There are many myths surrounding spicy kids. My favourites are that all ASD children behave in set patterns.
E.g. ALL of them will avoid eye contact – I know of some pediatricians that are guilty of this one and have denied diagnosis on the grounds of ‘they made eye contact with me’. Let me tell you it’s bollocks. Fae children may not know how to make the appropriate amount of eye contact; for a long time my daughter was happy to stare into your brain and devour your soul. Recently she has decided that she will save this for people she is comfortable with, but the rest of you she won’t look at.
That they are either hyper-intelligent or unable to care for themselves. Again this is not true either. It is a spectrum, and as with any spectrum there is a range of abilities. It also depends on the topic. My 7 year old basically just taught the unit on dinosaurs for her teacher and certainly knew more about them then any member of staff. That doesn’t make her necessarily more intelligent or capable of surviving on her own. The only dish she could cook for herself (with the aid of a microwave and making a huge mess) would be porridge, and she can’t tie a shoe lace. Some areas of her development are significantly advanced, some are delayed.
And my favourite; they are anti-social and cannot make friends, nor are they interested in them. Oh, how much easier my life would be if this were the case. My fae child attends sports classes 5 days a week. This means I practically live at the gym, as does she. So every time we walk in the place, it is a given that she will meet someone she knows or a child that she has/had a class with. She is a bubbly, chatty, happy introvert.
I know you think I mistyped that, I didn’t. Like myself and her father she is, despite all appearances, an introvert and socialising burns out her spoons. She loves playing with children of all ages, from babies to teens, and won’t accept that it wears her out mentally and will mean she needs to crash. She masks exceptionally well, which means the only people on the end of her burnouts are normally myself and her father.
Still, getting her out the gym feels like playing bodyguard to a celebrity sometimes. This week I miscalculated after one of her swim lessons, and so we came upon the football changing venues as I was trying to get her out the door. A shout of “Hi Faechild” went up, and soon every child in the group wanted to stop and say hello to her. This was frustrating to the staff, who were trying to corral their charges into the new room, and to me as I tried to corral my distraction out the door. It took a good 5 minutes, and she still had to go back, because she missed speaking to one child in the group.
Honestly, she doesn’t care if we arrive and there are no other children around, because she knows that she will be acquainted with whoever walks through the door when they get here.
So, when it comes to diagnosis, can we please dispense with the myths and start taking a holistic look at these children? Stop just making snap decisions based on an outdated script that only ever fit one gender anyway, and was never fit for purpose.
Raising the Modern Fae 