Ready?
Set.
Go!
He launches himself off the line in the lane next to me, and for a bit I have to run faster than I intended to keep up. He slows pretty quickly though, and we settle into a jogging pace.
I keep reminding him of the goal today: “Just to the numbers. You got this. Keep running!” We are shooting for the numbers painted on the track at the other end of the straight section. Run until we hit the numbers, then walk again around the curve.
We both start to get a little out of breath as we get closer to our goal, but I’m happy to see that, today, he not only kept pace with me all the way to the numbers, but he crosses over them and continues at the same pace at least for a few more yards. So far, so good, Coach Mom.
It’s been a year of both major changes and a lot of "same old, same old." We’ve moved through the first major steps of the “transition” process and are now heading into a new phase. We obtained legal guardianship of our now 18-year-old, we successfully applied for his social security benefits, and jumped through a few hoops with our state’s division of developmental disabilities to move him into the “adult” services unit.
In the next phase, we are designing and building a new house that will have an attached apartment for our son, so that he (and we) can have more private space but still be living together. And, during these next few years while he’s still in school, completing his 2nd and 3rd “senior” year, we’ll be scheming and searching for what exactly he will do once he can no longer go to school. That’s the next big hurdle.
And in the meantime, everything is the same. We’re still working from several different angles to help him get a handle on his anxiety, to ensure that he is safe and happy, to increase his ability to communicate his needs. We took a break from official therapies and most other activities this past year because his stress and behaviors were making sessions not only unproductive but unsafe. But, it’s time to get some things going again. He’s a bit more stable now and he really needs more to do than just school. Finding qualified, willing providers or appropriate programs is the challenge.
One of the “programs” that I’ve decided to institute is regular exercise. Except for some occasional swimming, it’s been a very long summer of very little physical activity. And that’s not good for either of us. Now that we’ve hit the end of October and the summer heat of our desert is fading (yes, it’s always Halloween week when we finally get a break), it’s time to get back outside and make it a habit. It’s a twofer because we both need to get our bodies moving. My “training” of him will force me to do it too.
It’s kind of odd to say this boy needs to move his body, because he is rarely ever NOT in motion. He paces around for much of his day, spinning his beads, fixing and re-fixing things. But he generally avoids major exertion. He has the ability to lift heavy things, but he’d prefer not to. He doesn’t hurry to do anything. He automatically asks for help to open things, but if he’s encouraged to use his muscles to open them himself, he’s capable. He stomps down the stairs, letting gravity pull his legs downward rather than using his muscles to place his feet.
So, when I learned that the track at his old middle school is open to the public when school is not in session (our local high school track is always locked), I decided to go on a mission to teach my kid how to jog. I figured he might like running on a track because he did try track & field in Special Olympics a few years back. He always enjoyed the rush of kids taking off at the sound of “Ready, Set, Go!” But he never ran for more than a 5-10 second burst before he decided, "OK, that’s enough."
I’m hoping now that the visual motivation of the track and the lines, rather than just running at the park or in our neighborhood, plus a little mom-encouragement will help him learn to sustain a jog for longer. But it’s a multi-layered goal. First, it’s about physical fitness (and hopefully a little weight loss) for me and for him, and about teaching him to exert himself, use his muscles, and get better at something that is hard. It’s about gaining the benefits that regular exercise is supposed to give us. Improved mood, energy, sleep, attitude? Yes, please.
In a huge way, it’s also about giving us something to do together, a focused activity in which both of us are participating in the same way. Lately it’s been particularly hard to engage with him in any meaningful way, to have fun and enjoy something together. And, if this becomes something he likes to do for himself, to better himself, and feel good about completing tough goals? That would be a really good thing.
So far, we’ve been to the track five times, and I was surprised that even from the first day, he's been willing to really jog for some of it. We started out just walking two times around, and doing 2-3 short bursts of running. With some verbal encouragement and modeling (as I’m remembering how to exert myself too), he’s genuinely trying to push himself to jog for a bit longer stretches each time.
Now we’re up to walking the circuit three times and jogging for 5-6 short intervals. This last time, we even added a few easy "stadiums" on our third lap. OK, the bleachers are not very high, and we only went up and down twice, but it's a start. I know that we’ll both feel better if we get some regular exercise, and if running becomes something he likes and a skill he can be proud of, so much the better. This post is my accountability partner, I suppose. Ask me in a month how the jogging is going. Hopefully we’ll still be on the right track.
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