A Springbox Mom’s Experience

In researching my article on Charlotte Sammons and Springbox Farms for the current issue of Madeworthy, I reached out to my friend Katy Wampach, as she is the person who first alerted me to the existence of this wonderful place. As both of our lives are hectic, I sent her some very basic questions about the Farm and about her family’s experiences there, and her response was so beautiful, so heartfelt, that I knew we needed to share it with you. 

photo credit: Emily King

Looking back now, there was so much evidence that our son was wired differently. Not bad. Just different. He was what others would call a fussy or colicky baby. He was always happiest when he was held, and I spent much of his infancy with him strapped to me in a wrap. Baby wearing ensured we all remained regulated and calm.

What I realize now is that he was getting the important sensory input he needed and that we were coregulating. What I knew to be survival techniques were the earliest instances of my reading his needs and instinctively meeting them. They were more than the baby cuddles I’d longed for for six years.

Once he was mobile, he was constantly in motion, exploring and moving. At 18 months, he was climbing playground equipment intended for ages five plus. By three, he was happiest when he was outside. He spent hours digging in the ground, searching for (and catching) lizards. He collected leaves, rocks, branches, etc. When left to his own devices, he always found ways to entertain himself. That all changed when preschool started.

Photo courtesy of Katy Wampach

Once external expectations and the confines of traditional education were placed upon him, he struggled. He still wanted to explore and experience the world around him and that was incredibly difficult in a world where the adults were controlling that world/environment. I’ll never forget the day a preschool director told me, “We can’t make him have a good day.” It was a confusing statement. Why make or force anyone have any sort of day? Why not look to him to discover what would be a “good day” for him?

Around the time he started school, I started teaching PreK. At the time, the curriculum utilized Conscious Discipline for social emotional learning. I loved everything about it, attending every training course offered by my district. Fortunately, our principal also loved it and sent a group of us to a weeklong training so it could be more fully implemented on our campus. Conscious Discipline is rooted in brain science and makes so much sense. It is an adult first program in which we, as the adults in any relationship, are called to be what we’re hoping to teach in our kids. For our kids to thrive and learn, they must first feel safe and loved. It has changed who I am as a teacher, but most importantly, it changed who I am as a parent.

At the same time, my husband and I found out that our child was lacking that sense of safety in much of his life because he has autism. Situations that were easy for other children or for us were hard for him because the world around him felt so very different and foreign to his own understandings. We needed to help him find that sense of safety and security to utilize the highest levels of his brain.

He began receiving services in the school system to help him understand things like pragmatic speech skills and how to control his body. It’s lucky that we had an early speech therapist and private occupational therapist who believed it was important to teach our son how navigate the world around him and that it was important to understand what was going on in his own body and mind. One recommended the book Uniquely Human by Barry Prizant, which speaks of autism as an asset instead of a deficit and truly embraces the wide range of experiences that come with autism.

Photo courtesy of Katy Wampach

It quickly became my passion to make the world a place in which the human experience didn’t have to fit into one narrow understanding of what it means to be human. As we progressed through school, we found the traditional school experience can emphasize fitting in and finding ways to suppress the instincts of autistic students. We struggled to help our son navigate a world that constantly wanted him to be something other than he was so that others were less bothered.

Yes, the human experience is all about give and take. It is a dance between all of us. But our son’s school experience increasingly felt like it was more take and less give. We wanted our son to understand who he is, what makes him tick (both good and bad) and what he needed to feel that sense of safety. And we knew that when he felt safe, he would be in a place to contribute to the world around him in a productive way, proud of who he is, confident in what he has to offer, unafraid to speak up for what he needs.

Around this time, I found the most amazing group of women: a support group of moms walking the path of parenting children with autism. I joined the MomStrongFW group in December 2018. Because autism is a spectrum and each person with autism can look truly different, we all have different stories. But what I found in these women was a passion for their children and for making their experience of the world better. It was in that group that I first heard about Springbox Farms from another mom (and now dear friend), Emily, who attended therapy there with her child.

