Today a couple of coworkers at work jokingly asked me if I "ABA" my child. 'Tisn't the first time anyone has ever asked me that, in fact, I've been asked that quite often and usually in an almost rhetorical way.
They'll say, "Do you use ABA on your child?" (Smirk, smirk, smirk). But their faces will read, "Cuz I know you don't, I just know you don't! Otherwise your child would be perfect! And your child is not, because raising a child is beyond all specialized type of instruction and learning, raising a child is speeeshul! And your ABA ain't gonna do nottin' and you know it!" (I'm not exactly sure why they end up speaking with an accent but that's how it translates over to me....)
I could go on and on about how ABA isn't just a bunch of strategies pulled out of an "ABA for Dummies" book that I use or how I apply it to every aspect of my life, but I won't because people never get that. If I do, they tend to look at me as if I've taken a step too far into the world of "crazy", as if I'm one of those Star Trek fanatics that live their day to day lives as a "Trekkie" and speak fluent Klingon.
But I will say this, Behaviorism is how I understand why people do what they do. Most times I use that knowledge and apply it in hopes that it teaches Julia specific behaviors that will help her in life. But Julia isn't perfect, because outside of work, my role isn't always "teacher". There are days, a lot of days might I add, that Julia is behaving badly, but I just don't have the time or energy to do any thing about it. It takes too much effort and the easiest thing for me to do at the moment is to engage in whatever behavior to make the her stop being an evil beast the quickest. It doesn't mean that ABA doesn't work or is impossible to do or doesn't apply to life outside of autism. I still understand and apply the same principles but I don't always apply the right ones. It just means that I am not a "teacher" 24:7. Sometimes I'm a "wife", sometimes a "best friend", most times a "mommy", a "drunk" when I'm with my girlfriends, sometimes an "internet geek" and other times just "Mariann".
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