won't smile or look directly at the camera. He puts on his 'mask' which looks like a blank stare and a pout combined into one bland look that he wears in so many pictures. So now maybe I will just feel guilty that my kid ruined your picture because he won't look at the camera or smile. And maybe you will be talking behind my back because he's just ungrateful about getting stockings or eggs with candy and money and couldn't he just smile and look like he kind of enjoys being here just once?
I like to believe (and therefore talk myself into the idea, constantly) that no one we love would actually believe this stuff about us or would say any of it, but I constantly fear and dread it and worry about what people really think I am doing with my kid. It is very, very difficult to change the dialogue in my head when Scooter is having a bad moment. Of course, the more comfortable he is, the better he is going to do. So when we go to the 'BIG' family gatherings where he sees relatives once or twice a year or when we go to Wisconsin every other year - those situations, the ones you really want to commemorate with big group/family photos - those are the hardest. They are also the most chaotic with absolutely no sense of routine or pattern that my munchkin can discern and interpret and flow with. He's usually a mess.
For example, two years ago we went to Scott's aunts house for a small-ish graduation party for her son. Scooter had no memories of her house, had no idea who would be there or what he would encounter. It didn't matter how much we explained to him or how well we tried to prepare him, the child would NOT go in. He sat on the front porch and refused to enter the house. Granted, I think that was the third party that weekend, but yeah. Fun Stuff! Scott stayed with him out front and his brother came out to help coax him in. Eventually Scott got him through the door and the house (as quickly as humanly possible) and out to the back porch. He calmed down, he ate some chips and had a drink, he played with some cousins. By the time we left he was having a ball running around the backyard with brothers and cousins and you would never have known there was a problem. Then again, no one asked to take his picture that day.
About a month later, we were in Wisconsin on vacation. I prepared for that trip with Scooter in mind. I spaced events, prepared a social story, gave him lots of down time and transition opportunities. He did so very well, slowly warming to cousins he didn't remember and friends that he didn't know. After a long afternoon picnic with some of our favorite people, we were gathering in groups for pictures. People wanted snapshots of me with my family - and I tried. I knew he wouldn't want his picture taken so I gambled and didn't tell him that was what we were doing. BIG mistake. HUGE. When someone said 'say cheese' and he figured out why we were all clustered together across from someone he didn't know .... holding a camera .... well, let's just say the screaming might have been heard a mile away. Lesson learned - don't try to 'trick' your child with autism who needs time to prepare for EVERYTHING!!!!!
I get it, I feel bad. I wish when the grandmothers tried to get ALL their grandkids into one picture, kind of looking at the camera and seeming generally happy to be there - I wish that this would work! I want those pictures too! And if my niece or nephew is making a face or crying or looking the other way - it doesn't bother me a bit. I'm able to shake that off and say 'yep, that's okay, get what you can get' because I know there will be a hundred more pictures of those kids that come out well. No big deal. But when it's my munchkin, again, oh I hate that feeling.
Like I said - he's better. He's very good these days with his immediate cousins. We got a few gems like this at Christmas:
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Of course - they were about to open presents a couple days early, so who wouldn't be happy, right?
And this weekend, we had a small egg hunt with the families in our cul de sac. Sitting with the kids he plays with every day, his comfort level was at a very nice high and we captured a bunch of photos like this one:
Look at that smile! See, he really does want to be there!
But, of course, it's still touch and go. So, yesterday, when he was surrounded by cousins he sees once or twice a year and aunts and uncles he doesn't know well, it was tough. The good news was that the party was at a home where he is quite comfortable. And we were early, we've learned to just be early! He does so much better if he's already out back playing as people arrive so he's not overwhelmed by walking into a large party in full swing. And he played and played, perfectly. Right up until we asked him to corral with all those cousins inside the house while eggs were hidden. He wouldn't leave my side so I couldn't help. And then we asked the kids to line up by age, just like always, but he couldn't do it and he couldn't do it very vocally. I calmed him down, put him next to his brother and stood there with all the kids while the pictures were taken.
