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Home Is Where The Hat Is

March 31, 2012 By

I cannot say for sure when my firstborn son decided that he had to wear a hat at all times. Looking back at old pictures, it seems apparent that he spent most of his toddlerhood in a hatless state. I don’t remember him ever being resistant to wearing a hat, although from the get-go he was picky about the style of hat that he would allow onto his head.

All I know is that at some point – I’m pretty sure it was during one summer or another, the hat became a permanent fixture. It wasn’t even a gradual progression, like his preference for insistence on striped shirts was. It was an overnight thing. One day, he could take his hat or leave it. The next day, it had to go everywhere with him, even into the bathtub. Even to bed. The absence of the hat became an instant source of extreme distress for him. Taking it away from him would make him scream as if the world was ending. One day, when we forcibly removed the hat to throw it into the washing machine, a complete stranger called us from New Zealand and said that the noise had woken him from his slumber, and had we just removed our child’s kidney?

OK, I made that last bit up, but you get the picture. George will defend to the very last his right to have his hat with him no matter what.

On the surface of it, this may not seem like a big problem, but it is amazing how the full-time presence of a hat can encroach on real life. And so we had to work with George’s teachers and therapists to wean him from the hat, or at least get him to the point where he could do without it for brief periods of time.

Several years later, George is still into the hat. Whenever he outgrows a hat, my mother sends a bigger one from South Africa. We do have hats in Canada, of course, but the ones provided by my mom are so cool, so she is in charge of upgrading the hats.

We are able to persuade him to remove the hat at certain times. At bathtime it comes off his head, and remains out of his reach but always in a place where he can see it. When he is at school, he takes it off and hangs it on the hook in his cubby, only putting it on for lunch and recess. And at bedtime, the hat sleeps on the pillow beside him. To our eternal relief, he now consents (with just a little bit of protest) to having his hat taken  away for the purpose of being washed.

Although he takes it off when he absolutely has to, George still loves his hat and he always has to know where it is.

So if you’re ever in my neighbourhood and come across a shy, sweet boy who doesn’t say much and wears a striped shirt and a hat from Africa, chances are that you’re looking at my beautiful son.

Filed Under: autism, Children, Hats Tagged With: , , , , ,
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When I Grow Up: Six-Year-Old Musings

March 27, 2012 By

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be an air stewardess. I was a very well-traveled kid, and every time I boarded a plane I envied the slim, pretty ladies in their smart uniforms. They were always so elegant and friendly, and they were unfailingly kind to me and my brother. A career of jet-setting around the world meeting all kinds of people greatly appealed to me.

Of course, now that I am a well-traveled adult, I cannot think of a job I would like less. When I board planes, I want to be given my mini-bottle of wine and left alone. The last thing I want to do is walk up and down a narrow aisle handing out peanuts and smiling at strangers until my face hurts.

Anyway, when James was about three, he started having his first When-I-grow-up-I-want-to-be discussions. I clearly remember the day it started. Our walk to the daycare he attended at the time took us past a little restaurant that happens to be a popular breakfast spot for the local police. As usual, all of the parking spaces in front of the restaurant were occupied by police cruisers. James stopped to count them, and then said, “When I grow up, I want to ride in the back of a police car.”

Well! That wasn’t what I was expecting to hear! No parent wants to know that their three-year-old aspires to a life of crime.

Fortunately, he met a cool policeman a short while later and changed his goal to driving the police car.

Since then, James has changed his career aspirations several times. He has considered being a fireman, a race car driver and a builder. Sometimes his sole ambition is to be a dad – hopefully not too soon. Other times he wants to be a Transformer, but he doesn’t say exactly how he will become a thing that’s sometimes a car, sometimes a scary robot.

It doesn’t bother me unduly that James is so undecided about what he wants to do. I mean, the kid is six. He has time to decide.

