Gage is different. I know this. Oh, how I know this. Just Gage being involved in ordinary extra activities is impossible without The Parenting Style Otherwise Known as Gage Management, so I know he is different. On so many levels.
Sometimes Gage doesn’t seem different at all. When we are at home, and stress and noise are at a minimum things are peachy. When he is around a large group of people, particularly other kids around his age, things can easily escalate and get out of hand if someone (us) isn’t there to manage the situation. Sure, school can contain him, but I don’t think they can necessarily manage him the way one of us parents can.
This is somewhat stressful in our (his) day-to-day life. His behavior and the management of him impacts all areas of our life; school, scouts, sports and church.
Before the suicide talk, when Gage was just normal wild and not could-possibly-accidentally-kill-myself-while-threatening-wanting-to-die wild, there weren’t any parents willing to take responsibility for him at a scouting camp. It wouldn’t have been all week – just a couple of days (day camp only, not overnight, so no meds), then Julian would have been able to take over Gage and their son/s. He has a couple of friends he does fine with one-on-one, but for large, especially unstructured events – Gage? Well, not a good idea.
Gage is in the special ed rotation at school. He is “mainstreamed” for lack of a better word, in a regular classroom, but supported by the special ed department (heavily). They go in the classroom or pull him out for one-on-one attention – which he does much better with, by the way. Gage is somewhere in the middle of the two environments – needing both equally, to hopefully, be successful one day.
It is hard to be in both environments actually. Because just when you think he appears “normal” he will do something that reminds you that he is also “different” in a significant way. I’ve known that he can appear to be in both worlds for a very long time. Probably since he was two, and playing with kids, but doing it from the ground because he was unable to walk. I’ve accepted this part of parenting Gage, but it doesn’t make it easier, as people say.
Currently, he struggles in P.E. at school. We have no idea why. Last year, he was generally fine with P.E. but something has changed and now he isn’t and he is doing everything in his power to disrupt P.E. time, which is only a couple of times a week. We need to get some feedback from the school about the best approach, but I am sure it lies within some kind of parental management of the situation – even possibly one of us going to P.E. class to inspire, cajole, or threaten – whichever may be the case for the day.
Recently, we realized that if we want Gage in Sunday school at our church, one of us parents has to be in there. We were against one of us being there because A) It’s a small group (under 8 kids) and Gage can make it in a group that size, generally speaking and B) Because I already am teaching another class and C) A 45 minute period without one of us parents managing him would have been excellent for both him and us. But he and the teacher didn’t click, nor do I think that the lessons were particularly interesting to him (lots of arts and crafts, no physical activity like an active game/10 min on the playground and a lot of the lessons seemed with an international theme), so we pulled him out.
We didn’t take this decision lightly. Because Gage HATES all things church right now, we had to tell him that as a family, we’d decided to not go to Sunday school (except when I am teaching) because we felt it didn’t fit our family right now, but maybe later at some point, we would reengage with Sunday school. We also knew that Quinn would pay a price for it because she likes Sunday school – but we didn’t think that she could go and Gage not go, then it appears to him like he has won – to him being that he hated it we pulled him out. That is what Gage would see and that wouldn’t be good. Quinn is not happy with this family decision. Such is the life of a sibling of a difficult child.
When this all was going on a month or so ago I thought a lot about where Gage does fit in. And it’s not many places without the benefit of us making sure he fits in. And oh, how I struggled with a lot of sadness around this issue at church, because if he doesn’t fit in at our church, the last place you would feel your child would not feel welcome, where exactly does he or can he possibly ever fit in? Really. Where?
The issue of church and/or switching churches is a difficult one because we love the people in this church for surrounding us with God’s love during a time when we needed much surrounding. And in some ways, I feel that the people in this church deserve to see the ending to our story. They deserve to see Quinn get her transplant and they deserve to see Gage truly happy again. So, for now, we will worship as a family there, but not send the kids to Sunday school. That is enough right now.
I have no idea if throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescent years he will be able to manage himself (just where is that crystal ball when you need it?). Right now, it is not looking that way. Which also is at the root of a somewhat bottomless pit of fear inside me.
Will he ever fit in?
