For You--and for You
Nov 6th, 2011 Donald Mitchell
In the midst of roused, leaping youngsters at a child's birthday party, the host parents often hold gift bags for the young guests high in the air, deliberately, slowly, and carefully handing out the bags individually, while calmly saying, "Here's one for you . . . and one for you . . . and one for you," and using good eye contact to avert an out-of-control stampede for the goodies.
One of life's greatest experiences is serving others who can barely contain their enthusiasm for what you are doing for them. Just the thought of creating so much joy makes me feel wonderful! How about you?
Despite the undeniable pleasures of dispensing such earnestly sought-after and much-appreciated benefits, many people work a lifetime without ever having such an experience on the job.
As terrific as it is to serve someone in a way that makes you both feel great, I can think of something even more rewarding: helping frustrated, highly determined families and professionals learn how to assist relatively helpless children to gain mastery over and joy from taking care of their own most important needs.
With both experiences, there's a degree-of-magnitude improvement involved. It's a little like the difference between teaching someone how to catch fish to share with others and helping someone learn how to teach hungry, poor people to fish. There's an extra element of long-term satisfaction added to the near-term joy of the latter case that just can't be beat.
This potential for great immediate joy and long-term satisfaction from helping others learn how to teach relatively helpless youngsters reminded me of my former student, Dr. Sharon Mitchell (no relation), a Ph.D. graduate of Rushmore University. Let me tell you her story.
After being trained in Canada as a special-education teacher, she often taught children with learning disabilities or behavioral difficulties. Due to her deep understanding of how to help with such classroom challenges, she became a special-education consultant who assisted special-education and -classroom teachers.
Dr. Mitchell also worked as an autism (any of a number of social and communications disorders that begin in early childhood and can last a lifetime) consultant for a Canadian provincial government. In that role, she assisted schools that were having trouble programming for a child with autistic challenges, and she also presented workshops for teachers, parents, and other professionals concerning how children with autism spectrum disorders could learn to accomplish more for themselves.
From such work, she became fascinated by all aspects of autism spectrum disorders. The subject's importance was further increased by being the mother of a child with Asperger's Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.
Learning about autism and identifying strategies that reduce autism's negative effects became personal missions, driven in part by experience-based empathy with the anguish that autism spectrum disorders can bring to families and teachers:
"When parents first receive a diagnosis of autism for their child, they go through wrenching emotions before finally, hopefully, coming to acceptance and realizing that this is still the same child they had before walking into the doctor's office and hearing the official diagnosis. Along the way, parents experience denial, anger, sadness, and a loss of dreams.
"With autism comes guilt. Parents worry about what they did to make this affliction befall their child. 'Should I not have had that cup of coffee in the fourth month of pregnancy?' 'If I had had a different partner, would our combination of genes not have created a climate ripe for autism?' 'What did I do wrong to harm my poor child?'
"Through this guilt and sadness comes a desperate determination to fix things -- to do whatever possible to make things right for the child. Even though such efforts are done with the best of intentions, they may fail to obtain the desired results."
Unfortunately, the frequency of autism spectrum disorders is increasing, especially among boys. In the last decade the ratio of children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder has gone from one per ten thousand to one per one hundred and ten in North America. With boys, the statistics are even more alarming. In the United States, one in every seventy young boys now has autism.
As unfortunate as such disorders are for young children, Dr. Mitchell is even more concerned for the future as these children become young adults, and later when their parents become elderly and pass away. Her master's thesis research turned up alarming information, such as how often very bright young adults with Asperger's and other forms of high-functioning autism were spending their days and nights just vegetating in their parents' basements.
She couldn't stand by and let that sad result happen to literally millions of people for their entire lifetimes. Fortunately, such a limited way of living can be avoided. There are a number of helpful things that can be done, but many parents and educators don't know what they are.
Dr. Mitchell generously shared what she had learned with parents and educators. In this activity, her child directly contributed by co-developing a Website describing ways to enhance the day-to-day functioning of autistic people. Through her continuing research and commitment to serving the families of autistic persons, she became a recognized authority, serving on Autism Today's panel of experts. She also contributed several articles to a prize-winning book about autism.
As part of her dedication to helping autistic people and their families, she realized that it would be good to learn even more about what helps and what doesn't. She was especially interested in how custom treatments might be created that better met a given autistic person's needs and personal circumstances.
To gain such important knowledge Dr. Mitchell headed back to school, this time to earn a Ph.D. at Rushmore University. The learning experience was an eye-opener in many ways, from unearthing better diagnostic and treatment methods to gaining more understanding of how to overcome reluctance of parents and educators to make needed changes.
An important new insight was that in many cases autism disorders weren't the only issues that need to be addressed to help someone. Frustrations with communications may lead to behavioral problems. As in the rest of the population, mental illness may occur. It's also not unusual for autistic people to have gastro-intestinal medical problems that can make self-control more difficult.
Dr. Mitchell focused on how young autistic adults could become independent of their families. Her research identified many valuable ideas that she is now sharing with a wider audience, having become even more active in teaching, public speaking, and conducting workshops for parents and educators.
All of her special education and autism-related studies have blessed her by turning her passion into a wonderfully rewarding life's work, helping others in ways that are immensely satisfying for her to provide and for others to receive. What joy she has gained!
When was the last time you felt such joy during your work? If it wasn't today, perhaps it's time for you to learn what's required to make your life's work a never-ending source of meaningful contribution, immediate joy, and long-term satisfaction.
What are you waiting for?About the Author:
Donald W. Mitchell is a professor at Rushmore University, an online school, who often teaches people who want to improve their effectiveness in order to accomplish career breakthroughs through earning advanced degrees. For more information about ways to engage in fruitful lifelong learning at Rushmore University to increase your effectiveness, I invite you to visit http://www.rushmore.edu
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