This weekend, he suddenly came up with a new career idea. The conversation we had went something like this:

James: Mommy, we’re going to have a party.
Me: Oh?
James: Yeah! We’re going to bake a cake and put out some snacks and juice. But the cake will take longer to do so we have to get started on that right away. So I’ll find the juice and Daddy can go and buy snacks while you and George start looking for ingredients.
Me: Silence. Goldfish-impersonation. Thinking: cripes, this kid is bossy!

After a pause, the conversation continued.

James: Mommy, I know what I want to be when I grow up.
Me: Oh good! What’s that?
James: I’m going to be a caterer, and I’m going to tell everyone what to do.

So, he’ll be a caterer. Other than that, nothing much will change, since he tells everyone what to do now.

At the end of the day, I have the same hope for both of my boys: that they will find careers that will make them feel fulfilled and happy, and that they will not ever feel limited into doing something that they do not really want to do.

What career aspirations have your kids told you about? Did you end up doing anything remotely close to what you thought you would as a kid?

Filed Under: Ambitions, Careers, Childhood, Children, Dreams, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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No More Teachers, No More Books!

March 25, 2012 By

George doesn’t want to go to school.

Big deal, I hear you say. He is, after all, an eight-year-old kid, and if I got a dollar for every eight-year-old kid who didn’t want to go to school, I’d be signing up to be the next space tourist.

His reluctance to go to school has escalated, though. It started mildly enough about five weeks ago. I was getting him ready for bed one evening when he said, “School is closed.”

“No,” I said. “School is open.”

He went to school without resistance the following day, but this became a nightly ritual. Each evening, the frequency of “School is closed” statements would increase, but as far as I could tell, there was no anxiety associated with it.

Then March break happened and everything changed. Over the course of the week-long break from school, both of the kids were sick. James recovered fairly quickly, but George had a bad cough that lingered, so I got him some natural-remedy cough syrup.

And what has cough syrup got to do with this story? Well, George hates taking cough syrup. In order to give it to him, I have to wrap him up in a blanket and give it to him with a syringe, a tiny bit at a time so he doesn’t spit the whole lot out at me. So when he reached for the cough syrup on Monday morning, indicating that he wanted that rather than school, we knew that this school aversion was serious business.

The following morning it got worse. George woke up very early and for over two hours, he constantly said, “School is closed. No school. School uh-uh.” All the time, his anxiety level was steadily rising. The pinnacle of all of this was George going into the bathroom and trying to force himself to throw up.

Despite all of this, when the school bus arrived, he got onto it without resistance, albeit looking absolutely miserable.

I sent an email to the school describing George’s behaviour and asking if anything was going on at school that I needed to know about. I didn’t think so: this is George’s third year with the same teacher, and she’s been absolutely fantastic for him. But there is, in all likelihood, something behind this and I needed to either rule out or confirm problems at the school.

Because she is so awesome, George’s teacher called me back within an hour of me sending the email. She reassured me that everything was fine, and that she would not have known that George was having a problem if I had not gotten in touch with the school.

Then she said something that was so obvious that I felt stupid for not having thought of it immediately. She said, “Did this start after you returned from your trip?”

Of course! I had been to South Africa for two weeks by myself, leaving husband and kids to hold the fort at home. The last time I had been to South Africa, when my dad died, George was 15 months old and James wasn’t even a gleam in my eye. My absence was a highly unusual state of being for both of the kids, and George, with his autism, must have had a very difficult time processing it.

And within a few days of my return, he started his nightly “School is closed” routine.  The idea that he is working through some separation anxiety makes perfect sense. The break in routine resulting from March break would have exacerbated the problem.

On the one hand, I am relieved to know that everything at school is fine. But on the other hand, I feel guilty about having been away, even though my presence in South Africa was so badly needed at that time.

I can only hope that with a bit more time and many more hugs, George will feel reassured. And if I ever have to go away unexpectedly again, I hope he will know that I am coming back.

