When we sat down, the first speaker to come out asked how many international guests they had for this session. About a third of the room raised their hands. Men and women from, Africa, Ireland, Sweden, Pakistan and Argentina. I was shocked at the diversity. Some couples had translators with them. I had no idea this program was so world renowned. It was comforting to know we were all here for our children, and no matter how different our cultures we could all relate to each other on this level.
Bryn walked into the room. I knew her already from the introductory videos. She was the Kaufman's daughter. She and her husband adopted a little girl and after a year they realized that their daughter was Autistic. They went right to work implementing the same program that her parents had worked with their son in the 70's. They were also able to bring their daughter Jade out of her diagnosis. Bryn was very charismatic. She was down to earth and spoke with a lot of common sense. I along with the rest of the group nodded our heads along with each of her observations and experiences. I started feeling relieved. Maybe they won't recruit me into a cult.
The rest of the week we went through a number of excercises. One was to find a partner and hold their hands. We were then instructed to think of a time when we were happiest with our child and to tell it to our partner. Then we were told to think of our most difficult time with our child. The woman holding my hands was from New York. She seemed upper middle class. She dressed in designer clothes and had a designer purse. She was describing to me an incident in a grocery store. She has two twin sons. One is on the spectrum and the other wasn't. When her Autistic son couldn't move on from looking at the produce, he had a melt down. Everyone in the store took notice and she could her people commenting on her child's behavior. She started to cry as she was telling it to me.
Later in the week,a woman who traveled from Africa told a story about her son on the spectrum. He was in school and misbehaved. He felt bad that he was not good for his teacher so he went and apologized to her. This was a huge step for him. His mother was thrilled at his progress and told her husband about it. He told her "who cares". The woman could barely get through her story, she was trying to hold back her tears but couldn't.
It wasn't unusual for all of us to cry. We all used our box of kleenex regularly. I realized that the purpose of this week was not only to educate but to also provide catharsis for all of us. To cry and allow ourselves to open up. If you would have asked me if I needed this I would have said no, but being there in those moments it felt great. I felt special to be part of something bigger than me. I was proud that Mia and I could identify with so many different people.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience. The Kaufman's were treated like rock stars and the reverence they were treated with gave me a little pause but overall I think any parent could get invaluable information from the program.