The myth of Socialisation

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. 

Parents evening

So, last night, I attended my daughter’s parents’ evening. This was an experience. I used to attend parent’s evenings all the time, but as the teacher – so it used to be an exercise in tactfully explaining to parents that the reason that their little urchin wasn’t getting the top grades in my subject (Science) wasn’t because I wasn’t teaching, but more because they were sitting in class scratching their arse, picking their nose or, on the rare occasions I trusted them to do practicals, burning their pens in the burners. So it’s always interesting to be on the other side of the fence. 

Last night, instead of how I have always had to conduct these conferences (in Arctic Halls or Sports facilities, with every other teacher in the school on tiny desks so we can all witness what the others are saying and – more importantly – what is being said to our colleagues) I was escorted to my daughter’s classroom, where her teacher went through her work to show that her handwriting was improving (there were indeed some recognisable letters now) and that she is blasting through her numeracy targets – not really a shock given her entire family is in STEM subjects. She then shows me the arts and crafts board. They are working on farm animals, and while every other child has made a fluffy sheep out of a paper plate and some cotton wool – with varying levels of disturbing eyes – my daughter has made a horse. 

This horse is a mini cereal packet attached to a large blue foam circle, two cardboard tubes for legs and a silver glittery pipe cleaner for legs. There had been a pencil smiley face scored onto the circle that denotes the head. I was glad someone told me what it was, because I would not have had a clue otherwise.  

She had also scrawled some red lines that apparently were supposed to be a sheep dog for the sheep on a piece of paper as well. I admire her spirit and will to think outside the box (honestly I think she’s lost the box – it may be the body of the horse) but when it comes to art, she makes a good scientist.

Backseat driving

Our daughter loves numbers. I have mentioned this on more than one occasion. Her love of numbers and sheer boredom in the back of the car has meant that she started taking note of road numbers. She then started taking note of the GPS in the front of the car. This child only has a tenuous grasp on left and right, but she will happily navigate you around her home town and the surrounding area. I don’t guarantee you will end up where you wanted to go, but, in the words of Dirk Gently, you may get to where you need to be. I think. 

She has also started arguing with the GPS about the best route, her Grandpa about the best lane to be in, and her father about the speed he drives at. She did think about having an argument with me about some point of my driving, but I responded by turning her music off and telling her if she did it again then we were listening to mummy’s music choice from now on, and she thought better of it. 

She is very insistent that you have to be in certain lanes travel at the speed limit and going in the correct direction, which is all very well, but as she doesn’t like the number ‘19’ (no idea why) and the main road that we have to cross to get anywhere from our house is the A19, this leads to multiple breakdowns as she screams that she doesn’t like the A19 and would in fact prefer to be anywhere other than on it. 

When I asked her for a solution to this problem she stated we should just engage the wings and fly. This is a feature I didn’t know our car had, but apparently it does and I’m either too stubborn or stupid to use it. 

She is also very certain that our car is the fastest on the road, the biggest and the best, and it can in fact eat other cars, as it is a shark-car – because it has a fin on its back. Trying to convince her that it’s actually a Honda Jazz and hence slow and small, with its only redeeming features being reliability and fuel economy, have fallen on deaf ears. 

Recently, she has also been having opinions on pedestrians, animals and cyclists we pass. I braked to avoid a puppy that looked like it was going to run into the road in front of us, and she decided it was a silly dog. When I asked in despair what I should have done, she said her imaginary friend would have got it.

I can’t wait for her to take her driving test, the instructor will say ‘look out, there’s a child in the road’ only for her to tell him her imaginary friend will save it and carry on. He will expect an emergency stop, and what he will get is an argument. 

Just don’t ask her to go on the A19. 

Books and butterflies

So, this week has been a little stressful. We had foolishly assumed with the recommencement of the school term things would settle down a bit. After all, I can drive again after healing from surgery (thank all the Gods I don’t believe in), half term is officially behind us, and routine can restart, right? 

Wrong. This week, there has been an interschool sports competition (she won a medal for winning the running race – this is not a shock) followed by world book day (I will be returning to this); her grandmother’s birthday; and as I write this, it is international woman’s day – which is being celebrated at our gym with a brunch. This means lots more people, food and general chaos. 

Seriously, I have never seen it this busy. We have had to fight for a table, but I once again digress.