Filed Under: anxiety, autism, School, School Bus, Separation Anxiety Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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The Birth Of Brotherhood

March 5, 2012 By

On the evening of Christmas Eve 2005, my husband and I lay on our bed with our son George between us. Then a little more than two years old, George was doing his usual pre-bedtime rolling around with Mommy and Daddy. It had been a nightly ritual from the day he was born. He would lie quietly with us while he drank his bedtime milk, and then he would spend ten minutes climbing onto my husband and then falling off in fits of giggles. It was a time that we treasured, but on this particular evening, I was feeling undertones of melancholy. My body was telling me that my second child would be born the following day. Which meant that this ritual was about to come to an end – or at least, dramatically change. In an odd way, I had already started feeling nostalgic for George’s only-child days.

It’s not to say that I wasn’t happy about the pending arrival. I couldn’t wait for this addition to my family. I was excited about bringing home a baby brother or sister for George, even though it would be a bit of a surprise for him to suddenly have an entire other human being in the house. Throughout my pregnancy, he hadn’t shown any signs of understanding what was going on, other than that he wasn’t allowed to jump on Mommy’s very large belly.

The baby did indeed arrive the following day, Christmas Day 2005. Having languished in his floaty home for a week past his due date, he was now very eager to get out and start living. I spent James’ first two days of life in a haze of exhaustion. When I had time to think, it was to wonder how George’s introduction to his new sibling would go.

As it happened, James started crying while we were driving him home for the first time. He wanted to be nursed, yet again. All about the boob, that one was. When we got him home, I settled down on the couch with him to nurse while my husband retrieved George from my mother-in-law. When George came bounding into the room to jump on the couch, I told my husband not to stop him. George stopped short at the sight of this tiny being attached to me, but although he was clearly surprised, he did not seem to mind the being’s presence. He didn’t say anything about it, but George was saying next to nothing at that time anyway.

For the first few weeks, George seemed a little bemused by James. I had the impression that he did not really see James as a person, but as an extra thing lying around the house. This was illustrated to me perfectly one day when James was lying on his back on the floor. We had one of those big foam alphabetic floor puzzles, and James was lying on that – in the exact spot where George wanted to play. George very matter-of-factly went up to James and took one tiny ankle in each hand. He then proceeded to drag James off the floor puzzle and onto the carpet. He was not rough or aggressive about it. He was merely moving something from Point A to Point B while I cracked up laughing. James didn’t seem to mind being displaced in this way. He just kind of looked at George with an air of resignation.

I will never forget the day I saw a shift happen in George – a shift from indifference to genuine brotherly affection. I had just changed James’ diaper and he was lying in the middle of my bed. George came in from wherever he had been and grabbed James’ leg as he was climbing onto the bed. James gurgled and waved an arm in response to being touched, and George stopped and stared at him, as if realizing for the first time that there was a person in there. His facial expression changed from one of curiosity to one of absolute tenderness. He reached forward, and with both arms, he reached out, lifted the baby and drew him close in a protective embrace.

It was the first time George spontaneously hugged James.

In that moment, I felt that my two sons truly became brothers.

Filed Under: Baby, Brothers, Children, family, Pregnancy, Siblings Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Bullying: Is There A Solution?

February 29, 2012 By

In the wake of Monday’s tragic school shooting in Chardon, Ohio, I find myself wondering why we as a society have so much trouble dealing with the problem of bullying. I asked this question on Facebook on Monday night, and more than one person accused me of blaming the victims.

I want to make it clear: I am not blaming the victims, nor am I condoning these acts of violence. I am merely making the point that in spite of the fact that bullying has been blamed for a number of tragedies over the last fifteen years or so, we have made little progress in addressing it.

It would be unfair for me to say that nothing has happened. I would be willing to bet that there were no formal anti-bullying policies in place when I was in high school. That at least has changed: it took me about fifteen seconds on Google to find my local school board’s policy. This does represent a start, even though the wording of the policy is frustratingly vague. It places the onus on schools to figure out ways in which bullying incidents can be reported and dealt with. When I called my son’s school to find out what their school-specific policy is, I got an expected but highly unsatisfactory answer: It depends on the circumstances. I also got the platitudes that schools think are sufficient for parents: We do not tolerate bullying in our school. We take this issue very seriously. Instigators of bullying are dealt with severely.

