My son's 5th birthday party was yesterday afternoon and it was wonderful! I was nervous but he had fun and so did the other children. My husband has become a bit of Mr. Mom with me so busy in grad school and he invited I think 12 kids to the party. Only 8 showed up but I was worried it would be too overwhelming for T but it wasn't.
Anyway, we chatted with the other parents while the kids played on the park structures. My son is so high functioning in some ways, I have been hesitant to be really open about his autism but my husband has started telling the other parents in T's preschool - which is fine.
Let's see if I can get this all out! Whew.
The assistant teacher was there and was saying how wonderfully T was doing. Another mother interjected that the other kids do notice a difference though and wanted to know from us what she should tell her son when he asked why T acted differently. I told her to just say that we all learn differently. She said she had tried that but that answer wasn't good enough - they wanted to know why. She said she was hesitant to say autism or something else like that because as a teacher she knows how kids can get judgemental and didn't want to cause T to be isolated.
At that point I was a bit stumped as to what to tell her. It was really a wonderful conversation and I so appreciated her being so upfront about it and asking the question but I didn't know what to tell her to say.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Tricia
She can ask the kids (who say "learn differently" isn't enough detail) why their eyes are blue? Can they control their freckles? Why is their skin brown?
We are all born the way we are born, and each person is different from the others. We cannot control those differences, but we CAN control our good manners. Its good manners to accept our friends no matter which way they are different from us.
Wow LeAnne! Thats a GOOOOOD answer!!Oh perfect Leeanne!
I knew there a good way to talk about this with kiddos and that is perfect.
Thank you.
I love that answer! Thanks for posting it - it's a very good reminder!There is a great book called a Walk in the Rain with a brain ...which talks about how we are all smart in different ways...it is very cute and appropriate for NT kids
Glad ya'll liked that! I've had practice with this question, particularly with my NT son's NT friends.
We had one little boy say "ew, I don't want to sit next to HIM" and I said "well sweetie, with the bad manners you just showed by saying that, NOBODY wants to sit by you either. But Cole's got great manners and he'd love for you to sit near him. Have a seat!"
When I talked to the parents at a class meeting when my son was in second grade, we didn't mention autism but focused on the sensory stuff. We told them to tell their kids that he gets overwhelmed if there's a lot going on around him. We compared it to living in a carnival 24 hours a day -- anyone would have trouble performing in that situation.
Many quirks can be compared to things all kids do, it's just that it happens more often or more dramatically when the kid has autism.
- All kids get tired and stressed and occasionally have a meltdown. The kid with autism just has added stress because of his disability -- like not being able to communicate as easily as other kids, and not being able to filter out all the background noise and visual clutter.
- All kids occasionally get so wrapped up in a tv show that they don't hear their mom telling them it's time to eat. Kids with autism are just extra good at focusing on what they're interested in, and have trouble shifting their attention.
- All kids have some sort of stim or something they use for comfort -- like nailbiting, thumbsucking, playing with their food instead of eating it. Kids with autism have more creative ways of finding comfort and stimulation.
- Most kids can probably also related to the expression, "it's so noisy around here I can't hear myself think!". They've certainly experienced that Mom says they're being too noisy when they don't mind the noise themselves. A kid with autism is even more sensitive to noise than Mom is.
Good luck with everything.
That was beautiful LeAnn!!!!!I love that answer!