At least he was over the tears for the moment (they began again when we started the egg hunt). He just put on his mask and let everyone snap away. Becki made it in the picture too - but she was keeping a toddler in the line-up. Me, there I am, standing amongst all the kids making sure my 8 year old doesn't run away. (Seriously, can they stop growing? That group next to me are all 14 and on their last family egg hunt. And I am not even the tallest one in the group!)
I don't really know what went wrong. I can only speculate and try to head off the problem the next time. Before the hunt, I had taken the kids down a line of photos that Becki had displayed. They were each of the 'group' photos of the kids at Easter over the last 8 years. Oh my - they have all grown so much. Scooter looked at each picture, asking me to point out where he was. I thought maybe he would 'get it'. We take the picture every year. Every year we take the picture so we know who was here and we can see how you've grown. Every year. We take the picture. And he tends to do better at the parties we do every year because he sort of knows the routine. But no, not this time.
He had a small meltdown on Easter. For us, it was small. I'm sure it didn't look that way to others. I don't really care anymore though. I get so worried about making it work and trying to get him into and through parties and pictures that I can make myself crazy. It's hard and if someone doesn't get that, it's okay. I know they don't really get Scooter all the time either. They see him in snapshots at occasional gatherings and they can't really know what's going on with this little boy that they love. Those photos are not a very good sampling of what living with my baby every day is like. And it's okay that this is all they see or know. It's okay that they may look back and wonder why he never smiled. They are only snapshots and they are not the full picture. {On the flip side, people see him playing with his cousins outside and wondering if he really IS on spectrum. Because lots of kids on spectrum can't do that. They are all so different, and this is something he does very well, while pictures are something with which he struggles constantly. Everyone else's opinion of our diagnosis: A discussion for another day!}
Scooter will ham it up for me to take a picture, so it's not just the picture he has a problem with. In recent years he's been able to vocalize that he doesn't like pictures to be taken by people he doesn't know, but I think there is more to it than that. I think group photos and large gatherings put way too many faces in his field of vision and it's very hard for him to interpret even one, much less 10 or 15 at a time. It's high stress for him and everything is unpredictable. Unpredictable environments are hard work for him.
One of his older cousins was snapping photos yesterday too. I saw a couple today on facebook and I wanted to share them with you. This was after the hunt, after he calmed down and started to play again.
That's my munchkin. That's the boy I live with most of the time. And even that precious, happy face is just a snapshot. It doesn't show our daily struggle with getting out of the car for school or the meltdowns we face when we are running late and I have to try to get him to do something out of order. When you see these, you can't hear the sadness in his voice when he tells me 'Momma, I want to play soccer. I just can't!' or the frustration in my own when I'm begging him to try putting a food in his mouth that isn't on one of his lists, PLEASE!!!!
We will keep going to parties and we will keep taking pictures. I'll keep getting a stomach ache worrying about it beforehand and sometimes I'll look like a
And someday when I look back at the years of photographic memories, I might wish he was in more of the group shots. Maybe I'll wish I had forced him to do more so that he could further develop that social skill. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll remember that it was more important to be his mom and not force him to do something that makes him so uncomfortable so that he could just have a happy Easter. In the mean time, I'll just keep taking snapshots of him when I can get them and hope that more have a smile in them than the mask.
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And I am learning to appreciate the mask as well. I am learning to see it as his coping mechanism. When there is too much chaos and too much to deal with, and someone (even his mom) wants to snap a picture, he puts on the mask and separates himself so he can manage. Without a melt down and without stimming or chewing his shirt or anything else, he can just use the mask for a minute and make it through to the next thing. Because the next thing is that he can't stand the smell of bread and every single person around him has a roll in their hand. And someone may touch him before they wash their hands. And that is a much harder thing to deal with at this party than my mom taking a picture of me looking rather dapper.
It kinda makes me wish that I had a mask of my own. Anyway, next time we are gathered together friend, and my sweet boy doesn't want his picture taken and he yells 'NO' and it sounds kind of rude and then I don't step in and make him do it so that I look like either 'rude mom' or 'bad mom' ... now you know why. And maybe you will just squeeze my hand so my tummy ache goes away and I know that you love us both anyway.
Thanks and God Bless...
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