The Next Thing You Know:
Ellen Notbohm’s newsletter for December 2020

 “Everyone makes mistakes.”
~Big Bird

“If Big Bird says so, it must be true.”
~Ellen’s son

 

In this issue:
  • Try This: Embracing our mistakes art, and how to help your child handle mishaps
  • How many sticky notes does it take to read a book?
  • #JustRead: Dolly Parton Picks
  • Book Review
  • Final thoughts on dumpster fires and silver linings

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Try this: Embracing our mistakes as art, and how to help your child handle mishaps

Here’s a beautiful piece of wisdom that came to me recently, from a knitter friend with a puppy. She had just completed a beautiful winter cap in a spendy yarn. She thought she’d put it in a drawer. She hadn’t. Her puppy discovered it and did what puppies do—chewed a seemingly irreparable, jagged hole in it, and she with no extra yarn left. Heartsick, she posted photos as a reminder to all with fur friends.

But like that last good fairy in Sleeping Beauty, another crafter came forward with a remarkable offer of help. She rewove the hole, using the Scandinavian custom of purposely using a different colored yarn than the original, making the repair obvious. Such repairs are called scars, and are valued as statements that so-called “broken” things are actually survivors, the repair being a proud sign of strength and resilience.

The puppy story reminded me of the Japanese ceramics we see on Antiques Roadshow, broken pieces repaired with veins of bright gold. Called kintsukuroi, it celebrates the idea of embracing flaws as a means to creating stronger and even more beautiful works of art. Then I learned that the Amish toss a few mistakes into their knitting, or turn quilts patches sideways, because no one other than God is allowed to be perfect. As a knitter, I’m never short on mistakes. But now I can view some of them as expansion of my definition of beauty.

However, in our parenting and teaching lives, viewing mistakes as art is abstract thought as yet beyond the reach of many autistic children. Many think in absolutes, and one of life’s big absolutes: everyone makes mistakes. “If Big Bird says so, it must be true!” declared my then-young son, listening for the hundredth time to the eponymous Sesame Street song.

Mistakes come in endless degree and nuance, but to a concrete thinking child, each mistake or failing comes in only one size: huge and humiliating. Imagine the monumental anxiety this creates for them. We all make dozens of little mistakes every day, so many that we likely aren’t even fully conscious of the smaller ones. We dribble coffee on the counter, smudge makeup or ink, can’t find our keys, step on the cat’s tail. Most of the time we don’t miss a beat—while our autistic child is upstairs melting down because they squeezed the toothpaste too hard and it’s all over their hand or shirt or sink now.

Fear of failure can paralyze a child. You can quell that fear by instilling the understanding that Big Bird is right: everyone makes mistakes. Modeling that behavior helps children learn. If you have mistakes in your art or other creative endeavors, share those and their cultural stories as a lead-in to talking about mistakes in daily life. Here are three ways to help autistic children lose their fear of failure. All are based on our old family frame of reference, called NBD—No Big Deal.

Most mistakes are small, correctable and have few lasting consequences. Point out your small mistakes to your child or student and label them as No Big Deal. We wipe the counter, we change our shirt, we pet the cat, we move on.

Call it practice, not mistake. In learning anything, there’s another word for mistake: practice. Practice is an important part of education and daily life, and missed spelling words, math problems, fumbled shoelaces, or toothpaste mishaps are No Big Deal. They mean we’re learning.

Another word for mistake: accident. We can’t always control how things happen, and most accidents are No Big Deal. If we have an accident that affects someone else, it’s usually easy to make amends. “I’m sorry I bumped you and spilled your juice. I’ll clean it up and pour you some more.” Starting with small consequences like this builds the resilience they’ll need to cope with larger mistakes/accidents.

And check out Big Bird’s “Everyone Makes Mistakes” videos on YouTube. I still love his reassuring voice and inarguable wisdom.

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How many sticky notes does it take to read a book?

I’d say this reader got into The River by Starlight, wouldn’t you? Book clubs are hands-down my favorite part of being an author. I love the organic one-on-one connection with readers, the perceptive questions they ask. One that always comes up: is there a real River by Starlight quilt? The answer is no, but piecing Annie and Adam’s story together through the information, insights and intuition gathered in my research was much like constructing a quilt.  It became a touchstone for so many things. A symbol of their intimacy, as Annie won’t let anyone other than Adam see the quilt. A stark representation of gender differences, as Annie and Adam view the quilt’s role in their lives differently, as it exerts a different kind of power over each of them. And ultimately, the quilt is a standard bearer for resilience and hope. Real enough for me!

“We had the best time with Ellen …fun and insightful. One of our favorite meetings,” says the Lucy in a Suitcase book club. I’d love to visit your book group in 2021. Check out what other book clubs have said about my books.

Contact me for discounted signed copies of the books, plus cool swag, for your group.

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#JustRead: Dolly Parton Picks

This month Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which sends children a book a month from birth to age 5, will reach the dizzying milestone of 150 million books distributed. I am as fangirl as it gets when it comes to Dolly and her tireless devotion to literacy. I melted when I heard her describe how and why “The first book we send out from the Imagination Library is The Little Engine that Could.”

The beloved tattered copy shown here has been with me since childhood. My mother read it to her children and grandchildren, and now I read it to my grandie.

The Last Stop on Market Street came to me as a used book. I went faint with joy when I saw that my copy of it was an Imagination Library pick!

This marvelous story about how a grandmother teaches her grandson that lack of material wealth doesn’t equate to poverty of soul or creativity is one of the few books that won both the Newbery and Caldecott medal for children’s literature.

These two gems, published eight-five years apart, warm me every time with their timeless, universal messages and charming artwork.

 

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Many thanks to Dr. Barbara Probst for her incisive review of Ten Things, and for her own important book, When the Labels Don’t Fit.

“What an extraordinary book! On the one hand, Notbohm speaks as an expert, providing a wealth of specific, usable, actionable strategies, grounded in state-of-the-art knowledge. At the same time, she tells her story as a mother.

“The marriage of mind and heart—of clear practical advice and raw honest humanity—is pitch perfect. Parents, educators, and clinicians will find themselves saying, ‘Yes!’ and ‘Thank you!’ on every page.

“There’s not an ounce of fat in the 150 pages of Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew; no surprise that it’s sold a quarter of a million copies around the world. I don’t know of any other book about autism that does what Notbohm has managed to do so masterfully.

“As the author of When the Labels Don’t Fit, and with a doctorate in clinical social work and many years’ experience working with parents struggling to raise children who didn’t fit the current definition of ‘normal’—I can’t recommend this book highly enough.”

Read excerpt “Your Power of Choice” here.

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Let’s connect

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Visit and contact me at ellennotbohm.com

Invite me to visit your book club, blog or post.

Work with me. I offer affordable coaching and editorial services for emerging as well as established writers, whether you aspire to publication or your writing is for your eyes only.

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Final thoughts: Now we bid farewell to a year we’ll never forget, for dreadful reasons. So all the more precious, the sparks of love and creativity that come our way. A friend of ours had a baby in the early days of the pandemic. At Halloween came a photo. The adorable baby, smiling serenely in a soft, dove-colored sparkly tutu, sitting in a small Waste Management Inc. bin surrounded with orange paper flame cutouts. The costume: “Our silver lining to the dumpster fire.” Wishing you everything that sweet baby embodies for the new year: peace, health, warmth, smiles, and precious blessings that rise above the flames.