Sister Lil is the assistant principal at Aidan’s school. For a woman who never had progeny, she sure does know children.
On one of my exasperated days, when I had actually calculated Aidan’s math homework, so I knew it was done, and I told him three times that he had to hand in the assignment and he still didn’t turn it in, she smiled and said, “Thirty.”
“Thirty what?” I asked, terrified that this was either a fundraiser or a penance I had incurred and forgotten.
“Thirty times. No matter what you want to teach a child, whether it be tying his shoes, or doing her homework or not burping in front of the nun. All children: boy/girl, black/white, special ed/gifted. You have to tell them 30 times. And on the 31st, they’ll learn it. And you know what you’ll learn in the meantime?
I shook my head.
“Patience.”
A deputy with whom I work walked into my office on Thursday, and let me know he needed to take some time off, as his only son had been diagnosed “on the autism spectrum.”
It’s hard to be grateful at times like this, but I started out with, “At least now you know.” For a long time, the Fisher-Paulsons didn’t know. We had confused ourselves with a normal family, only to find that there is no such thing as a normal family.
By Kevin Fisher-Paulson, San Francisco Chronicle – March 12, 2018
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Source: Time for Families
