Let Them Be Obsessed!

I'm a bit leery of traditional "therapies" targeted at kids with ASD. I agree with many who feel that the therapies focus too much on what the kids CANNOT do, and actually try to discourage the things that the child loves or is obsessed about. I think that the feeling there is that the kid will be picked on, or stick out, because they are SOOOO obsessed with X. They don't want other people to be staring at their kid, or they don't want their kid to be so obsessed. For some reason, this makes other people uncomfortable! Things get said, like, "WHY are you SO OBSESSED with that!!!"

Here's what I think. I think we need to indulge these kids more. I think we need to take their passions and obsessions and we need to find a way to make those things function in their daily lives. Your kid needs to do math homework, but is too obsessed with legos to do it? Why don't you use legos to teach the math? Why don't you bring the legos to the table, and use them as counting tools? I have found a whole link of things you can do to use legos for learning:
http://www.blessedbeyondadoubt.com/free-lego-printables-lego-learning/

My B loves it when we get to use legos with math activities. The first time I introduced the idea, I just asked him innocently to go get 10 items from his room. Then I though, make it 10 legos! So, it takes him a minute and he comes back with 10 legos.
We do the math activity, and it's awesome. We get done, and he's tells me to wait a minute, and BOOM, he makes a lego car. He didn't just go get 10 legos, he got 10 legos that build something, and he did it in just a minute. This boy knows his stuff.

Then I think to myself what lego can be teaching him. How things fit together, counting, adding pieces together, breaking them down to see if other sized pieces can replace bigger ones. He has some technic pieces now too, so he is learning gears and real simple engineering. I mean, this is fabulous stuff! Why would I tell him to stop being obsessed with legos? It's something fun, he enjoys it, it relaxes him, I hear him in there singing, and he builds the most interesting things! He comes up with an idea, he explains his idea, he refines it and makes it better. 

So you're kid is obsessed with being a cat? Let them be a cat! Count kitty food or something. There is always a way to use the kid's passions to help them succeed. 

Why would you tear a kid away from the one thing they love, just because you think it isn't normal? While you try to tear them away from their "thing", you are causing them an awful lot of stress that isn't really necessary. Again I say, use this to motivate them to do what you need to do.

I recently watch the video about the "boy genius" who's mom was told he would basically never amount to anything because of his "disability". Now this kid is absolutely genius. She gave an example that he loved to look at water in a glass (I think) so she just gave him a bunch of glasses with different amounts of water in it. That kid was learning something from that, why tear him away from it because you think it's weird? (Read more about him here and here. One particularly interesting quote says:

"She believes in a learning technique she calls “muchness ... It is finding that thing that children are truly passionate about within themselves. It can’t be something that you’re telling them to do. And then it has to be total immersion, very rich experiences built around those interests.” "

Thinking back on my life, I can see how some of the things that I was obsessed with actually turned into being some of my greatest gifts. I wanted the people I care about to feel good, to feel welcome, to feel loved. I always was doing little things or big things that let them know they were special to me. I was teased, told I was weird, obsessed. It didn't really stop me, but it did make me confused. If it made me happy, and was rooted in the fact that I wanted to make THEM happy, who is it hurting? I just didn't get it. Maybe I didn't always show in the most "socially acceptable" way, and maybe I was a little "too obsessed". But instead of maybe being taught how to be socially appropriate about it, I was just viewed as weird, or stupid, or crazy, or whatever.

I guess, in a way, I still have the problem of wanting to help people, but being misunderstood. I want people to know things that I've learned or read, so I tend to almost drown them with all the information at once, and a lot of arguments have been started because of it! I never have learned to tone that passion down. Though, once a person gets to know that I'm only sharing to share, and not sharing to judge, then everything is fine. I guess I'm more like a male in the respect that when someone has a problem, I want to offer my suggestions for them to fix it.

Which brings to mind a pretty emotional video that goes around now and then by Penn Jillette, who talks about a man who spoke to him after a show and gave him a Bible. He goes on to say something along the lines of "How much do you have to hate someone to not proselytize?" 

