Annunciation

You may not know it, but this is one of the sweetest boys there is.

He loves hugging, holding hands and cuddling.

He loves Disney movies, animals (oh how he loves animals) and art.

He loves his little brother more than anyone in the world.

He is so gentle with babies and kids who are younger than him.

He wants to read so badly he sits up at night with his little library of animal encyclopedia's and repeats from memory what is written on each page.

He's just a great kid.

But a lot of times people get blinded by the "autism." They have a hard time looking past that and seeing that he's just a 6 year old boy who is kind but also wants to be batman when he grows up.

"He can't sit in his chair." "He talks at inappropriate times." "why doesn't he play with the other kids?" "Why doesn't he talk?"

We both get this a lot. And I want to scream and say: Do you want him to sit in a chair? Or do you want him to learn? Do you want him to make eye contact with you? Or do you want him to listen? For a lot of kids, you can't have it both ways.

Our ASD kiddos have so much to offer the world. While their speech may be at a 3 year old's level or even not there, their cognitive abilities are most definitely at their age level--or beyond. But most people can't see that, because you have to learn to look through minimal speech and wiggles.

A few weeks ago I was feeling frustrated that our FHE lessons are always a disaster, so I decided to put paper and scissors in Joshua's hands and see if that could keep him focused. And something magical happened: he cut the paper along the dotted lines, keeping his eyes down but he was completely present: singing songs, answering questions and adding to a discussion. It really did feel like magic.

So what's my point in all of this? I guess what I'm trying to say is why is it so important to sit down and make eye contact? Is that success? or just an outward appearance to please adults?

Our ASD kids brains are actually bigger than ours...did you know that? As babies their frontal lobe grows at least 2x faster than other babies.

Maybe we should use that. Maybe we should say eff society's expectations and use these brilliant kids to advance technology and science, art and literature, maybe even eradicate poverty...I don't know! The sky is the mother effing limit with these kids.

And who knows, maybe my son will be the next Batman.