Lessons From An Autistic Child.
Autism. An ability that can become both your greatest hurdle and asset in life.
Three years ago I met the love of my life. I can only describe it as having met my soulmate. We dated for three months before the decision to move in together became something that we would have to consider. The only issue at the time was that she had three children.
This was not something I took lightly. Can I do this? I asked myself this question over and over. I spent an entire week locked in my apartment mulling over the same issue. Can I be a role model for these children? Can I give them the love that they deserve? We moved in together after that week and I never looked back.
Living Alongside Aspergers
My oldest child is diagnosed with Aspergers we need to think about that
That is the first thing I underestimated in this relationship. I thought to myself, its a five-year-old child, how hard can it be?
So, in short, the first lesson I received was on my own ignorance. The different way an autistic child see the world is miles apart from the majority of other children and it requires a fundamental change in how to handle day to day activity.
What we need to understand is that every child is different. Even more so for every child with autism, things that work for others have been a disaster in our home and has only added to the difficulties. There are general similarities but each child will need their own solutions. Each child is unique.
Planning
Planning in our family is the first step to keeping harmony. We need to plan everything! What we do, how we do it and when we do it. Sudden change is generally not accepted because it induces visible stress in our child.
One example is that he suffers from Escalaphobia which is the fear of escalators. This makes it so that wherever we go we have to make sure that there is either an elevator or ordinary stairs. Failing to do this actively hurts our child, he can not enjoy the trip if there will be an escalator that he has to use. And going somewhere and he sees an escalator that we didn’t tell him about can ruin the entire trip for him.
We also have to make sure that he knows what is going to happen. What are we doing today? When are doing it? Is it before or after lunch? Is there time for play before we go?
We have to answer as many of these questions as possible for anything to go smooth. The questions can sometimes be neverending but answering them visibly makes him calm down.
This might seem like a big issue to some, but it has actually translated really well into our normal life. We all feel better with planned weeks and it has even helped in my work life, where I have gone from taking each day as it comes to plan my daily work. It decreases our stress by knowing what we are doing and when we are doing it.
Low-Impact Approach
In the beginning, I did not know how to handle outrage and bursts of crying for no reason, and even if the fault was that the child has done something wrong, becoming angry was hardly ever the right way to handle things. It would only give way for crying and tantrums that never ended.
Through counseling, we learned about a way to treat children called low-impact approach. In everyday life, this basically translates to be serious but mellow. Don’t get angry, always try to bring the child down to a lower emotional level by being on the lower level yourself. Discuss with the child and try to get them to listen instead of forcing the message through.
It might take some time and it feels really silly when the child is screaming louder than the city evacuation alarm. But it works! And when they start to listen, it’s surprisingly easy to reason with them.
Applying this in everyday life has been revolutionary to me. To always keep a calm mind and not let my emotions make decisions have really helped me focus on what I want and how to get it.
Sometimes when things are not going our way it can be really hard. Treating it with a clear state of mind and making sure that we have a good reason behind our actions lets us be more confident in our decisions.
Special Interests and Ambition
I never thought I would know so much about pokemon just because my child likes it. Special interest is a common attribute associated with autism, in our case it’s pokemon. My child is now eight years old and there are few things in his life that take up more time than pokemon. Maybe breathing but I can’t say for sure.
He can play pokemon for hours, both on a gaming console and in free play. Learns everything about it and has a pokemon book that has been looked through hundreds of times. And the facts never stop, he tells us about it all the time.
This is both a good and bad thing.
The good. Anything that is fun is approached with enthusiasm, happiness and a will to learn, giving up does not exist. As an example, he has learned almost 700 pokemon names.
The bad. Anything that is not interesting is approached with unwillingness, anger, frustration and no will to learn at all. To this day, learning how to cut his own food is an issue. He refuses to even try to learn, and if we don’t cut his food for him he will not eat.
It has really highlighted many aspects of learning. I have found ways to learn things easier myself, and I always think about how things are supposed to be learned. Now I focus more on the process than the actual material because I have realized that it is much more important to customize how we learn something than just throwing us at the same material over and over again.
Emotions
Emotions are part of what makes us who we are. We all have our own perspective and we all feel emotions in our own way.
To navigate these feelings can be very hard, very few people walk through life without having emotional issues. This becomes even harder when coupled with autism.
Some may find people with Aspergers to be lacking in empathy but the truth is far from it, they do not lack any emotions.
They feel the same thing as everyone else but the nuances can be blurred. The feelings are much more intense and can then be harder to distinguish.
Feeling sadness can lead to crying but so can intense feelings of happiness, stress, worry, and even boredom.
One of the biggest challenges today is together with our child figuring what his feelings mean, asking the questions such as why are you crying? Why are you panicking, and why are you sad? These questions are important because our child does not always know why he is feeling something. Last Christmas he got a game as a gift that he has wished for, he became so happy that he started to cry, but to him crying is not a good thing so he got ashamed which in turn lead to anger and ended in screaming.
Facing this kind of issue and explaining emotions and feelings have forced me to look into myself, I have to understand what the feelings are to me before I can explain them to my child.
This helped me develop a very keen sense regarding emotions. I am more sensitive to the small tells if someone is happy or sad. I can offer my help to those close to me and I can be a better support to my family and friends.
Every step of the way is a challenge, but clearing them is very rewarding. There has never been regret in my choice to enter this family. I receive endless love every day and I have endless love to give.
So don’t look down on autism, just like it can be debilitating and make things much harder to accomplish. It can also make things easier and enable paths in life that would be impossible without it!
Having a child with autism is not something I would ever change. Working with my child and making sure that he has the same opportunities in life as anyone else has enabled me to grow immensely.
It is forging my path in life and has made me who I am.
