Why S L O W is also GOOD

When my son was preparing for college, we were all excited about the possibilities. 

I wasn't overly concerned about his ability to take care of himself. He could do his own laundry, he could cook, he knew how to tip the pizza delivery person. So, partially because he seemed fairly self-sufficient, I felt like he could handle life at college. This is partially because I wanted to feel that way. I wanted to see him succeed, but I also wanted to feel as if he was just like any other kid going off to college. I wanted him to have a great time, and enjoy meeting new people, and learn a variety of things from a bunch of different classes. Most of all, I wanted him to enjoy that feeling of being in charge of your own life.

Well, if you read my post from yesterday, you know that he wasn't ready for college.

His therapist tried to tell me this. She really did. She tried to suggest that maybe taking a year off from college might be a good idea. Whenever she suggested this idea, all I could see was my son having an entire year of not socializing. No interaction with other people his age, doing fun things. Honestly, I was blinded by the thought of this lack of interaction. I was afraid it would halt his progression.

My son's therapist also suggested the idea of community college. I also ignored this idea. I had recently taken a class at our local community college, and I wasn't all that impressed with the other participants of the class. They may have been smart kids, but they weren't social with each other. Nobody talked to each other, in a class of at least 20 students. It seemed weird to me. Of course, I didn't stop to think that it was a class on Macroeconomics, and maybe that wasn't the most social of subjects. So, based on that very limited experience, I considered community college for my son -- and tossed that idea rather quickly.

Now, three years later, I can see that my son's therapist had more experience than I had, and she knew what I didn't understand -- that people with ADD or autism or any other myriad types of learning issues often need to take a little longer to mature. This extended maturity window applies to many college students, not just my son. I talked with my other two kids, and they had lots of peers who took five or six years to finish their bachelor's degree. It's common, and we as parents need to take a step back and realize that maybe it's preferable to take longer to accomplish some goals.

I have one friend who has a son who is just now finishing his bachelor's ... and he's 30. He had several missteps along the way, but once it was HIS DECISION to go back to college, he nailed it. He was able to get much better grades, and he was able to figure out exactly what he wanted to do. It's hard to hear that concept, that sometimes people need a decade to figure out life ... but isn't that better, to take a long time, than to never figure things out at all?

So, my husband and I watch our son, and we see progression. He won't have his associates until he's maybe 22 ... but it's PROGRESS. He looks happy. He's going to community college, and it's a good one, and he's made friends. Ya know what? There are LOTS of guys just like him, almost identical to him, at his school. He watches those students, and notices that some do better than he does, but a lot of them are struggling. He also notices that his professors "get" him there, and they are helpful. He is also, now, figuring out what his direction may be, what he enjoys, and that times when he fails on a test are followed by times that he gets one of the highest scores in the class. You just never know what a person can accomplish ... and it may not be the path you expected or wanted for your son or daughter. But if they can just keep working, and slowly making progress, that's a beautiful thing.

Much has changed in the many years since I wrote that last post about my son's experience at Earlham college. What I'm going to write today will reflect what often happens with people on the spectrum when they attend college.

Like most families, our son -- and we as his parents -- were excited about the college experience, and Earlham seemed like an ideal choice in many ways. It was a beautiful campus, full of truly accepting and kind students. To this day I still have a very soft spot for Earlham College and it's student body.

Our son was there for two full years. He did well the first semester. He had access to many social activities, and seemed to have a handle on the academic side as well. But the second semester showed a dive in grades, even with my attempts to help with scheduling, etc. from far away. He returned for another year, but could not keep up with the expectations, and also seemed to really find it hard to socialize. He was somewhat depressed because he could not manage the social requirements of keeping up with people, texting, interacting on a regular basis, etc.

We also realized that his meds were not working very well. Late into the fourth semester, he began taking regular Ritalin four times a day ... and things improved but not enough and too late.

So, our son came home, and immediately got a job. He then enrolled in a nearby community college. He again did poorly. Then, a miracle happened -- but at the time, it didn't seem like a miracle. Our son forgot (ADHD much?) to refill his epilepsy medication. I had shifted the responsibility for his meds to him, instead of having me do it -- it was time for him to take control of the medical side of life, and he had previously been very good about keeping tabs on and taking his epilepsy and ADHD meds. But, at this point, when he finally told me that he had forgotten to refill his meds ... it had been two months. That medication was completely out of his system. Restarting the med would be catastrophic ... the first time he began taking it, his cognition was horrible, his sleep was horrible, and he was depressed. Many of these things shifted over time, but it took six months to adapt, and I still observed fairly negative effects from that med. 

As a family, our son and my husband and I came to the conclusion that he should just not take this med. That would seem to be a reckless idea ... but he had only had two seizures EVER. Once you have a second seizure, neurologists automatically slap the "epilepsy" label onto you and give you medications, often regardless of how those meds impact your life. To be fair, having medications take care of debilitating epileptic seizures is the most important thing. And yet, people like my son, who have only had two seizures and immediately were helped by the first medication they ever tried are somewhat unusual. Then, by going off of the medication for two months and having NO NEGATIVE SYMPTOMS, our son's experience seemed to lean towards being a very atypical case. It has now been 1-1/12 years off of the medication, with no seizures and no adverse effects. We make sure that he gets lots of sleep and try to keep the stress level low -- we are guessing that a lack of sleep and lots of stress may have triggered his two seizures many years ago.

Once off of this medication, his next semester was amazing. He got the highest score in his class for pre-calculus. The next semester, he took a Calculus class -- a six-week summer course -- and got a high B. All of his other grades were high B average grades, all while working part time. I help with scheduling, but even that chore is being passed toward him. As parents, we are available to discuss how long an assignment will take, and how to chunk the assignment into smaller amounts to make it easier to accomplish. We are here to brainstorm ideas for essays, etc. But our son is doing the work. He has decided to complete his associates in Mathematics -- an associates degree will make his credits all transfer to another university (rather than worrying about that university picking and choosing which credits they will accept). He will most probably finish his associates degree in a year.

We are taking these sorts of choices one step at a time, but I am learning a lot of things as a parent. I've learned that those two years away from home were still a success. There was a lot of social learning accomplished during that time, and there are still friends who contact my son as a result. I've learned that community college is a wonderful thing. I've learned that accomplishing a degree slowly is just fine. I've also learned that my son just needs more time for all sorts of things, and providing that time results in small accomplishments that will ultimately add to big accomplishments.

And I cannot tell you how many times I have spoken to other parents who have been through exactly that same trajectory with their son or daughter.