I tend to feel that way about almost every topic I get passionate about. How much do you have to hate someone to not show them your passion about breastfeeding and helping moms make that be successful? How much do you have to hate someone to not share with them better information about diet and health? How much do you have to hate someone to not tell them that smoking or porn is wrong and damaging? Do you see what I mean?

Let the kids be obsessed. Let them be passionate. Let them discover what they are interested in and then let their little world be filled with those things, but also let those things lead them in other directions too! We don't just start with legos and never advance to lego technic. We don't just let matchbox cars be the only thing that captures the mind, we introduce books on the subject, which leads to a love for reading! There are just so many ways to do things with a child's interest - and if you can't think of them, then google it! The internet is a wonderful place of information for times like those. 

Anyway. I hope this post (that was intended to be short, sorry!) makes sense.

Aspie Obsessions - Collections

I am positive that this is my most prevalent aspie obsession. I have rocks EVERYWHERE. You know how some people collect salt and pepper shakers, or bells, or coffee cups, spoons, or whatever, I collect rocks, and I use them for decoration. Who needs some stupid bell or spoon that says "Iowa" on it that is exactly the same as the one that says "Idaho" on it? What about a genuine ROCK from Lake Superior? I have a TON of those (many are agates!). Or even Lake Michigan! I don't have as many local rocks anymore, but my son is taking care of that particular collection just fine.

I had them in vases separated by trip, but I cant remember many anymore specifically, except in the first picture, the very large vase with the marbles and rocks is from a wedding of a friends' north of Chicago. The rocks came from the lakeshore of Michigan near there. Definitely different from Lake Superior rocks.

I have sand from White Sands in New Mexico, and on top of that are some shells that, to be honest, I can't remember if they were from a great uncle, or if they were from my grandpa's girlfriend. So, I have shells too. Not as many, because I personally have never been to an ocean beach with many shells. When I was at Cocoa Beach in Florida, I cannot remember seeing or picking a single shell (or rock, for that matter).

I LOVE sand dollars, and I have one that I bought that had the doves separated from it, was framed and had a story by it. I also have one that appears to have been picked, but I have no idea where that came from either.

Anyway, if you ever doubted that I have aspie obsessions, now you won't because this is probably about half of the rocks I have. After I took these pics, I found more in a box I was going through. Yup, there are quite a few, and even though I am very specific about which ones I pick, I still end up loving so many.

Obsessions and Cravings

Last night I felt like I had eaten a ton of food, but nothing was satisfying enough. I still felt like eating, I still felt hungry. It was a good thing that I followed through with my plans to make potato salad! I was apparently having my first unsatiable craving. Nothing but the potato salad made it go away! Finally, I felt relieved!

I was just going to post that as a non-Aspie related post, but I realized that with Aspie obsessions, it is much the same way. Whether its rock collecting, listening to music, collecting bottle caps, researching it, participating in it, or being around it, our obsessions are often insatiable. We often feel out of control, hungry, frustrated, anxious, or out of place until we can connect with that obsession. There is a complete to-the-gut feeling of incompleteness until we can participate in the thing that makes us relax, makes us feel happy, and makes us feel important and valued. Rock collecting isn't just rock collecting, it's food, water, and a skill!

With Aspies, I think you have to be careful of what you do to try to manage the obsession in question. Removing it, banning it or otherwise trying to prevent the obsession is going to make the person agitated, stressed, overwhelmed and panicked among other things. Putting limits on the obsession is fine (you may only put your rock collection in this box/jar/containter), but don't dump it out, scold the person for doing it, or make it a source of stress and arguement.

Anyway, I'm glad I had my first craving. I felt like I was missing out on a part of pregnancy that I see as really fun. I have been wanting to eat a lot more fruit and sweets than normal, but I guess because I usually have fruit in the house, I haven't had a problem not satisfying that craving. The potato salad is a process because it has to be made, and it takes a long time to make! So to finally get it made and eat it is so satisfying. I hope that craving doesn't remain all the time, or else I'm going to be super busy just making potato salad!!