Neurodivergence and missionary families

Here's one definition of this term that has become popular in the last few years:

Neurodivergence refers to any difference in the way our brain works, processes information, and interacts with the world around us. This umbrella term includes autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, learning disabilities, Asperger's syndrome, and more (from here).

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

I was proud to learn that the term was coined by an Australian sociologist. And only four years ago! So it's a very new word and one that I like a lot because it's so helpful and positive.

Our family has been influenced by neurodivergence from quite early on, and the particular brand we've been dealing with is ASD, of the "Asperger" type.

Recently a colleague, who also has parented a neurodivergent child through to adulthood, was asked to address the topic with a group of missionary leaders who help our mission take care of the kids and families in our organisation. She asked about our experience and for any recommendations we'd have for resources. We ended up talking about some of our experiences and, with the benefit of hindsight, I wanted to share with you something of what it is like as a missionary family dealing with kids who don't fit into the neurotypical box.

It's hard on many fronts.

Diagnosis

It's not always clear what's going on when you're raising a child who doesn't fit the "norm." It can be even harder when you aren't in your home country, because it isn't always clear what the "norm" is. For example, if your child is in a local school overseas, every day they are dealing with more than one language and culture. Moving from your home to school and back again represents crossing cultures each time. It might not be clear exactly what the trouble is: it could be linguistic or not understanding the culture of the kids they are with or even a lack of friends. Or it could be that the teachers have never dealt with a child who isn't a local, and don't know what to do, or how to communicate with you or your child. Schools in different countries are very different. Or, your child could be in a small international school with few resources, or you could be homeschooling them an have no training in recognising neurodivergence.

The other challenge with getting a diagnosis is finding someone to do that. In Japan neurodivergence isn't well understood, not to mention doing an assessment in Japanese wouldn't have worked so well for our boys who haven't become fluent in the language. So, getting a diagnosis was easier when we were in Australia. We're fortunate to be in a big city in Japan where we've had access to an American-trained psychologist, but that isn't often the case for missionaries. And even then, at one point we had to have a reassessment done in Australia because a diagnosis by a paediatrician is required in our home country.

Resources and services

Missionaries often have limited access to the sorts of resources and services that their peers in their home countries might take for granted. Although from what I've heard, even in home countries, parents of neurodivergent kids often have to advocate hard to get services for their kids, especially kids who are higher functioning. Missionaries are even more on their own. Thankfully more resources are available online these days, so it is pretty easy to access support groups and tonnes of information, even if you can't access person-to-person services for your kids.

Schooling

Education choices are more limited when you're serving overseas; they are also more complicated. And that's for neurotypical kids. If your kids don't fit into that box, then it's even more difficult. We know colleagues who have ended up homeschooling and numerous others who've had to return to their home countries permanently.

And then there's home assignment. It involves changing schools (and churches, homes, friends, food, and general environment), not to mention changing cultures. No one finds this easy. It involves a lot of transition, which is something kids on the Autistic spectrum don't deal with well, but I suspect other kids who are neurodivergent also do it tough.

Behaviour

Somehow missionary kids are expected to be well behaved, just like pastor's kids. Even though we all know that children are flawed individuals, we (adults in general) still have these expectations. Missionaries often feel like we live in a bit of a glass house. 

We write regular newsletters. Parents of neurodivergent kids carefully select the bits they're comfortable sharing and that they think will be favourably received. But I think this is true of missionaries in general. Of course wisdom is always needed in what you share with anyone— too much isn't good, but neither is being too selective. And prayer letters are public communications: we never know who will read them. Most missionaries have received unhelpful advice from people who think they understand our situation and our kids, but don't really. We generally share more details with a smaller group of close friends. But we need to share something with the wider audience so that they can pray and also so that we have some accountability, because this is where much of our income is coming from. But as you can imagine, these communication decisions aren't easy to make.

