Category: Thoughts

After school conversations have always been full of entertainment.

Most days it was the cheerful tone and bright facial expressions telling stories about school. Few rare days, it was the gloomy face with flowing tears over the small things.

Last Wednesday was one of the rare days. Right after the door closed, tears were flooding. Unlike the previous two days of final exams which she was quite confident, that day was the opposite.

Asked her what happened and she said she couldn’t answer one question (which is the translation of one of the daily dua🙄) and it made her frustrated.

I asked back so what, it was only one question.

“But, I’ll get less than 7 and get the consequences”.

We (okay, I) set clear expectations about the minimum score that she should aim for each subject in final exam. Some were no less than 9, few were no less than 8, very few no less than 7.

Expectation is not about giving pressure. It’s about being rational. It’s about managing your precious time and energy where to focus more without neglecting the less.

Setting the expectation clearly means you understand you can’t be good at everything yet it’s not an excuse to not give your best shot in anything you’re responsible with.

“What’s the consequences?”
“Study more?”
“Yes, that’s it. Eat your apple pie,”

Out of the blue, the tears stopped flowing knowing an apple pie was waiting.
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Getting at least 7 is actually the minimum standard in national curriculum called KKM.

I had done my part helping her study. Since last semester, I was being a loud parent who criticized how come a 7yo could memorize all those bulky and irrelevant Islamic studies materials and expect them to answer the questions regarding those things. A session/week for 30 minutes hearing a boring lecture which doesn’t help at all. Not to mention the language used in the insctruction gives so much headache, even for a normal kid without any disorders.

Kind of problems we deal with the outdated 9-years-old national curriculum with old school way of teaching.

But, surely, we couldn’t expect an overnight change. So, the only way is studying and deal with whatever we have to deal with.

Until now, I have no slightest idea about how bad or how well she did in her first sit-in final exams.

What I know is it’s always ‘fun’ to get direct feedback how the kids react about anything we do, we tell, or we model, conscious or unconciously. Like she has to deal with the consequences if she fails to meet the expectations, which is ‘just’ study more.

In parenting league, a real tiger mom would roll her eyes out hearing the expectation,”what kind of parent expect minimum standard for a test?” Or “is 7 even a score?”

While the permissive one would claim, ”it’s just a test, that doesn’t define anything, just let it be”.

It is easier when you’re really clear which side to pick. Balancing between those two, that’s quite hard work.

But, I am clear about something.

I love how she took the standard set seriously. That precious tears were beyond hilarious.

Whether she made it or not, let’s deal with that later when we know the answer.

Few weeks ago, one of the internet celebrities who lives in one of the countries in Europe, whose son is autistic wrote a note on her feed about how complicated life has been, with her son situation.

Few months ago, another internet celebrity, also with an autistic son, moved back for good to her hometown in Bandung after four years lived in London. She said how it broke her heart to lose all the support that had been given enormously to her son there. How they would try to find ways to return so their son could get the support he needs, something that is quite hard to find here.

Although my daughter condition is quite different with them, but I totally could relate to both of them.

How (more) complicated life when you have a special need kid who needs support (no matter how low like mine or how high like them) and how hard and heart-breaking it is to get a proper one in this very country.

What missing here is not a literal support. Therapies centres are available, especially when you are in big cities like Bandung or Jakarta.

The biggest and the most important thing that is absent here, is THE CARE.

In general, many people who works in this field, from the doctor to the therapists, they don’t lack in skill or knowledge, but they have problem with LACK OF CARE AND EMPATHY.

Recently dropped little girl’s therapy sessions in Bahasa Indonesia with very much discomfort. It’s been running for few months with some notes, like punctuality, bad internet connection most of lessons time, and the same material that seems irrelevant. But, I still consider the other advantages too.

Until yesterday when it was almost 10 minutes from the schedule, she was still unavailable. Then I messaged the centre. Few minutes later she was on. Not for long, the connection was off again, and it happened for so many times. The little girl kept calling everytime she answered one question and heard no response. It was so frustrating.

At certain point, I really couldn’t handle myself to give some remarks about how annoying this bad connection was so she could heard it. Worse, her background was so noisy, people kept talking and passing by behind. I wonder if anyone could handle themselves dealing with such situation.

She seemed unhappy with what I did, her tone when she talked to little girl suddenly changed. To calm down a little bit, I started texting the doctor and threw my rant on chats.

Things seemed getting worse when the next thing she asked the little girl to do was making sentence through whatsapp chat, which was totally unless. It is a speech therapy session, damn it!

To add some more, she kept being pushy telling her to type faster. I started recording her facial expressions so I could forward either to the doctor or the centre.

Absurd task still accompanied with bad internet connection. Crazy.

I no longer could tolerate her when once she talked grumpily to the little girl while it was her who didn’t hear any answers she had been given. I snapped telling, “you say it if you think you can’t do it”.

I talked to the therapist right after the session and threw all my rants right in front of her face.

This one is a senior therapist that also teaches in the university for younger ones. How could we have good ones if the example of attitude set for them as low as this old kind?

