Autism and what to do
Have you ever thought a child has done something really weird and for no reason that you can see at all:? There is no provocation or anything leading up to it that appears to you. I remember a young boy of oh, I can’t even remember his age, just decided to go over to a child and hit them. The father asked the young boy why and he said he didn’t know. He didn’t have any reason. Just felt like it.
Well, with children on the spectrum this notion of “just doing” things is even worse! I can remember times without mind when Johnathan would say he did it because his head told him to! And you’d be like “What?”. The way he would be so matter of fact about it and like it was the end of everything was just beyond me.
There was one day Johnathan decided to wrap himself in my walker and put one leg through the brake wire. FORTUNATELY I happened on him BEFORE he started to walk with it. His head told him to. “No!” was my response. “You NEVER try to use my walker again.”
And even with my Lifeglider yesterday, he wanted to “have a turn” and so I said he could lean on the seat part ONCE and THAT WAS IT! He HAS to leave it alone. It is not a toy for a child to play with.
Do you know, I watch the advert on tv sometimes of the Quooker tap that you can get cold, boiling hot and sparkling water to drink, and I feel that we will NEVER EVER have one of those and if we ever DID move to a house that had one, we would be rid of it instantly. “Why?” you ask. “I can just imagine what would happen if we did. I know they say on the advert it is child safe, but it is certainly NOT with a child on the spectrum. They would see the adult use the tap and their head would tell them to do something with it that could be seriously dangerous to every one in the family, or at least burn themselves terribly.”
Fact is, I KNOW that when they have their head tell them something it is ALWAYS dangerous in some way. It’s not their fault and they are not doing it on purpose. It’s just what they think. And, as the parents/carers/guardians of these children we need to set things in place that keep them and whoever else is in the house, safe.