It sounded so magical: a place that truly embraced everyone with someone who looked deep into each of us and saw our dignity and could foster an environment where each of us could grow into our own potential. But it also seemed so out of reach – geographically and with regards to the time commitment, so it just sat in the back of my brain as a “maybe someday.”

That someday came in February 2022. Our son was struggling. He was spending quite a bit of time in survival mode, in fight or flight, feeling completely unsafe in the world around him. He’d been handed a lot. The pandemic, the loss of a beloved grandparent, a new baby sister after many years as an only child, a grandparent who moved in with us – it was overwhelming for a boy who craved routine and structure. His expressions of fight or flight were big and sometimes got him into trouble.

Photo courtesy of Katy Wampach

Now the distance and time didn’t matter anymore. That mom gut that we’re always told to trust told me to reach out to Charlotte at Springbox Farms. Emily, who first told me about the Farm, made an SOS call on my behalf.

I’ll never forget that first phone call with Charlotte. As I laid out what was going on – the behaviors the school was seeing, the challenges my son was having – her first reaction was not to immediately try to figure out how to stop them. Her first reaction was, “Wow, it sounds like he must be so scared.” It was the absolute opposite of, “We can’t make him have a good day.” I talked with her for over an hour, and we agreed on a time for us to visit. Then I sat in the Target parking lot and cried tears of relief. Tears of gratitude that maybe we’d found someone who would look deep into our child and help him understand himself.

That is exactly what we do at the Farm. We gain an understanding of the basics of our body. How it operates, how it communicates, what it needs, what makes it special. And it’s all done in the most natural, organic way. It is child driven. It is respectful. It doesn’t force change but encourages self-discovery.

Charlotte truly sees into each of us and encourages us to embrace what makes my son unique, help him to work on skills to meet his needs for safety so that he can fully embrace the world around him, even when it’s uncomfortable. We can explore these skills and gain this knowledge in an environment that is so perfect for him. He can be that kid who was happy to play in dirt, catch lizards, and explore. And because he’s able to do that and feel safe and loved, he’s able to take in the knowledge that Charlotte shares that better prepares him to navigate the world around him.

For me, the work helps me embrace this amazing human I’ve been given. In a world where there is so much pressure to do just the perfect thing for our children and to fear “messing up,” Charlotte helped me to trust my instincts, the instincts that told me how to comfort him as an infant and that lead us to Springbox Farms. I can slow down and observe his magnificent mind. At the farm, we can step out of the go! go! go! of the world around us. I am amazed by what we learn from each other when we just allow the time to go as it needs to go.

Photo courtesy of Katy Wampach

A simple trip to the creek may begin as a child’s need to get sensory input by digging up mud in order make a clearer pathway for the water to flow, and before you know it, that task becomes a teachable moment for what clogs our own systems and what clears away the muck that gets in the way of our learning, connecting, parenting, and living. It’s a discussion that could certainly happen in an office building on a busy street. But the richness of that lesson when it comes organically as we explore the world around us makes the lesson so more powerful. The farm is helping us to embrace the journey we’re on as we discover more about ourselves and how to navigate the world around us.

We still have many struggles, but we also see a lot of growth. I see self-advocacy beginning to happen. I see a child more willing to say “I need…” I see my son so much more confident and comfortable in his own skin. And I see a lens shift in myself. I see a greater passion for slowing down and attempting to see the world through the eyes of others. I see a lesser desire to control and a greater desire to connect. And I know that with connection comes safety and with safety comes learning and with learning comes change.

The Farm is now a regular part of the rhythm of our days. We miss it on the weeks we can’t go. When we return, there is a sense of home. I can feel my blood pressure lower as I arrive and a sense of calm when I leave.

In Charlotte, we have found such acceptance and love, an example of how to interact with others. Isn’t that what our world needs?

Photo courtesy of Katy Wampach