So last week, with the knowledge that world book day was approaching, I asked my fae what books she liked and she blinked at me. I tried to explain that this was a day to celebrate books and what we enjoyed about books by dressing up as something from a book you like.

More blinking and then….

“Butterflies.”

Ok, Butterflies, when it comes to books, you like butterflies. So, we find an acceptable butterfly costume (a set of wings and a headband) and then set about rummaging through books to find an acceptable match. Yes, I know, this is not the way round you are supposed to do world book day. I doubt I am the only parent, and even if I am I don’t care, she has a costume she will wear and more importantly one that, after the photos are taken, she can remove and still be fully dressed. No, I’m not making her change. 

So she went as a character from the ‘very hungry caterpillar’. 

She liked the wings so much she wore them to football that night. 

It’s a hamster!

This week is, much to my dismay, half term. This is not normally something I dread, but right now, I am still very much in recovery (who knew having an organ removed was such a big deal?) and our direct payment support person has suffered three bereavements and so is unable to help. If it wasn’t for the support of our fae’s grandparents, I’m not sure we would be coping at all. 

Still, in an effort to not win the medal for most disengaged parent of the year, I did take my fae to the local ‘leisure farm’. This is, basically, a place that has sheep, goats, three pigs and a lost horse, in fields that are progressively getting smaller to make way for various activities such as rabbit and guinea pig petting, a sand pit & playground, and the saddest excuse for a soft play I have seen outside the local chain pub. 

Still, we paid a pound so she could have the honour of feeding their food to their goats – and that has to be the biggest con on the planet; you pay to go in, you pay to buy the food FROM THEM to feed it to THEIR animals.

I’m digressing, anyway, we went, and as it has been some months since we last attended – I think the last time was to collect (sorry, pick) a pumpkin off their field for Halloween – she spent a thoroughly joyful two hours running round exploring the play village (note to self: never live in a house she builds), playing in the sand pit, getting mud all over her shoes and consequently the slide, which she then cleaned off by going down it again and transferring the dirt to her trousers, and eating chocolate cake. Each change in venue was preceded by a happy chirrup, well, more of a demanding drill sergeant shout of ‘follow me guys!’ as we were matched off. 

So, myself and her grandparents trudged around after her, and tried to direct her attention to the things that we thought she might find interesting. Like the 9 day old piglets: “but mummy look at the POO!” Or the quail in the hatchery: “LOOK AT THE RATS!”. On the way out, she batted her eyelashes and managed to convince her grandmother to buy her a toy. She chose what I thought at the time was a little cuddly guinea pig. 

When she placed it on the counter to pay, it squeaked. Wonderful, it’s a squeaking guinea pig, just what we need. Well, she seemed pleased. On the way back to the car, she informed me it’s a baby hamster. Then asked what you call a baby hamster. Which lead to a frantic google search, as my memory failed me. It turns out it’s a pup. All well and good, but what she was holding was, in fact, a baby guinea pig. And while logic would indicate that an infant of those would be a ‘piglet’ it too was a ‘pup’. When I informed her of this, I was told I was silly. 

So, now she is attached to an oversized baby hamster that is actually a toy guinea pig, aptly called ‘Squeaks-a-lot’, which she has made a collar for from a bangle-making kit, and is dragging down the drop slide in a soft play. I’m not sure what Squeaks-a-lot thinks about this, but I’m happy it’s not me. 

I miss term time. 

Shh, I’m huntin’ shops.

My fae has an unquenchable need to run. It doesn’t matter where we are, or where we are going, she needs, Needs, NEEDS to run there. If we are going nowhere, she will run in circles. Recently, she has announced that she is not running but hunting. I asked her what she was hunting, and all I got as a response was ‘hunting’. 

This reminded me of an old Looney Toons character, and if you too are old to remember Elmer Fudd, then you too have a back that aches. AND you will realise why I immediately had an argument with my husband about whether it was rabbit season or duck season. Our fae then told us both to be quiet and we were both wrong. When asked again what she was hunting, we were once again informed ‘hunting’ before she turned into a fae shaped blur and headed off down the path. 

There is a reason that she goes to gym and sports classes 5 days a week. Mostly it’s self defence on my part, and the belief that the house would not survive if we tried to contain her in it for anything other than the occasional meal and sleep. 

