Labels and Other Kids
The book "Quirky Kids" was a great book for me. For the first time, I was emotionally comfortable with a label for my kid. Asperger's. Technically, based on the DSMII (whatever it's called), he doesn't quite qualify.
But what the book illustrates is that kids in this category are famous for not fitting the mold of the category. Quirky kids are all over the board, Simon is a mismash of sensory issues, communication problems, etc. What's freaky about Asperger's is that you think you have the most excentric kid on the planet, obsessed with fans, memorizing books, good at computers, lousy eater. And then you meet another mom, and their kid is like my kid's doppelganger. My friend AK said her sons is obsessed with lightbulbs being screwed in. She said O (I'm not going to name names in this blog) will start a normal sentence and conveniently switch over to the topic of screwing in lightbulbs by the end of the sentence.
My son pretends he's a printer. A lazerjet printer or some such, and he'll find a cube of some kind and go back and forth and slowly release a piece of paper. If he can get the paper to come out of some kind of slot, that's ideal. It's fairly elaborate, and really looks like like a lazer printer with the lid off. But good lord, if you do something for hours on end, you do get quite skillful.
Simon can tell by looking at our ceiling fans if it's on high, medium or low.
Which reminds me of another friend of a quirky kid, same age as Simon, and his sthick is doors. So we're at some picnic and Simon is doing a safety inspection of the grounds and her son is working the doors. They were big, heavy, industrial doors, and he was only 2.5 at the time and he would heist open the huge door and dart in before the door slammed shut, and then repeat from the other side. And then repeat the cycle.
I said, "Wow. That's a heavy door, are you worried he'll get hurt?"
"Well, no" she said, "I mean, he is really, really good at doors."
K
But what the book illustrates is that kids in this category are famous for not fitting the mold of the category. Quirky kids are all over the board, Simon is a mismash of sensory issues, communication problems, etc. What's freaky about Asperger's is that you think you have the most excentric kid on the planet, obsessed with fans, memorizing books, good at computers, lousy eater. And then you meet another mom, and their kid is like my kid's doppelganger. My friend AK said her sons is obsessed with lightbulbs being screwed in. She said O (I'm not going to name names in this blog) will start a normal sentence and conveniently switch over to the topic of screwing in lightbulbs by the end of the sentence.
My son pretends he's a printer. A lazerjet printer or some such, and he'll find a cube of some kind and go back and forth and slowly release a piece of paper. If he can get the paper to come out of some kind of slot, that's ideal. It's fairly elaborate, and really looks like like a lazer printer with the lid off. But good lord, if you do something for hours on end, you do get quite skillful.
Simon can tell by looking at our ceiling fans if it's on high, medium or low.
Which reminds me of another friend of a quirky kid, same age as Simon, and his sthick is doors. So we're at some picnic and Simon is doing a safety inspection of the grounds and her son is working the doors. They were big, heavy, industrial doors, and he was only 2.5 at the time and he would heist open the huge door and dart in before the door slammed shut, and then repeat from the other side. And then repeat the cycle.
I said, "Wow. That's a heavy door, are you worried he'll get hurt?"
"Well, no" she said, "I mean, he is really, really good at doors."
K
posted by Kathryn711 at 9:20 PM
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