And then we go on home assignment, when we're even more on display as a family. When our children are younger we "drag" them around to various speaking appointments, and at each place, there are unspoken expectations. The worst are, unfortunately, usually Sunday morning church services, where kids are expected to sit quietly in a strange-to-them building brushing shoulders with strangers, and then afterwards be pleasant to anyone who chooses to talk to them. As a parent in that situation, we feel the pressure to be advocates for our kids, on top of all the other responsibilities that come with being the "visiting missionary". It's exhausting.

We've got many sad memories of the difficulty of getting our kids seated in a crowded 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.

So, this all sounds rather negative. I do need to tell you, though, that we've made it through. We've spent the last 22 ½ years raising our boys (mostly) in Japan, and we've gotten them all through to officially being adults. And each of them has finished (or is about to) high school. We know that that's not the end of our involvement in their lives, and that each of them has much more growing to do as people, but by God's amazing grace, we've made it this far, and we look forward to seeing where they go and what they do in the future.

Have there been times when we thought it would be better to be doing this in Australia? Yes. The big challenge of parenting is that not only do you not know how things are going to turn out, you don't get any "redos" or "practice runs". You have to make decisions based on the information you currently have to hand and the wise people you have surrounding you. As Christians you also take your hard situations to God in prayer and ask for his wisdom, trusting that he will guide you.

God's power for the weak

I was encouraged this week by a reminder of God's great power for his children. The same power that he used to raise Christ from the dead. 

It's mentioned in Philippians 3: 10–11 and in Ephesians 1:19–20: "His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms" (NIV).

And Paul, the writer of both those passages also says, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13–14 NIV).

I can't finish a blog post about parenting without telling you the "parenting" verse that's helped me persevere through the years:

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Gal. 6:9 NIV).

Job list in our house

Oops, I only just saw a comment on my post in May about household jobs and negotiating with teens. My friend asked me to post our list of jobs. 

Of course, they would differ for every household. Each family runs slightly differently and different things cause more stress than others, plus different ages and differences in schedules change how you do things. For example, when the boys were younger, two of them took turns to vacuum under the table after dinner. This was mostly because I struggled with how messy that place got and with the feeling of crumbs under my feet drove me crazy. Plus each family is made up of people with different preferences and limitations. 

We also do things differently here than in Australia for various reasons, for example, rubbish sorting is more intense here and we wash more often than we might in Australia with a rotary clothesline because the hanging space is smaller.

Here's our list of the regular jobs done to keep our household running:

These are shared by Mum and Dad

Make breakfast (7 times a week)

Make lunch (7 times a week)

Make dinner (7 times a week)

Set table for breakfast (7 times a week)

Set table for dinner (7 times a week)

*Clear table after breakfast (7 times a week)

*Clear table after dinner (7 times a week)

Breakfast washup (weekends)

Dinner wash-up (7 times a week)

Put clean breakfast dishes away (7 times a week)

Put clean dinner dishes away (7 times a week)

Rubbish collection inside (incl. replace bags)

*Rubbish – take out (3-4 times/wk)

Toilets clean (once a week)

Vacuum whole house (once a week)

Clean bathroom basin and mirror (every 1—2 wks)

Cleaning shower and bath and shower room (periodically)

Grocery shopping (2-3 times a week)

Washing clothes (~5 times a week)

Washing towels (once a week)

Washing sheets (once a week)

Bringing washing in (~5 times a week)

*Folding washing (~5 times a week)

Refill heater with oil (winter)

Ironing (periodically)

Mending (periodically)

Boys’ jobs

Hanging up washing (~5 times a week)

Breakfast wash-up (5 times a week) NOTE: This has recently been renegotiated and been replaced with the jobs that are asterisked above.

From high school: wash own clothes

Jobs we all do 

Get ourselves up on time

Shower ourselves

Clean our teeth

Manage our personal items like bags, lunchboxes, medication

Take care of ourselves by eating and sleeping well

Strip our beds and remake them

Keep our rooms tidy

Take care of our “work” responsibilities, including homework and schoolwork.

