Parenting a AS Child with Humor
Find a Conversation
| Sat, 07-15-2006 - 9:35am |
I am reading How to parent a child with Aspergers and still keep a sense of humor. One point he makes in the book is that we as parents have to embrace the qualities of our children that make them exceptional as well as different from other kids.
This made me think of my son and I being at the Dr's office the other day. He is sitting quietly in the chair next to me. This little guy (about 4) comes storming in and immediately comes up to my son to say hello, he was real close to him and touching him. I was trying to persuade him to say hi and he didn't want any part of it. As far as he was concerned this kid had no business being so close to him. At this point my son sits on my lap (he is 6) and anoth child walks in and those two kids immediately begin playing together. They were so loud and obnoxious that I was stressing out and they weren't even my kids. I sit and look at my son's face and he is looking at these kids like they are from outer space. My son is sitting quietly looking at his book. Then, I think to myself that is these kids are "normal" I will take my AS child over them any day!

I have similar reminders whenever I'm around NT kids Josh's age (10yo). Sure - Josh has his stubborn moments and all out tantrums. But he DOES sit and almost hyper-focus on a book or his GameBoy.
People always marvelled that we'd take long vacations with him and NOT pack tons of car toys and such - he was (still is) content to look out the window and watch the cars. This is the child that could identify most cars by their emblem as soon as he could talk though :) He also could put a mean hard-wax shine on his papa's convertible by the time he was 3.
My other two of course are the traditional NT handful. But I wouldn't trade one of them for any other child in the world. Littlest had physical delays (bi-lateral clubfoot and low tone - both mostly corrected with intense PT his first year) - I memorized "Welcome to Holland" several years ago :) And I'm slowly recovering my sense of humor. It's been a rough road, but I'm starting to enjoy "Holland" now that I understand the "local customs".
When I read about the car emblems, I thought, "Wow!" David is 8.5 now, and not into cars at all. But when he was just learning to walk, we lived on a street that had a zillion parked cars everywhere. We'd go for a walk each day, and he would look at every car emblem and say, "hon!" for "Honda", "Tyo" for "Toyota". He could identify about twelve or thirteen of them at about 14 months. That's our one and only experience with "parlor tricks", because he amazed everyone at a party by identifying the make of all their cars.
It's funny that someone else did that, too. (I'm pretty sure David had words for all those cars *before* he ever said "mama".)
Evelyn
My father is a classic car buff. Josh first major outing with him was to a car show on Father's Day - he would have been ummm....3 months old.
He's happy as a clam today - there's a car show at the fairgrounds 2 blocks from us - so he's watching the cars go by as they come and go.
Thank you for the reminder.
Well, I have to check out this book because i need some humor today. After 2 very near meltdowns and many outbursts at vacation bible school, then yet another verbal flogging by the orthodontist how Cait isn't brushing her teeth well enough and explaining poor motor skills, oral sensitivities and the fact that she has NO cavities and doesn't eat sugar, but I had ENOUGH of autism for a day. Then I attempted walmart with all 4 on my own to get Cait a water pick in hopes to get the ortho off my back. OYE!
Renee
((((((hugs)))))). Sweetie
may your water piks be successful.
-Paula
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
Glad to hear that this book is a good one......I just ordered it and got a call from B&Ns that it is in......will pick it up today.
I think my two boys have worked out some type of agreement/schedule to drive me nuts.......when my aspie is having a good day then my 2 yr old is an absolute nightmare and visa versa.......there are days, based on behavior alone, it is difficult to tell which child is which......aspie meltdown and terrible twos are looking pretty similar around here.......LOL
Christie