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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday July 29, 2002 Volume IV Number 30 |
FOCUS - The Matt Savage Trio
There may be nothing more painful for a parent than to watch his or her child flounder, unwilling to engage life, lost in the world of classroom study, confused about vocation, unmotivated on the job, cynical about friendship. It’s the kind of disconnect that pierces the heart of parenthood.
It’s terribly disheartening.
On the other end of that spectrum, there may be nothing more satisfying for a parent when he or she sees that same child find it - that something that motivates everything else. That something that makes study stimulating. That energizes first rate performance on the job. That something that leads to clarity of vision for a purposeful future; for genuine and wholesome long term friendships. This is the kind of connection that warms the heart of parenthood.
It’s wonderfully heartening.
So good parents keep trying. Prodding. Encouraging. Introducing new approaches. Sometimes without result. And sometimes, with extraordinary consequence.
It’s an awkward dance to learn, this parent/child motivational thing. Try too hard, and the child is driven away, resisting a parent’s best efforts - all the participants annoyed and frustrated. Children rarely express their appreciation to a committed parent. At least not directly. (“Thanks for driving me all the way across town for my lessons, Mom. And thanks, too, for writing that check. I really appreciate it. I’ll do my best, just like you.” These are not the sentiments of an eight year old. Savvy parents don’t expect it.)
The real trick in motivating children is for the child to believe that it’s his idea. His choice.
This is not easily done.
* * * * * * *
Matt Savage is ten years old.
He just recorded his
fourth CD. His ensemble, The Matt Savage Trio, is playing these days to sold
out concerts and making live appearances on network television. Barbara
Walters and Katie Couric hosted Matt as their guest in studio, and in each case
his music brought the house down. Matt is an extraordinary child. He’s an
accomplished jazz pianist. His fingers move across the keyboard in a fluid
rhythm with easy grace and eye-popping speed. His two adult colleagues, one a
drummer, the other an acoustical bass player, follow Matt’s lead, producing a
remarkable sound and a jazz delight one can only call cool. Way cool.
Matt Savage is also autistic.
Matt’s parents are now emerging from a long dark night. From the earliest stages, they knew something was terribly wrong with their little boy. There was and still is. The doctors call it autism. In the beginning, Matthew hardly seemed aware of anyone’s presence. Today, ten short years later, their little boy is winning the world’s affection and acclaim.
Autism remains a mysterious condition that affects only two to five out of ten thousand children. It is a commonly used label but the disorder is complex, and includes a wide variety of symptoms. There is also a wide range of severity. Some autism is slight. In other cases, severe. Generally, autism describes a child who is unable to relate to the world around him. He fails to connect with close to him. He can become agitated by sights or sounds or other annoyances.
There was a time when autism was considered to be caused by a failure of parents to bond with their child. Science has disproved this antiquated theory entirely, but the carry-over of guilt by association has caused too many good parents unspeakable heart-ache. Rather than indulge in self-pity, Matt’s parents took a different course.
Shortly after he was born in 1992, his parents sensed that he wasn’t keeping up. He seemed detached. Unresponsive. His colicky fits went on way too long. The traditional methods of calming down a cranky baby just didn’t work. As he got older, the tantrums came more frequently, triggered by simple sounds – like the stereo playing or popcorn popping or the vacuum cleaner. Soon, even a touch could trigger hysteria. Matthew’s mother and father, exhausted and confused, turned to their research to find answers.
One doctor labeled Matthew’s condition Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). Another called it Asperger’s Disorder. Another, hyperlexia – a language disorder. All of the results pointed to some form of autism.
As Matthew got older, they recognized something else. He seemed to possess a heightened capacity to understand language. He liked problem solving and numbers.
The Savages pursued the best treatments available for the little boy they loved. They were not content with a single, narrow approach to therapy. They studied all of the literature, and concluded that Matthew needed occupational therapy, speech therapy, psychological counseling and proper nutrition.
They heard about a French physician who developed a program he calls Auditory Integration Therapy using sounds and music to connect autistic patients with the real world. At the age of four, Matthew went to France for sessions with Dr. Guy Berard. Matthew was responsive. He tuned in to musical sounds. He began to sing.
Matthew’s mother played the piano. As an infant, the sound of mother’s music triggered episodes of hysteria. But now, Matthew began to listen attentively. He sat with a toy piano at age four, and hammered out melodies.
Soon, his mother sat with him at the keyboard of the family grand and Matthew mimicked his mother.
