Tag Archives: autism awareness for children

I Talked to a Bunch of Third Graders…and I Liked It

If you are a regular reader, then you already know I don’t often invite guest bloggers to post here.  But my friend Lizbeth who blogs over at Four Sea Stars wrote an awesome post today about a subject close to my heart — parents speaking fearlessly about autism directly to those who are in their child’s life.  I believe in this approach and have often lamented this wasn’t done for students I’ve known in the past.  Lizbeth’s approach to speaking with these kids was genius.  And she succeeded in positively impacting the relationships between her son and his peers.  She also made me cry. 

If you are thinking about taking this approach to helping your child’s peers and teachers better understand him/her, you need to read this post.  It will warm your heart. 

-Leigh

I went into school the other day to talk to Alex’s class about Autism.  Nothing instills fear in me as much as talking to a small hoard of third graders.  Kids—they are unpredictable, they are young and for the most part, they say what’s on their mind.

They scare me.

Earlier in the year we had an incident where Alex was bullied and that spurred the question of, “What do the kids know about Autism?  Do they know anything?  Do they even know he has it?”  The answers came back as no, no and no.  The kids knew nothing.

I though that maybe if they knew something, heck anything, there may be some compassion.  They may have some understanding of why he does what he does and maybe with understanding would come some form of acceptance.    

I’ll be the first to tell you, I worked with our school to do this.  Our teachers are great and in some ways I am really blessed.  They get it.  They get Alex.  They get me and they are willing to work with the things I suggest.

I had a PowerPoint presentation and from that presentation, I made a book for each child in Alex’s class.  I wanted each one of them to have something to bring home so their parents could see what we went over in class.  Truth be told, I did it in the hopes that the parents would know what I talked about, and maybe just maybe, there would be further discussion at home.

Anyway, it turned out to be really interesting.  And enlightening.  For all of us.  The kids were really interested.  The teacher had told the students on Monday I would be coming in, later in the week, and asked if they had any questions about Autism.  None of the kids knew a stitch.  They wanted to know things like:

  • Can I catch it?
  • How do you get it?
  • What is it and where does it come from?
So when I went in last week, we had the presentation on the White Board.  They use this all the time in class and it’s basically a computer screen on a white board (imagine that) on the wall.  The kids all sat around in a circle eating their snacks and before I could even start a boy asked, “What is it?”