Milestone Moments

As a parent, you hear a lot from pediatricians, teachers, coaches, and others about the importance of kids “hitting their milestones”. When kids start to miss typically developing milestones, that’s usually one of the first yellow flags you notice that something is different about your child. It may be delayed speech. Trouble walking, hopping, and a myriad of other physical elements. Milestones can look like kids engaging in parallel play, understanding and reciprocating social cues, and the list goes on. 

I have a sincere love/hate relationship with the term “typically developing milestones” and for a lot of reasons. The biggest one being that I don’t think any child should ever be defined or summed up by a standardized measurement of milestones, tests, or some combination thereof. That being said, I’ve also been grateful for those standardized measurements as we’ve had to fight for diagnoses and accommodations from various doctors and schools over the years. You learn to take the hard with the not-as-hard and obtain what feels like a law degree to argue and negotiate your way through the minefield of diagnoses and accommodations - all of which are normed against “typical development”. I had a crash course on this beginning in 2019 and still have to take deep breaths before walking into an IEP meeting where I know I’ll have to argue with extreme clarity to help people understand the full, complete picture of my child. Which leads me to share about a few untraditional milestone moments we’ve had as a family the last few weeks. When you parent neurodiverse children, you learn to celebrate the moments that many other parents and adults consider to be normal everyday occurrences. Not that one is better than the other - life is just different in neurodiverse parenting. 

Non-Traditional Milestones

Following Unprompted Multi-Step Directions

FRIENDS. This is such a big one! One we have been working on for literal yeeeeeears. Does it happen consistently? Not yet. Is it happening more often? Yes, hallelujah and thank you Jesus. We have been working and working on this particular skill! Please see Exhibit A of the rinsed out cup and straw placed IN the sink and ready for use the next morning. That means that my child had to take it from the counter to the sink, rinse and wash it out, and include the straw. I legitimately got emotional when I saw this. And all God’s people said “Amen”. 

Exhibit A of Following Multi-Step Directions without Prompting, Your Honor.

Non-Preferred Parallel Play with a Sibling

Again - such a big moment. This particular struggle is not unique to neurodiverse parenting in the slightest. Our kids have been fighting like cats and dogs for what feels like eons. (I’m not positive about how many actual years are in an eon, but it’s been at least that long.) To be able to capture this moment of peaceful play, especially when one of our kids doesn’t in the least like this particular swing, felt huge to me. We spent over an hour at our favorite park this last weekend and had ZERO fights, even when it was time to leave. Pretty sure the planet aligned for that day!

Proof of planet alignment.

(Slightly More) Independent Mornings

This has been a huge one lately! You may have caught my Instagram story last week about hiding in the garage because 5th grade math homework was going on and I had tapped out. Math is not my strength - words are. So, yes, I did indeed take a bit of a break in the hot, humid garage and graciously handed over homework time to my very capable and math-minded husband. And the angels rejoiced (as did my therapist when I recounted said “stepping away”). I also shared over on the ‘Gram about how one small change of prepping school water bottles the night before had made a huge difference in the morning hustle to make it out the door. Well. Good news! Not only have we continued the night before water bottle prep, the kids are also picking out their clothes at night - previously a HUGE battle for unknown reasons - and helping prep breakfasts in the morning. Are they completely independent on school mornings yet? No. AND, we’re still making forward progress with minimal complaints, most days ;-) 

Kid 1 backpack, check! Kid 2 backpack, check! Mom backpack, check!

Unprompted Big Body Movement Before the Bus

We use physical activity to help manage behaviors and work through feelings a LOT at the Goldsberry Casa. For all people of all ages, actually. I would much rather go take a 10 minute fast walk outside than blow up at my kids. And they’re seeing both their parents model this self-regulation skill, among others (not to brag, but this is kind of a big deal because of the chronic stress most parents of ND kiddos live with - we are constantly scanning and working to co-regulate the environment). Because the mornings are going mostly smoother and more prep has shifted to the evenings, this has left time for big body movement like kicking a soccer ball, playing beach volleyball with running and jumping, and yes, things like pushups. It takes 5-10 minutes but the kids are calmer and happier as they leave for school. Sometimes tricky to accomplish in work heels, but we’re getting it done!

Still working on the form, but we’ll take the movement anyway we can get it these days!

Real Talk

I fully recognize these are not milestones tracked by the CDC or the American Academy of Pediatrics. What I have learned in my own journey of parenting resilience is that I must look for the positive parts of our children’s development that ARE happening. And when I focus more on these things (this post could have been so many more examples, thankfully!) I'm anchoring myself in the hope that my kids will find their own ways in this world, regardless of what developmental stages they fall into. 

And you’d better believe I keep track of these unconventional milestones to share at every doctor’s visit and IEP meeting as I help paint the beautiful, vibrant, challenging, and wonderful picture of each of our children. 

Love you mean it, friends.