That’s all great, but what does it actually mean? We don’t need policies that are there primarily to make parents happy enough to sit down and shut up. We need action plans that are followed through on. Here are a few things that I would like to see in place:

  • Education sessions for parents that will teach them to recognize (a) that their child is being bullied, or (b) that their child is bullying.
  • Anti-bullying education in the curriculum for the kids. Right from the get-go, children need to be taught what their rights are and how they can ensure that they are being respected. They should also learn about what behaviours constitute bullying. While this is more intuitive for most older kids, young children may not recognize the potential harm of certain behaviours.
  • Support for the victims of bullying. They should have a way to report their experiences without fear of reprisal, and they should be assured that action will be taken. The onus should not be on them to “stand up to the bullies”.
  • Support for the instigators of bullying. These kids could have something going on in their lives that’s making them do what they do. They shouldn’t just be suspended from school and given a warning not to do it again. Steps should be taken to find out why they are doing it in the first place and what help can be provided to them.
  • Open lines of communication between students, teachers and parents. Teachers and parents should be working together to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our kids, and our kids have to know that there is someone for them to go to when they need help.

Bullying is not a problem that can be solved by letting the kids sort it out. We cannot tell one person to stop doing something, or another person to retaliate. Bullying is a social problem that can only be solved by everyone involved working together in a constructive way, to do what is best for the kids.

Filed Under: Bullying, Children, parenting, School Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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2011 – My Year In A Nutshell

December 27, 2011 By

January 2011

I start off the year on a good note. Tired and slightly hungover, I take part in the Resolution Run on New Years Day. With my wedding just four months away, I start to stress about the little details, like where to get married and where to hold the reception.

This month, I also donate blood for the first time  – at least, the first successful time. My inspiration is baby David, affectionately known as Captain Snuggles. Sadly, David dies just days later, at just 8 months old.

 

February 2011

We have a wedding venue and a minister! I will be getting married in the same church where both of my children were baptized into the Christian cult fellowship. My running has slowed down a little, because the stress of wedding planning has made me sick.

March 2011

We have a venue for our wedding reception! We almost booked the first place we looked at, but then we went to see the hall at the Royal Canadian Legion. They initially had the hall booked for our wedding day, but the other people have graciously agreed to move their event to the previous weekend. This means two things. First, we get to have our reception in a place that supports the veterans. And second, we now have all of the information we need to send out our wedding invitations.

This month is frantically busy. We have left most of our wedding planning to the last minute, so we have to book our DJ, our flowers, get a cake sorted, find someone to do my hair and makeup, and so much more.

April 2011

My wedding is on the last day of this month! Most things are organized, but my hairdresser and my makeup person have both bailed on me. While I dissolve into tears, my fiancé gets into the car and goes out for a drive. When he comes back, he tells me that the hair and makeup problem is all sorted out.

My soon-to-be brother-in-law introduces me to a wonderful lady, who agrees to be in charge of both of my boys for the day of the wedding. This is a very big deal for me. I worry about how my son with autism will cope with such a big day.

The big day arrives, and it goes perfectly! My hair and makeup look lovely, and the dress – made by my mother-in-law – is perfect. I marry the man I love, and everyone has a lovely time, including the kids.

May 2011

I spend time with my Mom, who has come for the wedding. We go shopping, we go for drives, we spend time with the kids, we chat and drink wine. It’s wonderful to have her with me.

One of the lowest lows of the year happens this month, with the unexpected death of our friend Ken, just days after our wedding. It is an honour to have had Ken and his wife at the wedding. It is good that we got to see him one last time. He will always be missed.

June 2011

My younger son James graduates from Kindergarten. I have a surreal kind of feeling as I watch my baby up there on stage, wearing his construction paper graduation cap, receiving his Kindergarten diploma. When he and his classmates start singing their songs, I just about die from the cuteness.