Today, she was hunting on the way to school. She was hunting by running fast and screaming, when my husband – who was taking her – pointed out that all animals that were huntable would be timid things, scared off by loud noises and fast movements. She gave him a withering look and informed him she was ‘hunting shops’.  It was then pointed out that shops are, in fact, very easy to hunt, will not move out the way, and do not in fact require speed and/or power to track down. They, in fact, don’t move, and will be there regardless of whether you run or not. This earned him another withering glance, and she marched into school with no more said on the matter. 

So, either she knows something about the successful tracking and subduing of commercial centers that we don’t, or hunting means something totally different in the world of the fae. 

My money is on the latter, but when it comes to my daughter I never rule anything out. 

Sneaking food

My daughter has some eclectic eating habits. This is not unheard of for children who are as spicy as she is. In fact, it is not unheard of for children at all. (I actually think that the only reason that it is not seen in adults so much is, adults have more control over their own diet and won’t buy food they have no intention of eating in the first place. So it’s still an issue, but better hidden.)

She does, however, love stickers, and her school dinner ladies give stickers out to any child that finishes their lunch. She wants the sticker, she doesn’t necessarily want the lunch. For some reason, the chocolate chip cookies in particular have offended her. 

She always has the option of eating her packed lunch, but this is something she’d rather keep for what she calls ‘a little snacky’ on her way home from school: she will picnic on it as we travel back. I should emphasise that she only has the maximum of a 20 minute journey home, but apparently this is long enough to require the contents of her lunch box. Or, at least, the parts that she hasn’t shed over the car’s interior. I am waiting for us to have mice in the back, given the amount of food that is there. 

With that in mind, she has taken to having school lunches, disposing of enough of the main course to constitute ‘finishing’ it, and hiding the cookie in her lunch box under her ‘after school snack’. At least, that is what she has told the staff it is. 

She has repeatedly come home proud of her stickers, with a lunchbox containing contraband. We now have enough individually wrapped cookies to start our own breeding program with the things. At one point, I asked her if that is what she was planning on doing with them, but she just blinked at me and went back to her trainset.

Still, she got another sticker today. I hate to imagine what she has done with the rest of the food. I just hope she has found a hungry friend to feed, because if she hasn’t, there is going to be a very smelly plant in the dining room after half term.

Being Good

My daughter has found a new game to play when out in public, and I have to say I’m finding it hilarious. 

It’s called ‘being good’. The rules seem to be reasonably straightforward: when in public or semi-public situations and there are other children around who are “acting out” a little, make sure you are very ostentatiously being good. The more obvious the better. 

We were in the changing room after her swimming lesson and a little girl was running her poor mother ragged. She was hiding in lockers, running through the locker room, and generally doing anything and everything that she shouldn’t be doing. The mother was trying to get them both dressed and their hair dried, only to be met with insolence and disobedience. So my little cherub felt this would be an appropriate moment to emphasise her RP accent (we now live in North Yorkshire) and do everything in her power to show how little girls should behave. I had this blue eyed, blonde hair angel drying and dressing herself, asking if she could return her towel to the drop off, take herself to the loo.

Each action was a preceded with a “Mummy can I….?” and a big grin when she was done. She sat quietly while I brushed her hair out and wrapped it (she doesn’t do hair dryers) and she then collected all her belongings to leave. The final straw, I think, for the other parent, was when her child started to pull part of the wall apart, and my daughter turned to me and asked if she should carry all her bags as I have a ‘poorly tummy’. 

I could feel the resentment whilst I tried not to laugh. I had to cave and explain to the mother that this was her idea of a joke, and the seething expression of hate I was now getting from the other mothers was amusing to her (me too). 

On the way out, we passed another mum who was loaded down with her son’s bag, tennis racket, sports bag as well as her own gym bag and handbag. He then asked her to carry his drink and she looked at him amazed and asked him ‘how?!’ He huffed and marched away. She looked at me with astonishment and asked if they think we are made of arms. At which point, my little darling with her shining halo (balanced on pointy horns) appeared, dragging ALL her belongings. The lady looked on, amazed, from me to her stroppy preteen who was still protesting about carrying a drinks bottle. 

“How did you do that?!” She asked me, stunned.

I came clean.

“This isn’t normal, I had a hysterectomy last week. You have to lose organs for kids to be this agreeable, and it only lasts a fortnight.” 

We left a trail of stunned adults and raging kids who had been shown up.

I could feel the hate.

It was nice. 

We got home and she screamed until bedtime because I cruelly asked her what she wanted for dinner. The game is only played in public, sadly.

Which is your child?