During the summer holidays we've added the job of planning and making one meal a week.

Parenting hope

This week is SWOW (School Without Walls) week at CAJ for the high schoolers. There are no classes and students are taken on different activities and focuses on leadership training. 

• Grade 9 does mostly on-campus activities as well as service in the local community and a sizeable hike (David is with the Grade 9s and did this yesterday, he had trouble keeping his eyes open at dinner time last night). 
• Grade 10 does on-campus activities, visits a museum in the city, and spends a couple of nights next to a lake near Mt Fuji for more leadership and teamwork training. 
• Grade 11 does an epic "wilderness" hike where they go into the wilds of western Tokyo and climb mountains for four days and three nights. They take all their shelter and food on their backs. This too is about leadership, team work and also self-exploration.
• Grade 12 goes north for four nights doing service in the tsunami zone as well as learning more about Japanese culture and history.

Our eldest son is in grade 12, so he's gone for the week. They've got some photographers on board, so we're seeing various interesting photos along the way on a dedicated Facebook page. It's exciting to see the kids growing up and maturing. Many of the grade 12s at CAJ are older than I was when I started university and are starting to look like adults. 

We provide them all with desks and the dining room
table is available outside of mealtimes.
Why do they choose to do their homework on
the lounge or on the stairs?

It's been great to see our son's growing maturity in the last few months too. On Saturday he volunteered to go a couple of hours across Tokyo all on his own to help out at a clean-up day at the campsite he spent a week at in July at a Christian high school camp. It's on the coast and was hit hard by one of the typhoons that came through last month. It was great to see his initiative and willingness to go and work hard even though none of his mates were going. Plus his independence in being able to navigate his way across Tokyo and back (about 10 trains in total).

Having more than one child, it is great to see the eldest one actually "getting it", there's hope for the other two who come behind him. So that even as I deal with younger boys who won't go to bed or take a shower or behave themselves in class or respect me, I know that there's hope for the future! 

And I go back to that verse that's sustained me many a wearying-parent-time:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatian 6:9, NIV)

Jesus had strife with his brothers.

These Japanese mountains are about twice as high as the
mountains in the area where Jesus lived, but I thought they'd
look nice here anyway!

Jesus had difficulty with his brothers. I knew this, but then I read John chapter seven this morning and saw more detail.

In the previous chapter we read that Jesus was saying some hard things and the Jews who heard him were grumbling and arguing about it. Up front in chapter seven we hear that there are death threats and he's avoiding Judea because of them, staying in the Galilee area many kilometers to the north. But then one of the feasts that they'd normally go to Jerusalem in Judea came around and his brothers said, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world” (John 7:3-4, NIV) .

You can see they really didn't understand what he was doing. There's almost a taunting sound to their words. They could tell he was intent on getting some kind of public profile, maybe they thought they'd benefit from his rise to fame. But they certainly didn't understand why he was spending so much time away from the bright lights of the city where things "happen". 

But Jesus was patient. He said, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do.The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come” (vv6-8).

So he sent them off. I'm sure they were bewildered at his response, maybe even mad at him. But what did he do then? He snuck down to Jerusalem. Some versions say "privately not publicly" other say "in secret". I wonder how he managed that! Was he in disguise?

That didn't last too long, though. As if he were compelled, he spoke up halfway through the festival and started to teach, though it seems as though there was confusion about his identity, which also makes me wonder what he did to sneak down there. I also wonder what his brothers thought about this? Did they think they'd caught him out in a lie, finally?

Like most people, I know about strife with siblings, from life experience. There's always two sides to a situation, the same here, though the difference is that Jesus was sinless. It's fascinating to imagine what life as a sibling was like for Jesus. 

I feel sorry for Samson's parents

My three boys on holidays in July.

My three boys on holidays in July.

