- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 3
- 1
-
Sparkle (1)
The autism spectrum is a dynamic place -- our kids fall in so many different places along it, and those locations can shift with age. Author Monica Holloway -- whose book Cowboy and Wills I frequently recommend -- is the mother of Wills, a thirteen-year-old boy whose diagnosis recently changed from autism to Asperger's. Wills has also wrestled with severe anxiety since he was an infant. I recently spoke to Monica about Wills, how he's doing now, how he's learned to self-manage his anxiety, and the supports and approaches that have helped him become "a happy child."
How is Wills Doing?
He's doing really well. If I had really known who he'd be today in these later years, I could have relaxed a lot earlier on. We're really fortunate, I'm really thankful every day that he's done so well. He's a perfect gentleman, Couldn't be sweeter.
He just turned 13, just started seventh grade, which means we're doing the adolescence thing. We're reading everything we can on Asperger's kids, high functioning kids with autism, kids in their teens. I'm really trying to help him understand what's going on with his body. I'm starting to go through menopause so I'm freaking out more than he is -- we're doing the hormone shuffle together.
His big thing is baseball now. When he started, he couldn't connect the bat to the ball. He asked us to get him DVDs of World Series games, and he enjoyed watching them and talking about them with his dad. What we didn't realize is he was studying the players -- how they stood, how their shoulders went back, when they swung. Then we took him to little league tryouts, even though he hadn't ever really caught a ball. We explained that he was new, and older, and some of the kids had been playing for a long time and we just wanted him to be aware of that. We also took him to an area that had a Challenger league, just in case -- but he got drafted right away, and hit a grand slam in his first game!
So, underestimating Wills is really not bright. And I know this. I asked him "where did you learn to play?" and he said, "well, you got me all those videos." It was like how I described in the book, when he was a baby: he would not walk, he did not crawl. And then, all of the sudden, one day he just got up and came around he corner into the kitchen, and looked back at me as though to say, "Aren't you coming?" I was in shock -- I'd never even seem him standing! He did everything that way, so it shouldn't surprise me. His therapist Katherine says his working through things he's been afraid of or hasn't been interested in before -- and then suddenly he can do them -- that it's part of his autism.
In baseball, he's learning all these fantastic things about being a guy -- about taking it when his teammates get on him if he messes up, and getting on them, too.
That's huge! The whole team social dynamic!
It is huge. It's what his therapist Katherine has pushed us to do for years.
He's now in a school with kids with learning differences, we've never done that before, it was time. Academically he's struggling a bit, but socially he's never been happier -- he's comfortable playing with his peers, where he used to play with kids two years younger, almost every time.
Sounds like he's really able to independently manage his anxiety?
Yes, most of the time. Our goal now is to help him learn to say something in the moment.
In the school play, he got cast as a girl's boyfriend. And she said "Oh, no!" and he was devastated -- but then he said, "Look, there are lots of people who are good friends of mine. And if you got to know me better, I don't think you'd have that reaction." The girl's reaction was, "I'm not kissing you!" And Wills said, "If you don't want to be my girlfriend in the play, how can I want to be your boyfriend in the play?" The teachers helped the two work it out -- but the teachers were really excited, and called to let me know that he's really learning to handle these situations on his own.
It's great that he's so self-aware.
I think it's part of the benefit of being in therapy since he was 18-months-old -- we
