ASD Snapshot: Everything in Time

Erik is 18 and he is two years past due: we have allowed one of life's rites of passage to come and go.

Erik is not driving.

At age six, others rode bicycles, wobbly to warrior in days; Erik was not cycling. He was not ready to balance on two wheels, and at sixteen, he was not ready to take the wheel. You can't hurry love, toilet training, reading, writing, bicycle riding and driver's education. I know, because I have tried—with each. And I've struck out on all counts. But I also know that in time, these things often happen. Lesson learned?

You cannot mandate readiness. It has to come from within.

At 18, with no yearning to drive, I decide that Erik needs a sly push, a kick-start. You cannot mandate readiness, but you can nurture it, recalibrate it, and make readiness feel like it took the wheel.

So after Erik turns 18, we teach him to drive the sit-down mower. I learn first.

My husband types out a step-by step instruction sheet, and I laminate it and tuck it into a flap at the side of our John Deer tractor mower. I laugh at the first instruction: "Sit in the seat". This is surely Mowing for Dummies, but I am not insulted; rather, elated and relieved. Sit... I can do that! My husband explains that sit in the seat is not meant to be anything but what it is—a safety feature. You need to be heavy enough to ride the rig. I pass the first requirement, handily.

"Erik!" I enthuse... “You're gonna love this... And you can't go seriously wrong because there's no traffic, only trees."

It’s his turn. With the step-by-step list, Erik feels empowered, independent. As always, if he can see it, he can do it. The summer passes and Erik becomes proficient at driving the mower. First hurdle: tick.

The follow spring, at 19, I suggest we begin to mount the driver’s ed charge. Seeing his brother and sister successful is part of the motivation. Erik is beginning to feel ready. We make a plan: study together and separately, April to June; in July, he will write the test and possibly begin driving.

Perfect plans and messy realities seldom agree. We study, yes, and by July, we launch the first missile. We check out the motor vehicle centre and scope out the test-taking site, the expectations, the room, the ideal time to arrive. And then we go home and study some more.

In mid-July, Erik announces he is ready. He writes and misses the mark by one error. He turns around and tries again, immediately. He fails again, deeper this time. "Deep-fried," he mumbles, greasy and dejected. Time to go home. We leave with a plan to try again a week later.

We wait a week, return and fail twice more, back-to-back. Three. Four.

This is a process we come to know well: you stand in line; you register; you move down the hall to another line; you await a free computer; you take the test; you don't make it so you stand back in the retake line, waiting to pay the $15.00 fee—again. My daughter calls it the deject line or the shuffle of shame, and the faces tell the story: heads down, eyes averted, books and apps open for one last cram.

We do this so many times that the woman behind the counter greets us by name. She grimaces as she struggles to staple together our paperwork. After four failures, she stands up for better leverage. The stack of paper is becoming very thick and our confidence, thin.

Another week, another miss. Five.

This is when I summon an alternate cheerleader: Erik's sister, Heather, 16. She shares her strategies with Erik,

"Tell yourself that you can do this. I know you can. Skip the questions you don't know. Keep skipping them till you've narrowed them down, and then give it your best guess. Don't rush. And whatever happens, happens. Tell yourself, ‘I'll get there. In my own time.’"

Turns out six is the charm. Or more likely, Heather's calming and reassuring presence. Erik passes! He is elated, light, proud, overjoyed!

With the “L” in hand, we drive and we drive and we drive. He is good: cautious, perceptive, attentive. Each time we venture out, he creates a theme, a point of focus. "Today's," he announces with a shy smile, "is safety." I am all for themes.

And the big-picture theme, I’ve learned, is this: everything in time. Everything in Erik-time.

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Points to Ponder: When Erik was fourteen, I had a conversation with an Ottawa police officer that I have not forgotten. He also had a son with autism, then nineteen, five years older than Erik. The officer told me that his son was driving and even doing some public speaking—autism self-advocacy. I remember thinking, Well, that won’t be Erik. He could never do that. And then I stopped myself. Why not Erik? It was then I realized that my outlook would shape Erik’s outcomes. I pondered readiness: it is different for each of us. It cannot be prescribed; it’s personal. Phil Collins reminds us that “You can’t hurry love,” and as parents, we discover that this advice plays into developmental milestones, as well. How can we help our children to feel ready?

*Stay tuned for part two of the driving adventure: “Can I Go?”

Teresa Hedley is the author of What’s Not Allowed? A Family Journey with Autism (Wintertickle Press, 2020), a memoir which offers an uplifting approach to mining the best version of each of us, autism or not. Teresa is also an educator and a curriculum designer. Teaching stints in Canada, Japan, Greece, Spain and Germany have shaped her perspective and inform her writing. Teresa and son Erik co-wrote a twenty-article series for Autism Matters magazine, “I Have Autism and I Need Your Help.” Additionally, Teresa worked directly with families and school boards in Ottawa as an autism consultant and advocate. She and her family live and play on Vancouver Island.

"Teresa shares what her children taught her about embracing neurodiversity and how to create environments where kids are “allowed” to shine!"

–KATELYN LOWE , PhD, RPsych; Calgary, AB, Canada