Neurodivergence and transition

This week I've seen a couple of articles from A Life Overseas website about neurodiverse missionary kids. It's a journey we've walked and I‘ve written about (here), so I was interested to see what these articles had to say about it. And it wasn't too much different to what I'd written, though obviously not in first person and thinking in more detail of a broader audience that will encounter many different cultures.

A photo from 2017 with our three guys

I didn't find the first article all that helpful, though someone who knows nothing about neurodivergence would probably find it a good entry point into thinking about their kid (or someone else's) who just don't seem to fit or find things difficult that the rest of us take in our stride. First article: How to Notice Neurodiversity in Third Culture Kids

The second article "How to Help Neurodiverse TCKs in Transition" came out today and it hit very close to home. Transition is one of the big issues that our kids struggled with. It's shaped how we've raised our children and the decisions we've made about moves, holidays, home assignments, how we've used our home, how much hospitality and travel we engaged in, etc.

One particular story comes to mind. In June 2018, we moved to Australia for six months home assignment. We knew that one of our teenage sons needed to see a psychologist, so tried to work ahead to make that happen, because in the end six months isn't that long and could easily be taken up with a waiting list. Our habit has been to find a mid-way place to stop between Japan and Brisbane as we move back—that gives us a short time to breathe, after finishing everything in Japan before diving into all that's required for settling a family in Australia. It never feels like enough time, it also usually feels chaotic and the "when can we get settled" feelings come over us.

Anyway, that year we decided to stop in Sydney for a few days. I found low-cost accommodation for a few days with a mission and we were making the best of it. No one was in a good condition, however. We were all tired, unsettled, and not at all comfortable with our unfamiliar surroundings. The boys were facing six months without their friends or classmates, familiar surroundings or belongings, and without their usual routines. Everything, except each other, was different.

In the midst of this especially messy time, I got a phone call from the psychologist's office. I was literally standing in the midst of open suitcases in a hotel-type room in Sydney. It was the kind of routine admission phone call that they make. The admissions officer asked me a bunch of standard questions and I remember laughing out loud at one that read something like "Between 1 and 10, 1 being in good place and 10 being really not good, how would you say your child's mental wellbeing is today?" I tried to explain why I was laughing, and she brushed it off, asking just to answer anyway...of course he wasn't in a good way that day!

I have many, many stories. In the blog post I wrote two years ago (first link in today's post), I wrote these words:

We've got many sad memories of the difficulty of getting our kids seated in a crowded [unknown] church, of awkward whispered conversations with people who assumed our kids would join the Sunday School, or even a child who refused to get out of the car and come into church at all. And then the difficulties of staying in other people's homes: relatives, friends, and strangers. So many unspoken expectations surround situations like that, including conversation, politeness, and even that two children will share a room willingly. And all the while, feeling like our kids and observations of our parenting are somehow part of a report card on our fitness as missionaries. That's a lot of uncomfortable pressure.

Overall, though, we've been blessed with being able to provide a lot of stability and minimal transition through most of our sons' growing up years, though, and for that, I'm very grateful.

I think that one reason that we are especially happy in our new season with our boys living independent of us, is that we no longer have to drag them through the sorts of transition that litter a missionaries career. They have much more control over their lives now they don't live with us. And we are free to make decisions without the complication of deciding how these decisions would work for the whole family, how well our kids would cope with whatever transition our decision/s would inflict on them.

All that being, said, probably our kids have ended up more flexible just because they had no choice about it. It was painful at time, for all of us, but probably it has helped them grow as individuals and hopefully they are more resilient because we haven't surrounded them with cotton wool. Like most things, too much is bad, but so is too little. Hopefully we've landed somewhere in the middle, by God's grace.

Please reach out to me directly if you'd like to talk more on this subject. I find it's easier to be more open about our personal experiences in a private conversation than it is on this public forum.