The other day when we were playing out on the deck (Joy was pedaling around the deck on her trike, woo hoo!), Rose asked an unexpected question.
"Do I have a little bit of autism too?"
I wish I'd thought to ask her what exactly was on her mind.
Instead I said something like, when someone has one little thing that's part of autism, we don't call it autism. You have to have a lot of things that are part of autism for it to be autism. But probably most people have one or two or more little things.
And then something else interrupted the conversation, I don't even remember what.
I hope the question comes up again, though.
I'd really like to know what was up.
7 comments:
I liked your answer, and not just a little. Barbara
Aidan asked me the same exact question about a year ago. I never found out why he asked either, and I wish I had.
My favorite time to revisit that stuff is at bedtime. Nothing like quiet and darkness (and the desire to stay awake as long as possible) to get a kid talking. I can't tell you how many times I've come back to old conversations - "You know, Ive been thinking about what you said ... What made you ask that?"
I swear, those are the best conversations we have sometimes.
Ps I loved your answer though. It's a spectrum after all!
how interesting
It would be interesting to find out what she was thinking about when she asked this.
Wow--she is one introspective little girl! We are dancing around this question with our 10-year-old and really having a difficult time because his brother's diagnosis is relatively new and we haven't explained it to him yet. I guess we are putting off the inevitable and your post reminds me that I need to plan this better.
My daughter adores her big brother and wants to have a brain like his, so my son has made my daughter an honorary autistic, which I think is super cute.
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