 

July 2011

I am having difficulty with my running. I struggle to find time, I am lacking motivation, and I am injured. I have missed the last two races I was registered for. On the plus side, the sporadic nature of my recent training does not appear to have affected my speed. There has not been any improvement in my performance, but there hasn’t been a noticeable decline either. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you’re struggling with something you usually love, you have to take what you can get.

August 2011

2011-08-25 11.19.19This month turns out to be unexpectedly busy. The big news is that my older son George graduates from his provincially funded autism intervention program. He has had two years of IBI followed by a year of the school stream program. His progress has been off the charts. He is ready for this graduation. I, on the other hand, am not. It represents a growing-up that I am just not ready for.

Things seem to be looking up with my running! I run two races this month, just a couple of weeks apart. My performance in the first isn’t great, but in the second, I do a lot better than expected.

September 2011

George turns 8, and I’m not really sure how this has happened. It seems like just yesterday that I held my tiny baby in my arms for the first time, and now he’s this long lanky boy who keeps growing out of his shoes.

My 2011 Run for Autism is three weeks away. I run a 10km race at the zoo and make a personal best time. The following morning, I go out for a long run in foul weather, and the day after that, I can barely walk. I feel good, though. I feel ready for the half-marathon.

October 2011

75738-1975-025f[1]The day has finally arrived: the race I have been training for all year. This is the reason I run – to raise funds for autism services, to make the world a better place for children and youth with autism and their families. I dedicate this race to my son George: my joy and my inspiration. If he can live every day with the challenges of autism, I can run a two-hour race.

It goes really, really well. I get a personal best time for the half-marathon and beat the 2:20:00 target that I’ve set for myself. What makes this day even more amazing is that I have done really well with my fundraising for this race, surpassing my combined total for the previous two years.

November 2011

I am insanely busy at work. I am on four projects, and I am also in charge of the month-end reporting for all of the projects in my department’s portfolio. I am enjoying the additional challenge that this gives me, and every month I am getting better at it.

I feel like I am starting to gain some traction in my writing. It is hard work, building up a blog following, and it’s an ongoing process. I am becoming quite prolific, though. I have my blog, I write for an ezine, I write for a project called World Moms Blog, that is growing very fast. I have been voted as one of the top 25 Canadian mom blogs, and people are starting to ask me to guest post for them. I have also resurrected the novel I started working on a couple of years ago.

I run another race at the end of the month, and demolish my previous personal best time. If I can do this after the difficult season I’ve had, what will I be capable of if I actually train? I ask my running friend Phaedra to be my coach for next year, and she agrees.

December 2011

As usual, my Christmas preparations are a last-minute frantic rush. Somehow, I get my shopping done on time and the day is a big success. We all weather the festive season with life and limb intact. It is a hard time for George, with all of the sounds and lights and people and busy-ness, but he gets through it.

On Christmas Day, James turns six. I feel a little weepy over the fact that my baby is no longer a baby. There is just something about the transition from 5 to 6.

Also on Christmas Day, I somehow manage to pinch a nerve in my back. It’s eerily reminiscent of 2 years ago, when the same thing happened. The incident in 2009 puts me out of action for two months, and I really hope this does not happen again.

The story continues in 2012. What script will I write for my life in the coming year?

Filed Under: 2011 Year In Reviw, autism, Children, Death, fundraising, IBI, life, Race, Running for Autism Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Campbell: A Story Of Kindness

December 15, 2011 By

Tazz and Campbell

Once upon a time, I had a child and called him George. I had all kinds of hopes and dreams for that child. We were going to  take him on the kinds of outings kids love, and for his birthdays, we’d invite his friends to come too. We would delight in watching him grow from babyhood to childhood as he ran and jumped and played with his peers; we would laugh at the funny things he said as he was learning to talk; he would make cookies with me and we’d go for picnics at the zoo. When he became a big brother he would take pride in helping with the baby.

