Belief and autism

I’m not really sure how I will write this,.  It’s a bit unusual, actually and I can’t quite figure out the words to use.

It’s not something I had ever faced before, surprisingly, because I thought I had heard everything to me and at first I wasn’t quite sure how to take it or deal with it.

When Johnathan was younger and he had done something I considered odd, vague or even actually quite dangerous – like putting his legs through the back of my walker the wrong way round (and no, I have no idea HOW he did it, and probably he doesn’t either) and was just about to walk around the house when I stopped him.

Or even the time he decided to use his toothbrush to clean the bathroom walls and floor…anyway, any time something similar happened he would just look at me and say “but my head told me to do it” as though that was definitely the end of any argument and be totally confused if I continued to talk to him about it.

As you and I know, what they do at this point in time, is not sensible, won’t work or will cause hurt and distress to not only them, but others around them too.  So as parents/guardians/carers of these children, we need to be sure that THEY are safe and looking after them and they don’t need to worry.

I know it’s not an easy situation when you are faced with comments like that, but it is important to learn how to deal with them.  Personally, I ended up just saying “Oh, ok” at the time but later on, if I see he is in a receptive mood I will talk to him about the incident and let him know that actually what he planned to do wasn’t actually safe. 

And with the toothbrush incident, I talked to him about the fact we understand that he wants to help clean but that is not a suitable thing to brush the walls and floor with.  I applauded him for the fact that he wanted to help us in the house, but the way he did was a little misguided.  Next time he wanted to give us a hand, he would need to ask first.

So that is why we always have to know where our children are and what they are doing because their head might tell them to do something that isn’t safe for them or for them and others, including animals.