When I was waiting for Alice, I imagined what she would be like. It seemed to me that she would be similar to the main character of the famous Cyrus Bulychev cycle Alisa Selezneva. Moreover, it was on that little one, which is “The Girl with which nothing will happen”, where she is only three years old. Inquisitive, kind, mobile, not limited by conventions, believing in herself and in others, constantly stuck in some kind of story, something like this portrait was painted in my head. I never really thought about the name, of course, Alice.
With the birth of her daughter, the image of the book girl faded, because her own, real Alice, by the way, completely unlike the invented image, turned out to be much better, more interesting and more beautiful. Perhaps the only thing that remained unchanged was either the phrase, or the saying “a girl with whom nothing will happen.” I was always sure that everything would be fine. During her first year of life, this confidence was only reinforced. And, when the changes began, it was not for the better to see and understand that something was not so difficult.
It is believed that children with autism develop according to age norms from a year to three, which is confirmed by numerous stories of such children and the stories of parents that everything was good at first. Not so long ago, I read information that, perhaps, the first signs can be seen before, just the parents do not know what to pay attention to. Many signs are attributed to character, to natural shyness, etc. And all this is quite understandable and logical.
Only very often we begin to pull the child up to our expectations. “Is not ritual actions , she just loves order ”, – we console ourselves. “She just likes this shirt, so she wears only her,” we think. I did not allow the thought that my girl, with whom nothing would happen, was my expectations that did not materialize. Not because she is bad, but just happened. And I stretched out my expectations that we’ll work out with a speech therapist and everything will be fine, add a defectologist and everything will work out, take a course with the Chinese and she will start talking, go on a diet, she will be 5, 6, 7 … years old, etc.
And behind these expectations, which over and over again I didn’t come true, I began to miss her successes, because she does not stand still, she is constantly evolving, something new happens every day, she masters new skills that I do not consider important achievements. And, when, expectations changed, when they began to correspond specifically to her skills, it became much easier. You can’t expect the fish to climb onto the tree and sing, you can rather expect, but when the expectation is not fulfilled you can become depressed, you can blame the fish, yourself, the tree, find another tree, choose another song, a lot of things can be made and the choice is always individual. Only now I realized that you can enjoy the little things, that it is from them that great success is formed and that you need to learn to see and appreciate them.
I’m afraid to build now global expectations (I don’t know how right it is). I do not dream about how she will go to university or get married. I think about how she will go to school, how she will get used to eating in the school cafeteria, how she will build relationships with other children, I don’t look any further. We have a goal for it to become as independent and independent of other people as possible, now this is my main expectation. It is still poorly detailed and, most likely, I still do not really understand how it should look specifically, but it will develop and take shape along with its new skills and achievements. And they will definitely be, of which I am 100% sure, because my girl is much stronger than the girl I once invented, with which nothing will happen.