Trying To Understand Austin

      Over the past year, I feel that I have really tried hard to understand my son, Austin, who is now 11 years old.  The older Austin gets the more complicated he is for me to figure out.   We have a lot of similarities, but we are also very different.   For example, I am a social butterfly.   Its embarrassing for me to admit this, but I love to be the center of attention.   I love spending time with my friends, and be right in the thick of things.   Austin on the other hand enjoys friends, but he doesn’t need them to be happy.   Probably about half of the time he passes up opportunities to play with friends so he can do his own thing.   Because this is foreign to me, I tend to worry about his behavior.   Is he shy, is he insecure, is he being bullied?   These are all things I worry about!

       I expressed my concerns with Spencer about this and he in turn had a heart-to-heart talk with Austin to see how comfortable he is with himself.   I was very surprised at what I learned.   I learned that I am more concerned with how others view Austin than Austin is.   He is completely comfortable with who he is.   He isn’t out there doing things he doesn’t want to do for attention.  He isn’t compelled to go out of his way to fit in, he is happy just being himself.   I wish I would have grown up possessing those qualities.   For me, it’s a struggle that has taken lots of years to overcome.  Some days its still a struggle, to be quite honest.   It is SO extremely important to me that my kids grow up feeling secure and I just worry about them.   Now that I understand Austin a little better, I am grateful that he is comfortable simply being himself.   I no longer see him as quirky, like I once did, aside from being a socially awkward 11 year old boy!