Autism. School, imagination and HELP!!!
I could see this morning was going to be a difficult one. There were lots of protests about school from the very beginning. To make things worse, AP had to go out, so it was down to me to get him there.
Once I started seeing tears, I ditched the 'jobs' we were going to do together as part of the routine, and just read stories and played. I also decided to phone my mum and ask her to pray for us.
Just as Bright Eyes was sitting up for his snack, I heard a knock on the door. It was a beautiful KV friend who, knowing about yesterday's school refusal, said, "How did he go this morning? Was it ok?"
"No, he hasn't gone yet," I said.
She came in and had a really happy chat with Bright Eyes, asking him all about the Tintin book he was reading and generally engaging him. It seemed to take his mind off the whole deal, and once he'd finished his sandwich, he happily left the house and crossed over the road to school.
Yay friend, yay Mum, yay God and yay Bright Eyes.
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One of the imagination-developing things I've been doing is saying things like, "If I was an animal, I'd be a... giraffe, or dog, or whatever.... what would you be?" We have discussed what kind of cars we would be, what kind of shops we would be, what kind of lollies we would be.
So it was great as we sat together this morning that Bright Eyes said, out of the blue, and with no prior introduction to the topic, "If you could live in an imagination place, where would you live?" I had to think hard to come up with one, but said something like animal-land or something lame. He said, "I would live in fairyland with Brum and all the toys, so I could play with them."
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I've done a deal with the one of the most naturally talented ASD 'therapists' I've ever met. She gets Bright Eyes, and loves to play with him. Really loves to. (Or else is a great liar...) She's going to take him for an hour on Wednesday mornings, play with him (with RDI objectives in mind) and get him to school. In return, I am going to clean her bathroom on Friday mornings. I think that's a very fair exchange.