Yesterday morning I read about Samson's early life in the Bible (Judges 13-16). Have you ever read it from the perspective of his parents? I was a little shocked. We've been having challenging times with our boys. Bad attitudes, subtle and blatant disobedience, push back all over the place. The sort of behaviour that leaves you drained at the end of the day. On top of that at least one email about each boy from the school this week, with concerns about various things. And one boy who's needed considerable scaffolding at night to get his assignments done.

I'm tired and wondering if I can manage to get through the next eight years of parenting teenage at school.




But then I read Samson's story. His poor parents!

Before he was born his parents were childless, his mother was barren. An angel appeared 

to her and told her she was going to have a baby boy. And he gave her some specific instructions: she was to be careful not to drink wine or fermented drink and no eating "unclean" things (as defined by the Jewish law). Don't cut your son's hair. He's going to be a permanent Nazarite. (Someone especially set aside as a holy man, something like the monk of today.)




She went and told her husband, describing the man she saw as "very awesome" (NIV). Her husband, Manoah, prayed, asking God to send the man of God again to teach them how to parent this boy.




The angel came again, but to the woman who was out in the field alone, she fetched her husband and they had an interesting interaction.




Manoah asked what should govern the boy's life and work. The angel repeated the instructions he gave Samson's mother (she's nameless). Then Manoah invited the man to stay for a meal of goat. The Bible notes that he doesn't realise that it is an angel. 


At this point the angel starts to sound irritated. He doesn't want any food, but urges them to prepare a burnt offering to the Lord. They do, but first they ask him his name. The angel tells them it is beyond understanding (some translations call it "wonderful").




The angel ascended in the flame of the burnt offering. Manual and his wife "fell with their faces to the ground" and realised it was an angel they'd seen when he didn't appear again.


Manual exclaimed that they were sure to die now that they'd "seen God", but his wife realistically noted he'd accepted their offering, so surely they wouldn't die.


I can only imagine that they needed such a clear demonstration of God's purpose in this young man's life because he certainly wouldn't have been an easy child to raise. We hear a lot about Delilah and the incident at the end of his life knocking a whole building down. But his young adult years are also recorded in strong, colourful terms.


The context of his birth is that Israel had been up to bad stuff again and God gave them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. Samson was his chosen man to get them out of there.




We first hear that the spirit of the Lord has stirred in Samson at the end of Judges 13, then the next chapter starts with Samson choosing a Philistine wife. He bluntly told his parents, "I saw a woman, go get her for me now!" Ouch. They try to reason with him, suggesting it would be better to marry within their own people, but he just cuts them off and says this is who she wants. Verse four tells the reader that this wife was God's plan's to go into bat for Israel.




This courtship didn't start well. It didn't end well either. At their wedding he managed to alienate the "thirty companions" his wife's people had chosen to be with Samson (see 14:12-18). The end result? He killed 30 men of the town and stole their clothes to settle what he'd started. And his wife was given to his best man.


Later he went to visit his wife and was turned away by her father. He went on to avenge the Philistine fields and they avenged that loss by killing Samson's wife and father.


From this unlikely start Samson led Israel under the rule of the Philistines for 20 years.


But just think of his parents watching this. Their eldest and presumably only son's marriage in tatters from the very start and he's out there killing his in-laws and others from their community. What a disaster. What a strong-willed young man.




But somehow, in the midst of all this, God's will was done. Though this man seemed to be out of control, his birth was clearly organised by God for a purpose. Though there's a lot we don't understand, can you imagine how his parents felt? They didn't know how the story ended, or the privilege of the editorial notes that we have in the Bible.




They must have despaired at times. Wondered if they'd done all that they were supposed to do. Wondered why God had given them such a child.




Just as we wonder at times. Just as we despair of the future for our kids. Don't you wish sometimes that you could know the end of the story? The editorial notes that might be written if we knew what was going on below the surface?




In the end as parents we can't do anything about this but look to God for wisdom every day. Entrust our kids and our parenting to Him. Then wait and hope and trust.