Instead of being angry, I actually want to cry hard more. This is so frustrating. This is not my first time doing this. I once also threw tantrum in another centre three years ago because almost the whole session, that person didn’t do ANYTHING BUT LOOKING AT HIS PHONE. My blood was boiling watching from CCTV but still refrained myself from smacking the door.

It also happened five years ago when appointment had been made and decided to go home after being stood up for almost an hour. WITHOUT EXPLANATION, let alone apology.

Online consultation was no better. Once had a loooongggggg early morning conversation with one of the centre account which has a large audience, yet, the tone was so demeaning, so disrespectful, as if parents knew nothing and had done nothing.

This kind of thing we have to deal with and the level of care we have here.

I am too frustrated to try again but not doing anything is also not an option.

Let see if someday we could find what we’ve been looking for.

*Wise man say out of sight, out of mind.

Last Thursday gave me one of the longest 30 minutes I had ever experienced when I couldn’t find this little girl after one of her classes.

Told her I would leave for a quick grocery while she was doing the class. Most of the time, I just sit and read while waiting, but there were few times when I need to do something while waiting and she’s always been informed in advance.

We live in an apartment building which connected to a mall where she has two classes and a supermarket to do grocery. To go between building, we have to pass through few doors that could only be opened by an access card, which only I have it.

Always tell her clearly what I will do while she is having her class and it will be done before her first class is finished. She has two.

That day, I was around 2-3 minutes late from the usual time the first class usually finish. Another class started in five minutes and I thought she already went there.

The heart felt like stopped beating when I didn’t find her there, but still tried to be calm.

Went back and forth looking all over the area, no result.

Started calling her dad.
Asked few people around who knew her.
None of them saw her.

Torn between panicked and the urge to follow the tiny voice inside the head that told me the only possible place she could be, but the heart refused the idea and kept questioning whether it was possible for her to do it.

Looked around once again with half crying until I finally decided to find her in another possible place.

It was only five minutes distance, yet it felt so far.

Arrived on the entrance door, where I thought she would be and she wasn’t there too.

The mind was racing with so many things. Knowing she couldn’t be anywhere else than here. Pray spelled continously. Kept doing the self blaming for being late.

Asked one security and he had no idea. Continued the search to the last most possible place she could be. The what-if-I-couldn’t-find-her thought was killing me.

Both legs suddenly turned into jelly when I saw her sitting near the pool next to another security.

Thanked the security briefly, interrogated her endlessly, then hugged her frustratedly.
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That day, when she couldn’t find me, she decided to go back home on her own.

It was unusual for two reasons : she close to never skip any classes, and she is always excited for the second one.

When we asked the reason, she said she was really tired of doing the first one.

We asked again why went home on her own she said because she couldn’t find me so she just went home.

In my imagination , I thought she must be scared and maybe half crying when she couldn’t find me, just like what happened to me.

In reality, she was nothing close to be scared nor even shed any tears. She just decided to go home which she knew where to go. She asked and told the security she didn’t bring the card, so one helped her to enter the apartment building then she just waited until I came to fetch her. She thought she had done the right thing and made a good decision.

To be fair, she really did. She did the most make sense thing. But, it’s so hard to accept this 7yo could do that on her own.

From making decision to return back home on her own. She deserved a medal for doing that.

But, in reality, I kind screwed it up and as usual, guilt is all over the place.

Few days after even until I write this, the guilt still lingers. Not the guilt because of being late nor left her, but more of the guilt for making her confused through my response that convey the message that she was doing something wrong when she thought she had done a brave one.

It was me who keeps promoting the idea of dealing with any situations on her own. Who keeps training her to face people and make decision on her own, to practice her Indonesian language in real life setting.

But, when she really did it all, on her own, instead of being appreciated, she was scolded. Instead of saying she was so brave as she expected (she said, “I was brave”), what came from my mouth was, “Please, don’t do it again. You really make me scared. You wait until I came to you”. (She actually did wait for me, just not where I expected her to be). Instead of appreciating what she had done, I made it all about me.

What a blunder.

This situation reminded me once again that even staying close to her most of the time didn’t guarantee how well I know my own daughter. It was sad knowing I didn’t trust her enough.

It reminded me to always spare rooms for unexpected situations (good or bad), and try my best to respond accordingly.

The bright side is, this kind of situation gave a great feedback for things that I have done, to evaluate what we can do better while dealing with this kind of situation which surely will happen again in the future.

Maybe not that I didn’t trust her, but more because it happened outside my control. It wasn’t something that happened under my consent.

Should remind myself more often, there will be so many these kind of things later in the future. It’s truly a reminder to trust my own daughter that she is capable of doing, choosing, and deciding things on her own and respect that.

If I fail to do so, does it mean I consider what I have been doing so far is completely wrong then?

Boy, it’s so hard.

Motherhood and its sudden pop-up quizzes that need to be done without preparation.

No matter how often, I am still amazed whenever dealing with one.