When my son was in year 2 and newly diagnosed, every day I would pick him up from school and wait before entering his classroom until all the other children had left and only the teacher remained. I would sit on his classroom floor with my baby in my arms and listen as he screamed at me for 10, 15, 20 minutes about how horrible his world was and how it was all my fault, and the teacher would make herself busy fixing things up around the classroom until he would finally accept some food, calm down and be ready to walk to the car.
It was at that moment that I decided it was not enough for me to be a good mum, I had to be an awesome mum to meet the needs of my child. I acknowledged that his pain was real, and that if there was a way to help him through it, I would find it.
So I found Laura Markham and her book Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, and Suzanne Tucker with her program Generation Mindful, and Howard Glasser with his method The Nurtured Heart Approach, and Patty Wipfler with Hand-in-hand Parenting, and Avital Schreiber with Present Play, and Tosha Schore with Parenting Boys Peacefully, and ... I have hyper-focused for 5 years on absorbing and using all the peaceful parenting skills and strategies I could find.
Now, we are both still human. My son still has regular meltdowns after school, and I don't always stick to my plan. But I know what my plan is, I know that it fits with my values, I know where I want to be heading and I know that my hyper-focus has drawn a map of how to get there. I also know that if I have a problem in the future where I don't have all the information I need, I can find it. And so can you!