Monthly Archives: April 2013

How to Explain Autism to Typical Kids (and Lots of Others While You’re at It)

My beloved Daddy and Callum at his 3rd birthday party. Taken a few weeks before his passing.

My beloved Daddy and Callum at his 3rd birthday party. Taken a few weeks before his passing just this time last year.  I loved that I didn’t have to explain autism much to him.  He just had an affinity with Callum and understood him.  He found him fascinating and was always trying to figure out what Callum was thinking.  They liked one another just fine.  🙂

Autism awareness and acceptance are good things. The more the average person knows about autism, the better it will be for the community — especially our autistic members. Yet, the average person can’t easily define autism. Quite frankly, our experts in autism don’t do such a great job of defining it either. It isn’t a simple concept, because it isn’t a simple state of being. Autistic people vary greatly in how they are impacted by their differences — from highly articulate individuals living full lives and advocating for themselves and others to severely disabled autistics unable to communicate in any way.

So, how, is the average parent/teacher/youth mentor supposed to help the typical kids in their care understand a condition that is so complex? How do we explain it to the unaffected kids who will inevitably encounter other children on the spectrum at school, church, and birthday parties? How do we help them to become not merely tolerant, but to welcome their spectrum peers and interact with them?  Continued at WhattoExpect.com.  

I Love You. Drive Carefully.

drive carefully

This is an essay I wrote for my students.  At the end of each year, I printed it out onto card stock bookmarks and gave them to my classes on the last day of school.  

“I love you.  Drive carefully.”  These are the words etched on a cheap key ring that my Granny put into my Christmas stocking more than 20 years ago.  It was one of those $1.99 bargains that can be purchased from cheap mail-order catalogs.  At 16, I thought it was corny and probably rolled my eyes, but I dutifully attached it to my key ring.  Years went by, and it somehow made its way into the kitchen junk drawer.

A few years after my grandmother died, I was rifling through that kitchen drawer when I came across the now-broken key ring.  Now, having young people in my life that I care about, I realized the enormity of the statement.  I love you.  Drive carefully.

It wasn’t a reminder to use my turn signals or to stay one car length for every 10 miles per hour.  It wasn’t just about driving.  It was a plea:  “Please be safe.  I love you, and I cannot bear for anything to happen to you.  Yes, live your life.  You are growing up and behind the wheel now.  I cannot always be there to protect you.  So, please be careful.  You are precious to me.”

I took that key ring and put it on a ribbon.  I hang it on my rear view mirror now as a reminder to me that the way I live my life has an effect on others.  Just because I am not feeling overly careful one day, it does not give me the right to be foolish with my life.  There are others who care about me, need me, and would be hurt deeply if I were hurt or hurt others.  Every now and then, I look at that key ring and smile.  It is a constant reminder.

The school year has ended, and you are now leaving my little classroom.  However, know that as you go, you have left someone whom you have touched with your life – someone who cares very much about you.  Your face and smile tug on my heartstrings.  I want you to lead a happy, healthy, and successful life.  I want you to have all the wonderful things you dream of.

But, unfortunately, sometimes we make rash and foolish decisions.  We choose to follow those who do not have our best interests at heart.  We get mad and roar away in a car.  We choose what is easy — rather than what is right.  And we pay for those moments with our futures — and sometimes our lives.

As you leave here today, please remember:

I love you.  Drive carefully.

 

If You Were Cured Tomorrow

Callum says "Cheese!" for the camera when busted "redecorating" his bedroom.

Callum says “Cheese!” for the camera when busted “redecorating” his bedroom.

If you were cured tomorrow, life would be easier for you.  You could eat without ritual, go anywhere without fear, and would understand everything being said – even when it isn’t being said.

If you were cured tomorrow, people wouldn’t stare.  Your play would not be questioned and corrected.  You wouldn’t feel compelled to move and shout and seek in the ways that you do.  You would sit in rooms where people talked to you instead of about you.

If you were cured tomorrow, I would ask you to explain so many things.

If you were cured tomorrow, you would gain better access to all those beautiful dreams we wished for you before we knew you.

But, if you were cured tomorrow, you would be a stranger to me.  Living a stranger’s dream.  And I would never get to see you live the dreams you have for yourself.

If you were cured tomorrow, my worries would be eased — but my heart would be broken.

Because I love you.  You you.  Not some hypothetical you.  Not the you you might have been had you not turned out to be you.  It’s all very complicated.  And it’s all very simple.

If you were cured tomorrow, I’d miss you.