Just wanted to get it off my chest.
I think I’ve mentioned a few times that my son is autistic. He’s now in third grade. We recognized it very early and we started right away with various programs, in home and a ton of hands on from mom and dad.
I feel blessed and wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve always been patient with kids (not idiotic, experienced adults, though) but this experience has taught me a ton more patience and empathy. It’s frustrating at times, we all want the best for our kids.
Part of us being blessed is even though he’s autistic, as many of you know, there’s a wide spectrum with different strengths and weaknesses. One typically common thread is poor socialization skills, difficulty with emotions. He does struggle with emotions at times, worse than typical kids but it’s manageable with some patience. I’ve always felt like you cannot pull a kid from their world to your world, you have to enter their world and hold their hand and guide them through. And that takes keen observation, understanding, a non-judgmental attitude and patience.
His current education team is really good, we meet with them, adjust his learning, the time allotments, etc. And we’ve got him to the point where most of his time is now spent with typical students, he’s pulled for areas of focus for one on one stuff (can read mechanically, but reading comprehension struggles, has trouble with some sounds so there’s some speech therapy, etc). He mixes it up very well socially with all kids, younger, older, teachers and school workers. He’s well liked because he’s happy and social and always smiling and joking. That part is very unusual for autistic kids.
He just had his testing where they measure him against typical third graders and for the most part, it’s what we expected. His struggle areas we were aware of and they’re only slightly below national average right now, which I’m ok with, as long as he progresses, which he is (drives my daughter nuts that we have different standards for the two kids, she better get straight A’s on everything, she’s capable).
But when we got to mathematics and all the subgroups, he only struggled with word problems, which makes sense since reading comprehension is an issue. But for the other subgroups, he was in the 95th-99th percentile among national typical third graders, which I didn’t expect it that high, but I knew it was pretty good. So I was very happy with that.
But tonight - he asks me. “Daddy, when did the USA become a country?” In 1776, Joey. Within 2 seconds, he says to me, no pen and paper … so the USA is 247 years old. I said ….. um …. Did the math in my head …. Yes, that’s right. Did you know that number by heart? “No, Daddy”. Well how did you know? He said because 124 plus 123 is 247.
I was stunned. Absolutely stunned. It’s the same way I do math. But I asked him to explain what he means. He said from 1776 to 1900 is 124 and from 1900 to 2023 is 123 and 124 plus 123 is 247.
I did not expect that. Sometimes they pleasantly surprise you.
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