Change of parenting

Last night I went to my usual once a month MOPS meeting. I got to see and catch up with a few friends, partake in the cookie exchange, and listen to a great guest speaker. The guest speaker was a kindergarten teacher. Her topic? Parenting. She mostly went off the book of  "Parenting with Love and Logic". I've read most of this book already so it was nice to have a refresher course. As I sat listening to the do's and don't's I began to realize how much my parenting has changed. If I were to back up to when Karter was 16 months and compare him to Karsen, I parented him very differently. I'm by no means saying this is bad, in fact I think the opposite. It's important to know you have two different children and what works with one may not work with the other. One of the subjects that was brought up last night was food throwing. This is a hard one for me right now. I do not think it's ok to throw food, ever! Karter passed through this stage very fast. Karsen? Well, it's really his only form of communication to tell us he isn't hungry anymore. Not a fun way to tell us but I'm just happy he's communicating. I think I'm making it sound like I just let him throw his food... not the case. I still tell him no throwing and have recently started trying a 'No' bowl, so when he's done with food or doesn't even like it from the start he can put it in the no bowl. He still doesn't understand it and in fact he just wants to dump the food out of the bowl once it's in (his favorite thing to do right now is dump things out of bowls, boxes, anything) but I think some day he will. Raising a 'normal' (I hate that word) child is SO different than raising a special needs child. The typical temper tantrums aren't your typical temper tantrums. I can see the frustration on Karsen's face when he throws a fit. I can see he wishes he could just tell us, which breaks my heart. Yes, we have come so  far. I we back up 6 months Karsen was just starting to sit up and was still 100% breastfed, and lets not forget he was still having seizures. But the biggest thing I have learned with raising a special needs child? Roll with the punches. Just when I get the hang of things, Karsen does something new that throws me for a loop. 

Learning to raise, parent, teach discipline Karsen is different but it's not. Keep up with me here. I've found he's failure to communicate makes it that much harder to understand him, but I've also found that his body language is the biggest communication tool he has. So, different? Yes, I just have to look deeper. The same? Yes, he's still a kid, he still wants the same thing in life, I've just realized the temper tantrums aren't for no reason or just because I told him no, that's him telling me something, telling me he's hungry, or that's not what he wants to eat, or he's thirsty. 

Roll with the punches people, roll with the punches. 

The boys having fun at therapy.