First of all:
OH MY GOODNESS THE BLOG LOOKS DIFFERENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just thought I'd say that since I know that's what people will think if they are used to the old format. Well, I added the followers gadget and a search the blog gadget & apparently Blogspot has had updated templates for a while. Well, new year, new DECADE - new blog layout?
Now onto the intended content:
I thought I'd go a bit more in depth about how realizing I have an ASD has changed my life in several different areas just because it's nice for me to see and because it just shows how much I had to re-think my identity, but also how having an underlying trust in God in all these areas made this shift so much easier.
I went into HDFS because as a pediatrician, it would be nice to know about child development. I wanted to be a pediatrician so I could eventually work with and treat kids who were adopted that had attachment and/or development and/or sensory integration issues. Contrary to popular belief, I didn't chose HDFS because cute kids automatically made me eeek. In fact, my mom has a picture of me holding my second cousin with this look on my face like, "Oh dear God, help me hold this kid because I don't want to drop her and I'm not used to being around kids!!"
I had to grow into working well with kids. I had to grow into working well with people too. In retrospect, if I was in Temple Grandin's words, "an anthropologist from Mars" when it came to figuring out people and social situations, studying HDFS made it a bit easier.
Why do I start out with this? Because I was always bothered by the fact that the book-learning about development didn't necessarily translate into being able to handle interactions. For example: most people felt at home in the early-childhood classroom at the lab school at CSU and would feel at home in the Summitview nursery when they volunteered. For me, I could talk nicely to the kids and do basic stuff like remembering to get down at eye-level and explain things so they could understand, but I always felt like I was going at it firstly from an intellectual rather than an emotional standpoint. God gets infinite points (well, first because He's GOD) for helping me open my emotions to these kids that He allowed me to help. I think one of the reasons it was hard for me to open my emotions up was because if I felt the attachment a caregiver feels for his or her child, I would begin to miss the attachment I needed to feel growing up. In fact, I felt a sense of sadness when we discussed optimal parent-child interactions in class because I knew it wasn't like that for me growing up.
Anyway, as I got further into working in HDFS, I realized that a lot of people assume that people with an HDFS degree are naturally good at helping people and don't expect a person who does attachment work to put her foot in her mouth while at her internship. Well, during my summer internship in grad school, I ended up with foot-in-mouth syndrome a few times. Thankfully, God gave me grace & my supervisor understanding :) But still, I think that was a shock to both of us. Even in other things like doing research, I had some difficulties actually interacting with the team. That was always weird to me. Also, I could observe parent-child interactions, but it took me a bit longer to pick up on cues. My advisor always seemed to point out little things I missed, and it took a lot out of me to observe that keenly.
Finding out I had an ASD made all of that make sense!!!! FINALLY! Yes, I can still teach kids on a limited basis, yes I can still do research, yes I can still work with a team, but it is more challenging than it would be for most people in the HDFS world. They only have to study interactions for research purposes. I have to study interactions all the time just to avoid foot-in-mouth syndrome or other things. Unfortunately, this means that some jobs in my field might not be good for me. I thought about maybe going back and getting a Marriage and Family Therapy degree, but I know that reading client's feelings closely as well as analytically figuring out their problems would be a lot for me. Also, I don't think I could work in a child-care setting 40 hours a week. I enjoy doing Sunday school and babysitting for special-events at Summitview, but there is usually a 1 adult to every 3-5 kids, and in a child-care setting the ratios are much higher. I know I'd get overwhelmed if I had to manage a classroom with a 1:6 or above ratio because that's what the ratio was at the Early Childhood Center, and I was exhausted after a Friday afternoon of being there for my practicum.
So, what can I do? Well, I've decided to do some volunteer grant-writing to see how that goes. I enjoy research, and recently, I wrote an article for the Examiner, with more to come :) I'm pondering the idea of having a developmental services company that specializes in grant-writing, curriculum development for interventions, and more what I call 'techie' aspects of Human Development and Family Studies work. If things start rolling along smoothly, I might go back and pick up a PhD to gain more research and expertise. Hm... yes, this sounds a bit like what a certain professor did, but different field very different field, folks!!!!!!!!
This is definitely not what I was expecting to do with my degree, and knowing that I'll be in the human services world, but not in the way people usually are took a lot of shifting in my thinking. I panicked a bit and thought, "Oh no, did I go into the WRONG FIELD!?" No.
If I believe in a God who is sovereign and who opened the doors to me being in HDFS, this is not a mistake. I thought being premed was a mistake when I didn't do so hot on the MCAT, but God came though and provided that job in the hospital that allowed me to use my knowledge. I'm still using some of that knowledge in my current work as a direct care provider at a group home. God taught me about trusting Him for a career in general when I graduated, and it is this groundwork of trust that is helping me trust Him with whatever unique role He has for me in the HDFS field given both my strengths and my limitations.
No comments:
Post a Comment