Things that make you stop and think.

Kids say the darnedest things

One of the exciting things about raising kids is that you're not sure what exactly is going to pop out of their mouths.

For instance, the other night, while watching the news with my oldest two sons, the younger one (who's actually the middle boy) asked "What is war?" So, after pausing the TV (gotta love TiVo!), we spent an hour discussing what war is, why it's sometimes necessary, but never to be loved. He just nodded his head after the discussion ended and then lay there watching the remainder of the news (now actually long over) with a thoughtful look on his face.

The one that really rocked me back on my heels, though, happened the other night. We were watching the bugs, and slugs, and worms and such wandering around the back yard after it had rained earlier in the day. For some reason, little boys just love playing in the mud.

During this playtime, he gets a thoughtful look on his face (which usually means that he's getting ready to cause trouble.

) He then walks over to where I'm sitting on the back steps and, with a perfectly straight face, he says, "I know that there is a God." After I picked my jaw up off the floor (more in a minute about why this is a little surprising from my 7 year old), I asked him how he knew. He grabbed my hand and dragged me over to where he'd been poking around in the ground. He pointed at the insects that were crawling around and said "These are how I know. They all have a job to do." And then he pointed at the trees and said that they all work together. And then he pointed at the rabbit hopping along the back fence and said that even "the bunny has a job." He was already picking up on the order of things in nature.

Now, why did this incident make me take a step back in surprise? Considering my son, I shouldn't have been surprised at all. He's been studying insects and animals in school (he's homeschooled). He's also a very bright child. He's only 7. And he's Autistic (Asperger's Syndrome to be precise). Other factor's in my surprise include the fact that, while my wife and I are religious and take the children to church, we don't force our beliefs on them and even expose them to other beliefs. We want them to make thier own decisions about what they believe. If they choose to believe as we do, then it's even better because it is their choice.

Anywho, after I got my mind working again, I gave him a big hug, a good job, and wandered back to the stairs. I sat there and watched my son, exploring the wonders of a world that suddenly had new meaning to him.

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WOW! I always wonder what kids think about

It's great when they think about the "good stuff"

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he's Autistic (Asperger's Syndrome to be precise).

Just curious, what are the traits of this syndrome?

Thanks for a good article too.

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Aren't kids great when they show us how to slow down and look at what really matters?

We had a child with Aspergers Syndrome on our baseball team last season. It was his first year playing ball (he didn't play T-ball) because of development problems. He is 9 and was playing with the 7-8 year olds. The other coaches were not receptive to him. He is a lot to handle. I coached the kids and ran the dugout during the games. I am too familiar with what happens when you box him in. All in all though, he was a great player! He struck out twice all season. He didn't always get on base but he almost always got a hit. I had a great time coaching him.

He was always very hard on himself. I never did find any information that supported the level of behavior that he exhibited. If he didn't make it to base he would say things like "I let my team down" or "I'm worthless". It really bothered me because it took quite a while to get him reigned back in and to help him understand that while he might not have made it to base, that another runner advanced or made it home. Is this behavior that you deal with? I ask because if he plays next year we will pick him for our team. He made great strides with us and he is going to be a good ball player.

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Hmmm... sounds like I'm going to have to use this as another article ...

Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. It's a form of high-functioning autism. The person with AS has many of the traits of autism, but they aren't severe enough to fully interfere with his functioning in life. These symptoms include a strong preference for routine (to include repititious sayings and mannerisms) as well as a daily routine that is difficult to vary from. There is usually one detail oriented interest that is taken to severe extremes. With some it's music. Others, it's math. I've spoken to one kid who had the train schedules for 50 major cities memorized. And he would call the stations to get updates.

Ask him how to get from NYC to LA by train, and he could tell you the entire route - to include layovers and time elapsed on each leg and the train & track numbers. He'd freak if you asked him about taking a plane, though. Another symptom is a difficulty communicating. Verbally, the autistic is well below his age group in verbal communications, if they can speak at all. For the more severe cases, speech is simply outside of their capabilities. The character that Dustin Hoffman played in Rain Man is an example of what's now called Classical Autism. There are other symptoms besides these, however.

AS has the majority of these same symptoms, just not as severe. The key difference between a high-functioning autistic and a person with AS is the AS person has fewer communications problems. They are still there, but there is a noticable difference.

Oh, regarding autism and IQ. In an autistic person there is a large difference between the verbal and non-verbal IQs. The non-verbal is consistently (and vastly) higher than the non-verbal. That's why some autistics seem normal IQ-wise, but have difficulty communicating and understanding non-verbal cues in discussions. In my son's case, he's been pegged at a near age level for his non-verbal scores. What this means is that he's scarily smart. He picked up reading within ... oh, what was it? 4 weeks of starting to teach him to read? He's 7 now and he's already halfway through the Harry Potter books (he's getting ready to start HP & the Goblet of Fire). So, some of what I describe in the article shouldn't really surprise me, but it does.

Just John:
The response that you describe is normal for an autistic child. They realize that they're "not like everyone else." In their minds, it's everyone else that's weird and they're normal.

But it is a normal response. It can, and does take a while. One thing to realize is that yelling and screaming won't help. A calm, reasoned response will normally work better. If the child withdraws emotionally (also a normal and typical response), let him. He's dealing with it in a manner that matches his thought processes. That's something that we deal with on a daily basis. In fact, it's one of the things that goaded us into getting him evaluated.

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Reply By: Chaos ManagerPosted: Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Hmmm... sounds like I'm going to have to use this as another article ...

Chaos, after I asked you, a friend sent me some information. Sorry, I did not mean to side track your article. But thanks for answering anyway. I should have said I had read the info on it. in another post.

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No problem. All that meant was that I had something to add to the List of Articles that I'm going to write (TM). I get a bunch of items for that particular list from other folks comments.

Hijack away!

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No matter whether Rain Man or a non autistic kid or grownup said these things, kinda likem cause they are so pure, obvious and simple. They do make me stop and think. Kids are like that often. A bug + tree schedule seems more acceptable than 50 train lines exact times. Both can easily become a part of ur life a bit more anytime. They do exist.

Uh, oh, Im late for the next thread starting on WC platform 26, hope its tree dont branch out into many bugs

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