Tantrums
Sometimes, as I am busy cooking, I look out the kitchen window and see Arvin sitting serenely on the swing in the garden. When I see him like that, often with a smile on his face, I can’t help but remember the not so distant past. When his face was always tight, tight with anger or with something else, not the peaceful serenity I often see nowadays. Don’t get me wrong, our life is still not a bed of roses, far from it. There are still many challenges cropping up and many problems that have not yet been addressed, but at least moments like these are getting more frequent.
Back then, he was almost always angry, and was prone to have tantrums, which became more violent as he got bigger. I remember in the early days we used to say, he suddenly became angry, without any reason at all. Oh how ignorant we were, not really understanding him. It was only when I was able to read 2 books, Children with Autism, A Parents’ Guide and The World of the Autistic Child by Bryna Siegel that I really began to understand Arvin. He was already 8 or 9 years old then. It was almost like “I was blind but now I see.” I could suddenly see how difficult it was for him to understand our ‘world’. His tantrums were a result of his confusion and frustrations. It wasn’t easy, though, to undo the damage that our ignorance has done. One of the most important things I learned was to slow down, give him time to digest things. I also had to change a lot of things about me, which wasn’t also easy. For Arvin I have learned to tone my voice down, and became more patient. But, it is a still a struggle to understand him sometimes. Despite all the hardships, at least I can see my efforts bearing fruit. Slowly, Arvin is becoming a gentler person, more at peace.
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