Thinking "outside of the box"

As I've mentioned before, one suggestion we received at the start of this journey was...."sometimes you have to think outside of the box". One thing we've learned along the way is that so many people try to cookie-cutter these kids into certain categories based on their splinter skills and/or development level.....while others automatically assume that if a child has Autism or some other disability, then they are automatically incapable of doing anything.....thus they give up on the child without even trying.

I know there are some children that are unable to do certain things due to their disability level, however I feel that it is wrong for a parent and/or teacher to just "give up" before they even try to start. I have lost count of the number of people I've heard say things like "oh, he'll never drive a car" or "he will never hold a job", or "he'll never....blah blah blah." -- how do they know that for certain? Do they have some magic crystal ball that allows them to look into the future? In my opinion, if you're going to do that -- then you might as well walk away now. As I said, I know some children may not be able to do those things due to disability level....however it's so important to not give up before you even get started.

In the beginning, my husband and I agreed that we wouldn't give up -- we would never say "Taz can't do (insert task here) because he has Autism" without at least allowing him to try first. If he tried and was unable to do whatever "it" was, then fine -- so be it, but at least we would know that we allowed him to try rather than just saying "he can't". We didn't want to put up walls or set limits -- in doing so, we would be telling not only him, but also everyone else -- that we'd given up -- that he was incapable of doing anything.....and we weren't ready to do that. Now we aren't living in some type of fantasy bubble -- we both know that there may be some things in life that he may not be able to do and/or certain things will be more of a challenge for him -- but no matter what, we will ALWAYS allow him to try.....because if we don't, then we have failed him as parents. Now, this leads me to the topic of this post:

"Thinking Outside Of The Box"

I've always believed that people can learn in 1 of 3 different ways:  (1) visually, (2) auditory, or (3) through "hands-on" learning. I am a visual learner -- I have to see things to better understand them. My husband is an auditory learner -- tell him something once and he understands it. I believe that Taz is a mixture of visual and "hands on".....of course he has an amazing photographic memory, thus in some ways the visual learning methods work for him (especially in regards to math), but for other tasks the hands on and/or visual learning works best.

I can't guarantee this will work for all Autistic children, but in Taz's case it did. We've discovered over the years if there is something that he likes, say Nascar for example....or a certain subject in school....then he seems to be able to sit still and stay focused for longer periods of time. Thus we've used that as a learning opportunity. As I mentioned before -- we decided to use his fixation of Nascar to help him to re-learn his numbers, colors, ABC letters, shapes, etc. and we've used Nascar in place of certain things for story problems in math. We've looked at other ways Nascar could be used as a learning tool as well.....

We had the same thought process when it came to dealing with his picky eating habits and gag reflex. We slowly yet repeatedly introduced certain foods and smells to him....in an attempt to reduce his picky eating, reduce the gag response, and also help to desensitize him to those things. He loved to be a helper -- especially in the kitchen. We had to explain that if he wanted to help, then he couldn't be gagging and vomiting all over the kitchen and food. (By the way, teaching your child things in the kitchen like how to cook, how to help with dishes, etc. are "life skills" that they will need to know once they are older). We also allowed him to help with writing out a grocery list and picking out a new food that he would like to try. During grocery shopping trips, I would have him look at the ad flyer to see what items were on sale, check items off of the shopping list, help sort through my coupon folder to see if I had a coupon for whatever the item was we were buying, put items into the shopping cart, etc.

Another "outside of the box" technique we tried.....planting a garden. I can not tell you how much this has helped! Yes he's still somewhat of a picky eater, but not as bad as he used to be....and his gag reflex is almost gone (once in a great while he will gag slightly, but no where near as bad as he did before). Not only did the garden help with those issues, but it also became another learning tool (there's that box again!). Planting the garden helped to teach him about science --- weather patterns, how plants grow, soil and water, etc. and also support the things that he was learning in school about the food pyramid, where certain foods come from, etc. So we had him help with planting seeds & plants, pulling weeds, picking vegetables, etc. We froze and canned a lot of foods, thus he was able to help with that process as well......yes at times he didn't want to help at all or would just dig in the dirt while the rest of us worked, but other times he'd run through the garden eagerly picking green beans and tomatoes. He loved to look at the seed catalog and help daddy pick out which seeds we would buy each year.

I still laugh when I think back to the first time he ate a raw green bean. We were all out working in the garden, Taz and his brothers were picking beans while hubby and I pulled weeds and picked other vegetables. All of a sudden I heard son #2 say "Eewww Taz, gross don't eat that -- it has dirt on it!" I looked up and saw Taz munching away on a green bean (picture Bugs Bunny munching on a carrot). Of course Taz ignored his brother, ate one bean and started in on the next. His brother tried to grab it away from him and once again said "gross it has dirt on it, don't eat that!" I looked at his brother and said "shhhh, leave him alone". Son #2 looked at me and said "but mom, it has dirt on it!" I motioned for him to come over to me, leaned down and said "honey a little dirt won't hurt him -- he's actually eating a bean, so hush up and let him do it!"

A year or so ago, Taz became fascinated with NASA and the whole space program.....yep you guessed it -- we decided to "think outside of the box" and that became another learning tool. We used his fascination with it to teach him about the space program, rockets, planets and the solar system, science, weather patterns, geography, etc. There are so many other ways to "think outside of the box" when working with an Autistic child. Some respond well to music, others respond well to writing lists or putting things into categories. Thus my best advice is:  find what works best for your child -- think about what they like/fixate over and then USE that to help them learn. Everything can be a learning opportunity -- whether it's teaching them about health (brushing their teeth, taking a bath, etc.), stranger danger, math, science, English, life skills (how to do laundry, balance the checkbook, etc) -- be creative......you never know what will or will not work unless you try!