One day, when George was almost four, the hopes and dreams crumbled as a doctor gave me the news that George had autism. As I sat there in shock (strange really, since I’d known for a year that something was wrong) I did not yet know that at some point in the future, I would come to accept a new kind of “normal”, that my hopes and dreams would take on a different, but still meaningful form, and that while the journey would take us on the scenic route, we would still see many wonderful things along the way.

It hasn’t all been a cakewalk. There have been hard times. I have had to learn how to restrain my son with my bodyweight to stop him from hurting himself. Speech is still sporadic enough that we celebrate every single word, every single sentence. It saddens us that George does not have friends, preferring to play by himself.

One of the hardest things to deal with has been the reactions of other people. We get rude stares in grocery stores, and complete strangers tell us that what our child needs is “a good hiding”. When people see George having difficulty in a public place, they jump to the immediate conclusion that he is misbehaving. Don’t get me wrong – sometimes he is. He may have autism, but let’s face it – an eight-year-old boy is an eight-year-old boy. Most times, though, George is having trouble with the brightness of the florescent lighting, or the overabundance of sounds, or all of the conversations going on around him that he does not know how to filter.

I sometimes wish for a magical potion, a Perfume of Arabia that I could sprinkle onto people to open their eyes and help them understand.

In the absence of a Perfume of Arabia, the best I can do is write about my experiences and hope that it will make a difference to someone’s life. Like it did to a reader, Tazz, who along with her dog Campbell, had an incredible encounter with a special needs child. With Tazz’s permission, I am sharing the story here. I’m not even going to bother rewording it. Tazz’s words can speak very well for themselves.

“One thing I learned is to never ever judge what I see a child doing, because for all I know there may be a problem I do not know about. Turns out this info came in very handy for me not long ago. There is a family who are members of the church I am currently attending part time. Their son has some kind of a problem that they have not quite diagnosed yet. However, it causes him to sometimes have horrible meltdowns. I was walking down the hall one day during Sunday School time going back to class from the bathroom when from a room down the hall a ways I heard the most heartbreaking crying I ever heard, and knew it was this little boy having another hard time. His mother was doing all she could to calm the child. I followed my heart and took a chance. I softly knocked on the door, and asked if I could help. She had come to the door with the melting down child in her arms, and when he saw Campbell his screaming stopped. I mean like turning off a switch. I asked if I could bring Campbell in and visit for a minute. She agreed and we all sat on the floor with the little boy calming down and petting Campbell. They are now looking in to the possibility of getting a therapy dog for this child. Campbell has come to rescue this child a couple more times since that day. Because now if we are there, and this child starts to have a problem they come and get me from where ever I am and I happily go and help. Well, Campbell helps.”

Is this not the most amazing story? Tazz had an instinct and she followed it. She and her dog were exactly what that little boy and his Mom needed. We special needs parents all need people like this – people who don’t necessarily know the circumstances, but who open their hearts to people who really need it.

To Tazz and all of the people like her, thank you. Thank you for being there. Thank you for being you. You restore my faith in the goodness of human nature.

This week’s Indie Ink Challenge came from Head Ant, who gave me this prompt: What would your proverbial “perfumes of Arabia” take care of? Fiction or non-fiction.
I challenged lisa with the prompt: Write about anything you like, but include the following: cotton candy, a dog, and a broken-down taxi.

Photo credit to Tazz. This picture was taken at an event to remember the victims of domestic violence.

Filed Under: autism, Dogs, Empathy, Helping, Indie Ink Writing Challenge, Special Moment, Special Needs Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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Santa Pictures And The Autism Family: 10 Ways To Not Go Completely Insane

