Today my son is having a reading assessment in anticipation of being tutored in reading this summer. According to his classroom teacher, he is reading on grade level, but his assessments do not reflect this and my personal observations point to a weakness in this area. 

Listening from the other room, I can hear the reading specialist telling him it's OK to stand during the assessment, and my son responding that he might need his bumpy cushion (which he has refused to use in class for the last two years) to help him sit. I also hear him telling her that it is hard to stay seated with "what he has," referring to his ADHD.

My son and I have had quite a few heart-to-hearts over the last two weeks. He told me that he has told a  couple good friends who he trusts about his ADHD. He also told me how many of the other children in the class are not nice to him because he is "not cool" and "not good in sports." He said the ones who like him like him because he is "nice."

I told him that if he has one or two good friends, that is all he or anyone needs. I said I will try to do a better job of inviting those kids over for "play dates." It's hard for me with these boys, because I am used to my daughter who is so even-keeled and never has conflicts with her friends and the boys seem to need constant intervention, which is exhausting.

I am reminded that I feel my son's soul chose me as a mother because I can help him understand his neuro-wiring and my knowledge as a speech-language pathologist and interest in neurobiology combined with my beliefs in spirituality/yoga/meditation can help him find strategies to help him find peace in the maelstrom of his mind and emotions. I can also be the advocate he needs in his educational life and the one who reminds him of the unique gifts he brings to the world. In return, he is shining a light on my nature and making me dig deeper in my journey toward equanimity and balance. 

When I was feeling emotional after running at the beach this morning, my 10-year-old son said "Oh no, it's not good to go to the beach when you're sad." "Why?" I asked him. "The ocean is so beautiful. It makes you happier if you're happy and sadder if you're sad."  

It's been a rocky few days with my son, who has both ADHD and my emotional wiring. It's hard to see my behaviors reflected back to me in my child, especially behaviors that took me years to modify. The book "The Four Agreements" (Don Miguel Ruiz) really helped me, especially the Second Agreement: "Don't take anything personally."

I am trying to help my son learn this at an early age, but many things in life must be experienced. As a wise woman once said to me, "It's his karmic debt. He has to go through it."

A new birth-day

"Supermoon" 2013

June 25, 2013

My birthday was yesterday. A friend of mine observed that many of her friends are going through a particularly emotional time at present and she wondered if the so-called "Supermoon" that occurred over the weekend was to blame, since our bodies contain so much water that we could be affected the same as the tides. We wondered together if those of us born under the moon sign of Cancer were even more affected. 

Last night and this morning I had an "epiphany," which I believe was brought on by a combination of the season finale of "Mad Men," during which Don Draper seems to be "breaking open" (a Tara Brach term) to his troubled past, and a birthday that required me to ask my children at 5pm if they even had a card for me. My 14-year-old daughter gave me a card, on which she had added the words "Thanks for always cleaning up after us and always being there." Suddenly I saw myself as she sees me - the maid! I then "broke open" myself and realized that it was not my children's responsibility to appreciate me on my birthday, and that the life I have been leading, during which I do my best to go on every school trip, bake brownies for every bake sale and volunteer at every event, was really me trying to make up for a childhood in which I had a single, working mother who would not have had the opportunity to do any of these things. The epiphany was also that my children had not asked me to do any of those things, but I had done them for myself, as my friend wisely put it, to heal the "wounded child" within me. Did my children want or even need this level of attention? Probably not. Would I have even wanted that much attention as a teenager? Probably not.