Benvenuti!

Voglio dare il benvenuto a due gente chi sono divenuti membri del Autism Hub recentemente (anche se io non sono un membro). Sono già qualche mesi che leggo il loro blog e sono molto contento di sapere che ci saranno ancora più gente chi avranno il piacere di conoscerli ed il loro bambino. È anche una cosa meravigliosa che la comunità autistica sta cominciando a funzionare come una vera comunità internazionale. Benvenuti e grazie.

Milestones, they're not where you think

With a strange real-world/blogosphere synchronicity MK passed two milestones today, which boring NT textbooks would no doubt have spaced chapters apart.

I mention synchronicity because Marla had been talking about shoe tying skills. I got the impression that Marla thought ten was an advanced age to be learning to tie shoes. But it's one year earlier than the age at which MK started to make a serious effort in that direction. He got it, after a few weeks of practice on a thick shoelace tied to the fridge handle and another week or so of practice on shoe that had been placed on the kitchen table. He got it well enough, that is, that with a bit of coaching and the occasional parental finger to hold things in place, he could swing it (some post-tying tightening required at times). He rarely wears shoes with laces, so it wasn't much of an issue. Today marked a milestone because, waiting for the bus, I noticed the laced shoes he was wearing (because it was raining, which also explains why we were not on our bikes) were undone. I pointed it out to him and he tied them up. Completely unaided. Without so much as single verbal prompt.

The other milestone was opening a bank account. That's where we were taking the bus to. The timing of the bank account ties in with another milestone. Later this week, MK will be taking a five-hour plane trip to visit his grandmother, all by himself. This way he'll have a bank card to use if he does any shopping. He is totally ready for the trip, and totally ready to start managing a bank account (from now on, allowance will be by direct deposit). He is a boy with his head screwed on the right way. He is responsible, methodical, cautious and considerate. So I have much less apprehension in sending him off by himself, at age 12, than many parents whose kids tied their shoes at age five might have.

Actually, today there was another milestone of sorts. MK was given his first batch of French verbs to conjugate for homework. I was expecting a disaster, but he just sat down and did them. He didn't want or need any help from me, and he got them all right. That is particularly remarkable, as MK has yet to master English verb conjugation.

You are always hearing how things have to be sequential. How once skill builds on another. That may be so for some kids, but other kids have a more interesting approach to skills acquisition. Their lucky parents never know when they will have the sudden pleasure of watching them pass a milestone.

Winter Blues

It must be the end of winter or something, because everyone seems to be having their fair share of woe. My wife and I were talking today about MK's recent bouts of nervousness and his complaints about school.

I told her, "Don't worry, all my blogger-parent acquaintances are going through the same thing, so it can't be anything special that's happening to us." Though there have been some upbeat posts and some victories reported, Marla and Maizie, MOM-NOS and Bud, everyone's favorite troopers Nik's Mom and Nik, Joe and Buddy Boy, Casdok and C, and even Kristina and Charlie have reported rough spots. And there are other people who have not posted recently. As a policy, I'm assuming that is because life is too good to result in interesting posts -- familial bliss is a bit ho-hum to describe, after all -- but I'd be happier if I saw a few of those ho-hum posts, just to be sure.

In our house things are going well compared to last year but a lot of things are getting under MK's skin at school. His biggest complaint is that his aides are aiding him too much. In particular, one of them is always smiley and good humored, which MK describes as being crazy, and finds very annoying. I can kind of see his point, but there is not much we can do about it. I can't very well go to the principal and tell her to make my son's aide stop being so nice. Another recent complaint is that his friends will not play the games that he wants them to play. That's a pretty luxurious complaint for someone who had yet to make any friends this time last year. But MK doesn't see it that way. He finds it genuinely frustrating. On top of it all, a lot of his classes are boring. There is not a lot that can be done about a twelve-year-old finding social studies boring, but the upshot is that he is unhappy for a larger percentage of the day than he has been at any time since,... well, since about this time last year.

Once difference between now and a year ago, is that MK is able to express his discontent with much more precision. Last week, riding our bikes back from one of MK's daily therapy and tutoring sessions were we talking about languages (as we often do these days) and MK said that one of the languages spoken in Afghanistan was Dardu. When I begged his pardon and asked him to repeat it, he got mad and shouted, "Dari, OK. Dari! They speak Dari and Pashtu!" I complained that there was no reason to yell at me, as I simply had not heard. In fact, I was pretty mad. MK has been raising his voice more often these days when he cannot make himself understood. What he said in response really surprised me. He said that he was mad at himself, not at me. That he was frustrated with thinking one thing and having another thing come out of his mouth. That wasn't the surprising part, because he has often voiced his frustration about this. But what he said next was that he was working very hard on learning English, that he was studying the dictionary every day and listening carefully to the way people said things so that he could say it the same way. He said that he wanted to be finished learning by the time he turns thirteen. Here I have been marveling at all the progress he's been making in language and putting it all down to speech therapy and natural maturation. It never crossed my mind that he was deliberately studying by himself. Of course, it makes sense, who wouldn't want to sound like everyone else by the time they become a teenager, and who wouldn't be frustrated when that goal seems hard to reach. His thirteenth birthday is only a few months away, so that might be a bit ambitious, but by the time he enters high school one year later, I think his language will, in fact, be more or less indistinguishable from his peers (other than the fact that most of his peers probably won't know what languages are spoken in Afghanistan).

MK's SLP tells us that this is all for the good -- that a tolerable level of frustration is what drives growth and learning. This is probably largely true, but I wish there were a way in which he could overcome challenges without struggle, without self doubt, without boredom or frustration or anxiety. I guess that makes about as much sense as wishing for spring without winter, but I wish for it nonetheless, for us and everyone else.