#JudgyFace

In the past week, we have been away from home at least half the time; doctors that are too far to travel to in a day and so on. One thing of major import in my world, is that our little C is finally going to get some assessments and we are going to finally know what we’re facing. We had our first visit with his new doc. On the first visit, he meets with just the parents to find out what we hope to accomplish and so on with his help. I know we don’t need labels on our kids. I know we won’t treat him differently, except everything will be different. When he’s running down the sidewalk cartwheeling his arms and legs out to the side as he goes, we’re not going to be as frustrated with him if we know that he’s not being crazy, he’s self-soothing. I mean, in some ways, we already treat his oddities this way. We’ve learned from working with his brother that these are the ways that he fills his sensory needs, but it is still really hard to act like everything is fine when he’s running away from you, bumping into other people or sitting upside down in his chair at the restaurant. He’s a wonderful, loving child who seems very ill-behaved at times but really isn’t. We are tough on him. We make him earn his privileges and so on. However, for those not in the know, he often comes off as a wild child.

Today, while trying to eke out a little bit of school work from him, he sat on the table, with an elastic tie around his head and used the tip of the tie to point to the answers as I scribed them out for him. He kept saying that his brain wasn’t working; he couldn’t think but, as soon as I took over the writing, we got a few pages done, as long as I allowed the odd tie situation.

So, something that made me happy: we finally got into this new doctor. Even though it was just one session, I already feel completely validated in some of the hard choices that we’ve had to make about C over the past year. Things like pulling him out of school because it was just too much for his sensory processing. Things like choosing to sit in the cafeteria at a spiritual assembly we attended, rather than the auditorium because the boys could not handle sitting in a room with almost 1000 people, and sitting at a table was easier for them to keep busy than sitting in a row of chairs all day. Fewer eyes on them if they have to move and so on.

Many do not get it, however, and we get the looks. You know, the look. It’s the look that is on the faces of so many strangers who have no clue what you’re dealing with. People, who look at us parents and think that we need to reign in our kids or make them sit more still. “Why does you kid have giant headphones on? Shouldn’t he be paying attention to the program?” You see the questions on their face. They can’t help it and they just don’t get it.

I recently came across this post by Louise Williams: No One Likes a JudgeyFace. She perfectly expresses a parent’s feeling when they get the JudgeyFace. As a parent that sees the face often, I think this is a brilliant article.

“…whilst at the pool when James wasn’t even being that crazy I saw it. The expression people pull when they are making instant judgements about James and I.

JudgeyFace.

Yep. The face that people display when they are appalled by what they see. They were appalled by my amazing son. How dare they?...”

“…They are judging us. They are judging him, for being a bit unusual and me for not doing something about it…”

It’s a known quantity for parents of quirky kids. No matter what you’re facing with your kid, there are people out there that will judge you or your child for not meeting their/society’s standards of “normal”. We just have to find a way to move past it; let it roll off our backs like water on the proverbial duck. (Does water roll off a duck’s back? I don’t know but, it seems like it should so, I’m going with it.)

That is a challenge though. We are fighters for our kids. We want them to have the same opportunity to have a happy, carefree childhood that other kids have. They are most likely oblivious to the looks but, we parents are not. We see it. We feel the judgement and we break a little inside for the lack of understanding, for the lack of normalcy that we don’t have. We could just as easily have a NT child (NeuroTypical = average) and the get the JudgeyFace anyway, and maybe we’d even deserve it. Or would we? As I sit here with my quirky kids, I realize that no one deserves it. No one really, truly knows what another parent is going through if they aren’t living in that family. Sometimes, even our spouses/partners don’t fully get it, because they may be working outside of the home every day. They see a few hours in the mornings and evenings and then on the weekends, but not the daily struggle of the stay-at-home parent. I know my guy tries so hard but, in some ways, he won’t ever be able to get it because he’s not here during the day. Besides, even when he does see it, he doesn’t get it from my perspective because we are totally opposite personalities.

In the post I mentioned earlier, Louise refers to a video called Too Much Information. I love this video! It’s a very short film done by The National Autistic Society that puts the viewers in the shoes of a boy with autism. It breaks my heart and yet I want to keep watching it. I want to be reminded what sensory overload can feel like because it can help to give me the patience that I need to help my boys work through their overloads.

We should be less quick to judge; be more sensitive to the variety of situations that could cause whatever issues brings on that face. Please watch the video and maybe you will feel less like making a JudgeyFace the next time the opportunity arises.