November 14, 2011 By
  1. A week ahead of time, start showing your autistic child pictures of Santa Claus, and tell him that this is the dude whose knee he will be sitting on in order to get a picture taken. Try your best not to be distracted by the neurotypical five-year-old sibling who is bouncing around like the Energizer Bunny on steroids yelling, “Ho ho ho! Hairy Christmas!”
  2. At T minus two days, have a dress rehearsal at your house. This is imperative if you want the autie to wear a suit and tie and he has a tendency to melt down if you try to get him to wear shirts that don’t have horizontal stripes. You’ll probably want to have another dress rehearsal the day before.
  3. The evening before, bath your kids and wash their hair. Do the autie first. If you do the hyperactive neurotypical child first, the autie will head for the hills the second he sees the shampoo bottle. Instead, let the hyperactive neurotypical child dive for cover, hide the shampoo until it’s time to use it, and have a reward system handy. I use gummy bears. Whenever the autie opens his mouth to scream, I just shove another gummy bear in. I have become a master at washing a screaming, flailing autistic child’s hair in less than ninety seconds.
  4. Try not to think of the fact that sometimes, ninety seconds feels more like ninety years.
  5. When you wake up on the morning of the Santa visit, call the photographers who are doing the pictures. Tell them that you have a child with autism, and that if he’s made to wait in line he will have such a bad meltdown that the entire building will crumble and the place will end up looking like an archaeological dig. Most people will accommodate you if they know ahead of time that your child has special needs.
  6. Bring changes of clothes for the kids. As soon as the picture has been taken, the autie will want to put on a shirt with horizontal stripes, and if one isn’t available there will be trouble.
  7. Right before you leave your house, call the photographers again and find out if all their equipment is working. Technology comes with its share of problems, and if you have wait around while they try to get their printer to connect wirelessly to their laptop, your frustrated kids will band together with all of the other frustrated kids who are there, and they will start a Lord Of The Flies kind of mutiny. Believe me, you don’t want to caught with a crowd of angry children. They will overpower you. They will tie the grown-ups to poles and dance around them holding spears and chanting.
  8. Don’t let the absence of spears fool you. Kids can be frighteningly resourceful, especially when they are ticked off and have among their number an autistic child who knows how to think outside the box.
  9. When you are granted entrance to Santa’s domain, don’t mess around. Say hi to Santa, get the picture, and leave. Don’t wait for the autie to make eye contact with the camera lens. You will be waiting until the cows come home.
  10. When it’s all over and you are sobbing in the bathroom from the stress of it all, remember that this experience was positive. As you look at the picture, don’t think about all of the planning and angst leading up to it. Reflect on the fact that you have succeeded in doing a typical family activity. You have brought immense joy to the hyperactive neurotypical child, who shouldn’t be deprived of the opportunity to sit on Santa’s knee. And you have taken another step toward teaching your autistic child some vital coping skills that will help him for the rest of his life. Know this, and feel good about what a great parent you are.
Filed Under: autism, Children, Christmas, Coping Skills, family, life, Santa Claus Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Emergence Of A Rainbow Generation

November 3, 2011 By

On a hot day in February 1990, I stood still, waiting for history to happen. It was the middle of a South African summer; I had just started my final year at the University of Cape Town, and it seemed as if the entire student body – no, make that the entire population of the Western Cape – had turned out. I was going through a lot of difficulty in my life at that time, but wild horses couldn’t have kept me away from this.

Finally, it happened: the event everyone had been waiting for. A well-known and much-loved figure appeared and waved at the crowd, which was going nuts with excitement. Tears of emotion flowed all around me and within me as this great man stood before us. It was official. Nelson Mandela, the icon of freedom in South Africa, was a free man.

During my childhood years in South Africa, I was a little afraid of black people. This is hardly surprising when you consider the draconian laws that were in effect at the time. Black people and white people were completely segregated. They were required by law to live in different neighbourhoods, they could not attend the same schools or churches, and they could not use the same public facilities. In many cases, they could not even enter stores through the same doors. When I was a child, my exposure to black people was limited to the gardener and the cleaning lady.

My parents, and the parents of my peers, did their best. They themselves had been raised to distrust people different from themselves. Fortunately for me and my contemporaries, common sense and basic human dignity had prevailed, so the generation above me had gone against their own upbringings and taught us to treat everyone with respect, no matter what colour their skin was.

And yet, it has to be remembered that our parents were trying to raise non-discriminatory kids in a society that legally mandated racism.  We couldn’t have playdates with black people. If you looked at the student body during school assemblies, you would have seen a sea of white faces. We never shared grocery store line-ups with black people; we didn’t even pass them on the street.