My daughter loves spending time doing classes at the gym. This has been something of a saving grace while I recover, but it’s also great for her: it gives her somewhere after school to burn off her energy – after spending the day doing things that may be mentally stimulating, but not so physically demanding. She does five days a week there, including the weekend, and more than one class a night on some days. 

I used to feel guilty about exploiting the gym, until one of the instructors told me she should do more, because they all love having her in class. So now, I shrug and sign her up to anything she shows an interest in. As I write this I’m clockwatching to make sure that she makes it to today’s class on time. This will require wrangling her out of soft play, down to the changing rooms, into her gym stuff and back to the tennis courts. 

I like her Wednesday night session the best, because the court they use is overlooked by the cafe. So I can sit and watch her, and see her interact with children who are not (necessarily) spicy.

Last Wednesday, I had a table by the windows to watch in that manner. A lady, who was obviously another parent, started hovering, and it became clear that she was doing the exact same thing that I was: wanting to watch her little one in his class. So, as I had the best table to spy, I offered her a place.

This, unfortunately, meant that she felt I was friendly and open to chatting, despite my Ipad open in front of me and a veritable wall of tech between us. She didn’t even seem perturbed that I was wearing headphones AND earplugs – from what I can tell as her lips kept moving. After five minutes of nodding, I sighed and gave her some of my attention.

From what I could gather, she was worried her child may have ADHD, and would not necessarily do what was asked of him in his tennis lesson. I nodded along, and told her how good the staff were here and not to worry. I explained about my own fae child, that she was in sports club, and that the staff coped admirably. She asked me which one was mine as the children were lining up for an activity.

I turn, look and sigh.

”The one with the rubber mat on her head.”

She laughs before looking, and sure enough, out of the group of thirty, 29 children are standing on their rubber mat that denote where to be. And my fae child has picked hers up and is wearing it as a hat. She smiles and waves at us, and then takes her ‘hat’ off and bites it. Apparently, the texture or taste is acceptable, because she spent the rest of the activity with it hanging from her mouth. When told by a member of staff to return it to the box, she barked before doing as asked. 

She asked me what Chinese year we’re in this year (the snake if anyone cares) and that prompted me to look up what year she was born in. 

The dog. Figures. 

Social Story Saviour

After explaining to our daughter that I was going to hospital for surgery soon, trying to soothe the resulting anxiety beast pretty much brought us to our knees. So, we reached out to her school teacher and asked for help.

I have to say that, despite any conflicts we had with the teacher she had last year, THIS year’s teacher is amazing. She gave us links to outside agencies that would be able to provide support, and took our Fae aside during school hours to explain what was going on. 

She also made what we found out was called a ‘social story’: a laminated booklet containing simple pictures and sentences explaining, from my daughter’s point of view, what was going to happen. It explained that her mummy was going into hospital; that she was having an operation to make her better; and that the doctors and nurses would look after her and make her well.

It went on to show photos of her grandparents and father, as people who would help both her and her mother – by taking her to and from school and clubs, and helping her mum recover. It gave her details of how long to expect mum to be in hospital, and how long the recovery would be – all with little pictures and, where appropriate, the photos of her family inserted. Finally, it gave her ideas of how she could help her mother recover, and what she could do to make life easier.

She clutched this thing like it was a bible, and kept referring to it. She was very happy when my mother arrived before the operation, as this was stated in the book. Seeing that reality was following The Book’s course of events gave her faith in the “map” it presented, and it was almost like watching the anxiety melt away as she began to trust there was a clear and planned pathway that we were now following along.

She still didn’t approve, and was unhappy with the idea of me not being there for one night, but she was no longer so worried about it, more like she was put out about not having the requisite number of cuddles and stories. It was a game changer, and something that I will be using in future if we know there are disruptions to routine coming up.

The change between the night of my operation and the morning after were also stark. I managed to FaceTime her before breakfast in the morning to wish her happy birthday. (Yes, my surgery was timed just that well!) She promptly talked me through the new toy animals that had arrived with her latest magazine, and explained that she and daddy ate their own body weight in popcorn the night before whilst watching a movie. What’s more, after barely eating for an entire week, she devoured breakfast. 

So, the relief was real. At this point, as a public service announcement, I would like to say from my experience it was not a good idea (in fact it may have been a decidedly bad one) to attend a birthday party for a manic 7 year old less than 24 hours after having a hysterectomy.

Lives and learns.