Raising and working with children isn’t easy. Teaching children about life requires one to have a variety of skills, whether we are talking about typically developing children or not. The greatest tools anyone can have most often are the easiest ones to acquire: for right now let’s think common sense and flexibility.

Being with children is a fluid experience. Things are always in motion and life can change in a moment’s notice. Nothing is set in stone for everyday life with children. Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, yet I fail to remember any other tablets in regards to everyday life with a child. I’m pretty sure not one of those Commandments had anything to do with the t-shirt versus long sleeved shirt battle I have in my living room every morning. In order to get my child to school with SOMETHING on, I had to compromise to what he could live with and what I could live with. Sure, I could’ve drawn a line in the sand and said, ‘It’s the sweatshirt or nothing’, but I feel confident in saying that I would have seen that boy streaking buck naked down the road towards the school bus had I done so.

Too often we draw a line in the sand.

Too often we make rules that are, in reality, just darn near silly.

Too often we don’t think how ridiculous these rules are until we think of applying the situation to an adult.

Take for example one of my all time favorite ‘line in the sand’ stories. Little Billy wanted to walk in the grass next to the sidewalk between school buildings every day. This caused quite a commotion because all the other children walked gleefully on the sidewalk between these very same buildings. Yet Billy persisted in creating his own path of turf and dirt and simply refused to move his path to the concrete.

Lines were drawn and darn it, Billy was going to walk on the concrete. Behaviors ensued. Stress levels rose for everyone involved. All over concrete versus turf.

Now let’s think about this for a second. When confronted with the question ‘How do we get Billy to walk on the sidewalk’, my response was ‘Why can’t he walk in the grass?” As long as there were no hidden explosive landmines scattered across this school’s landscape planted by some errant and angry gardener, it’s hard to imagine the harm being done by walking in the grass next to the sidewalk.

Often the best answer is the simplest one.

Ask yourself ‘why not’ to any line in the sand issue and if the cons just really aren’t that provocative—move on—trust me there are definitely far more important issues to take a stand on. Find ways to problem solve that teach the both of you something about life. Drawing a line in the sand over inconsequential parts of life, implies you are a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of person—and you know my feelings on that (Petsmart still has that hamster sale going on you know).

When working alongside a child with autism, I know without a doubt who the person incapable of flexibility is in the room. And it’s not me.

I know that I can’t be as inflexible as this child is or else the entire time is spent butting heads against each other and nothing gets accomplished. This child is neurologically incapable of being flexible. He requires an enormous effort to understand changes in routine. He requires our guidance in showing him how to live in a world that is in a state of constant change. These children need us to teach them HOW to be flexible. He requires us to understand the difference between the things that matter and the things that don’t.

There’s a reason the book ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’ was a bestseller.

“Often we allow ourselves to get worked up about things that, upon closer examination, aren’t really that big a deal. We focus on little problems that get blown out of proportion.” ~Richard Carlson