How could a generation of kids learn how to interact in a positive way with a group of people they were never exposed to? It is no wonder that despite the eventual dismantling of the Apartheid regime, race relations in South Africa remain troubled. People are still learning how to get along after generations of having been told that they were not allowed to.

My two kids are having a childhood that contrasts sharply with my own. They have never known an existence of discrimination. They interact freely with kids from all backgrounds, regardless of ethnic origin. To them, people are just people. A telling example of this happened almost two years ago, when my younger son’s Kindergarten teacher unexpectedly died and a new teacher was brought in. When I asked my son what the new teacher looked like, he said she was absolutely beautiful. She had long black hair, and a big smile, and big brown eyes. It is perhaps a damning indictment to my own upbringing that I was surprised, when I finally met the teacher, to see that she was black. My son had not once mentioned this in his lengthy description of her. He had not even noticed her skin colour.

My kids are growing up in a world that sadly still experiences some racism. But so far, they themselves have not shown any signs of discrimination. If that ever happens, it will be nipped in the bud immediately. My dream is for my kids to grow up respecting everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from.

As Scout says in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, “There’s only one kind of folks. Folks.”

Filed Under: Apartheid, Childhood, parenting, Race relations, Respect, South Africa Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Stupid Or Just Different?

September 23, 2011 By

While I was having lunch with some work friends today, we started talking about an incident several years ago in which a kid was mauled by a wolf at a zoo.

What happened was that the child, who was maybe ten, climbed into the wolf enclosure. The leader of the pack, understandably upset about the invasion to his territory, attacked the child. The child suffered serious injuries, and the family had to fork out thousands of dollars for expensive medical procedures.

The family was desperate to recoup some of their expenses, so they filed a lawsuit against the zoo. They claimed that the zoo was responsible for the injuries suffered by the child. None of us could remember the outcome of the case.

As we discussed this story today, several opinions emerged around the table. The person who raised the topic believes that it was ridiculous for the parents to sue the zoo. After all, if your child climbs into an enclosure occupied by wild animals, what do you think is going to happen?

I pointed out that if it was so easy for the child to get into the enclosure, maybe the zoo was responsible. There clearly were not enough safeguards in place to prevent the incident. I mean, zoos are full of kids, and kids are not exactly predictable in their actions.

The guy seated to my left had an opinion of his own: the zoo would have been entitled to sue the family because the child was so stupid.

This remark offended me more than a little, and I think my lunch companions were a bit taken aback with the intensity of my reaction.

Here’s the thing. My older son George – the one who has autism – is streets away from being like a typical kid. He does not respond to things the way other kids do. He has his own special blend of needs, wants, perceptions and anxieties. He has a view of the world that the rest of us do not necessarily understand. And because of the way he is, because of his autism, he sometimes behaves in a way that would be widely regarded as counterintuitive. He will do things that do not make sense. Only they do make sense. Just because his actions do not always make sense to anyone else, we have to respect the fact that they make sense to him.

I have fairly very through-the-roof strong feelings about the idea of anyone daring to refer to my child as “stupid” just because he doesn’t do things the way other kids would do them.

I am not necessarily saying that George would climb into a den of wolves, but I can understand how a kid with autism could look at the wolves and see dogs. I can get how that kid’s mind could tell him that these “dogs” are no different from the friendly dog at his grandma’s house. And I am totally see how a child with autism may not have the sense of danger that other people do. He may not read the cues of bared fangs and growls.

All I am saying is that it is wrong to assume that a child is stupid just because he does something that most people wouldn’t do. You never know what is going on with the child or his family. There could be a lot more to it than meets the eye.

What are your thoughts on this? Is it ever OK to label a child as “stupid” on the basis of actions that are undeniably unwise? Is my outrage at my co-worker’s remark justified?

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/4691235153. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: Animals, autism, Children, Stupid, Thinking Differently Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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