Six Feet Apart

“Mom, they aren’t standing six feet apart.”

I look up from making dinner and on the TV, Justin Timberlake is playing guitar in a music video, next to another guy and they are standing close together and singing.  It was an old video, but my daughter only saw a rule of the present time being broken and she was confused.  In that moment, as simple as it seemed, I was hit by the enormity of what we are doing right now in our lives. Trying to explain something that is extremely abstract and hard to understand to someone who sees the world completely in black and white.  Explaining the quarantine and the dangers of corona virus to children who thrive on routine, predictability and stability. None of which we have right now. And we are trying to do this in a way that helps them understand the severity of the situation, while not making them feel terrified of the risks that float around us. This is a task that I’m not sure I’m currently being successful with.  And, to be honest, if I had the chance to be near Justin Timberlake, I’m not sure I would be able to stay six feet apart, so maybe following the rules isn’t so easy for me either.

For 9 years, we have tried to teach our daughter to engage in appropriate social behaviors.  As she has gotten older, we have taught her to be “appropriately close” to others (not too far away, not too close) during interactions, to shake hands when meeting someone, how to determine who is ok and not ok to hug (“we know you really like the pizza delivery boy, but you shouldn’t touch him”), to use manners and be polite and ultimately that social interaction in general is safe, and literally makes life what it is.  We have had to repeat these rules over and over again, and practice them in contrived settings in therapy and in real life. We have rewarded her for playing with other children. And now, for the past five months, we have reneged on these rules, changed them and she doesn’t get it.  She no longer has people who are “safe to hug” outside of our home, is not allowed to touch the hands of others, doesn’t get to have playdates and we are teaching her that social interaction right now is potentially dangerous as we are isolating ourselves at home.  And, we no longer have access to other people for her to practice these skills on a regular basis.  My heart broke when she recently saw a friend at the beach and I had to tell her “you can play, but don’t hug him.”  I highly doubt her friend was a risk, but our kids also have a really hard time understanding exceptions to rules, so we have to be strict with her in order to ensure safety.  If we let her hug the friend, she will assume that it is now safe to hug everyone and since hugging people is pretty much her favorite past time, aside from stealing desserts when no one is looking, this could get out of control pretty quickly! 

If we as parents are having a hard time understanding this right now, and kids in general are having a really hard time understanding this right now, then kids with autism and other special needs are REALLY, REALLY having a hard time understanding this.  However confused we feel, our kids are feeling that exponentially more.  My older daughter is sad that the schools are going to be closed for in-person learning, but she generally understands, my younger daughter throws a screaming tantrum every time someone mentions virtual school.  My older daughter understands the dangers of the virus and why virtual school will be helpful to keeping more people safe, my younger daughter sees only that her world is falling apart.  She can recite the rules (“they aren’t standing six feet apart”) but that doesn’t mean she can control herself enough to follow them and she doesn’t understand why the rules are really in place. This isn’t to say that my older daughter isn’t miserable given the current situation, she is, but it is just a little easier to explain the situation to her.  I’m also not insanely worried for her that we are undoing literally years of therapy that has focused on developing positive social skills by continuing to quarantine for an unspecified amount of time.  When this is over, I imagine our older daughter’s skills will jump back fairly readily (or at least I can hope for this), but I’m pretty positive this won’t be the case for our little.

In the upcoming months, my hope is that we can provide rules for them that will help keep them safe, without causing unnecessary fear.  I hope that we can provide a virtual learning environment for our daughters that fosters enough socialization to help them hold on to the skills that we have taught, while not putting them at risk. I hope that we can provide some level of certainty, when there is little certainty to be found within much of our lives at this time.  I am focused on providing meaningful routines and controlling the things we can control, so we can get through this in the best way possible.  I’m worried that we will be too tired to do all of these things, but I certainly am going to try, and I know that many of you are out there doing the same and I see you.  We can do this. We will do this.

And someday it will be over, and we can all stop standing six feet apart.

For ideas on how to provide stability for kids during uncertain times, head over to the teaching tips link or follow the link here: Tips for Managing Uncertainty