Autism is frequently associated with high levels of intelligence. Mom would point to the notes on the staff of a page of music, and play the lines. Intuitively, Matthew made a connection between the dots on the staff and the piano keys. He read the music on the page and played the notes.
At age six, he took his first formal lesson. The shocked teacher could not stay ahead of Matthew. He devoured the books, sight reading the lines and playing them back perfectly. They soon discovered that Matthew had perfect pitch, and once he played a piece, he had it memorized. He also began reading books. He studied the music and the composers as well. He learned their history, and their styles. He knew their birthdates, and their major compositions.
At age eight, he began transposing his favorite songs into different keys. And then, he started improvisation, playing his own versions of well known standards. People would drop by the house, just to hear him play.
Matthew’s autism remains apparent. If you met him, you would notice right away. He seems distracted. His speech can be choppy, sound disjointed. You’ll see some difficulty in controlling all the motor skills. But when he turns to the keyboard, flawless, beautiful music fills the room.
His parents took him from their home in New Hampshire to the famed New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. After his audition, he was accepted at age nine as a jazz student. He plays the blues. He plays classical. He loves improv.
At age ten, he’s produced four CDs. Already, he’s an effective fund-raiser for autism research. People line up before the “SOLD OUT” sign appears at the box office. They all want to hear Matthew play.
The Matt Savage Trio is booked solid for the year.
* * * * * *
When I encounter a story like Matthew’s (they are rare indeed) I find myself speculating, what if his parents had just given up? What if the stress and the late nights and the despair and the trips to the doctors and the wait for the test results and the impossible cost of treatment… what if all of that caused them to say, it’s just not worth it? We just can’t take any more. It’s no use.
We all would understand.
But parenting means staying with it. For the long haul. It means believing in your boy so much that eventually, he believes in himself. It means holding on to that little girl until she’s ready to make it a go on her own.
And while it may take years… decades… the reward comes.
My old boss, Chuck Swindoll, preached a ground-breaking series on parenting that came from the book of Proverbs. He suggested that the old wisdom books were right, that parents have a responsibility to “raise up a child in the way he should go.” He interpreted the Hebrew phrase to mean that every child is unique, and each has a special way about him or her, and that good parenting discerns the distinctive needs and gifts and individual characteristics of every child and parents according to those special needs. Don’t press them into a mold. Discover who your children are. Nurture the uniqueness of each child, he said. "The way he should go..."
The great Roman poet Virgil, who penned his verse in the century before the birth of Christ put it this way, “As the twig is bent, so the tree inclines.”
Parents have the capacity to shape and prune and encourage their children. But the best kind of parenting helps a child to discover the gifts that make them blossom and come alive in living color.
As Matthew’s parents did.
* * * * * * *
We had our suspicions, but Kristyn and Ben waited to tell us. For good reason.
We began our year with the unwelcome experience of enormous loss. We still feel the empty void that we believed would be filled by little Isaac. He’s only a precious memory now. The ache, we’re told, will stay with us.
Since then, we’ve hoped and prayed (along with friends and family) that our daughter and son-in-law might once again enter into the exhilaration that comes from the jubilant anticipation of the arrival of a precious newborn.
This week, with tears in her eyes, Kristyn handed her mother and me a shadowy black and white photo, framed in a brightly colored border decorated with tiny pictures of diaper pins and pajamas with snaps and milk bottles and teddy bears and tiny laced shoes and at the top in bold print – BABY DUNCAN – PROJECTED DUE DATE: FEBRUARY 7, 2003.
The photo at the center is from the ultra-sound; and if you look closely, you can see a little hand reaching out towards little feet, and a head curled up, healthy, a little person, who for the next six months or so will grow and develop and hear muffled but eager voices from outside calling out a welcome to a world of love and laughter, and a Grandma and Grandpa who will never again be the same.
And that little one will hear a mother singing… songs of praise and hope and joy.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
Sometimes tragedy is the beginning of a journey towards inexpressible joy. Ask Matthew’s mom.
Then ask Isaac’s mom.
This life of ours is full of risks. Despair can roll in with a doctor’s diagnosis or the ring of a telephone, and the discontent of winter can be stark and cold and long. And then springtime comes, and the promise of life means more than it possibly could had there been no snow.
If you are a parent, your influence doesn’t ever really stop. Be sure you are the kind of parent who revels in the music your kids make. They need your smile. Your hugs. Your reminder that they can do it; and that they can be everything that God made them to be.
You can, too.
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2002
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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