“The drop slide is now open!”
My little boy came running over, telling me that he wanted a mark on his hand so he could go on the drop slide. It was his 9th birthday party and we had decided to hold it at a soft play arena. I gave my permission, and he duly got a little stamp on his hand. Happy as Larry, he ran off to the drop slide.
“Are you sure he’s going to be ok?”
My mother fretted over allowing him. I said he would be ok as that was what he really wanted. I followed him over to the drop slide area. I saw him climbing up to the drop slide edge and there he sat, looking over the edge. A bunch of kids started gathering behind him waiting their turn. He sat there and sat there, suddenly realising how scary it was for him.
I was at the bottom of the slide encouraging him, counting down, doing anything I could think of to coax him down. He still couldn’t do it. After a few minutes, I told him to let the other kids go as he was holding everyone up.
He kept queuing and sitting on the edge, unable to make the move. It was starting to near closing time, so I went up to the top and sat with him, telling him he could do it, counting down from 3 to 1 – still with no effect. Eventually, I told him to go down another slide, a more gentle one that I knew he had no issue with and that he could do the drop slide next time.
“I WANT to do it”
He started crying and saying “I want to do it”. I really felt for him. I knew he wanted to do it but it was hard for him. The supervisor of the drop slide was very patient and gave him the time he needed to sit there. She explained that he could push himself off the edge, then put his hands on his knees. There was another announcement that the venue was about to close.
Suddenly, WHOOSH, Lucas launched himself off the drop slide and went down. WOW! We were all a bit shocked. The supervisor started to close off the drop slide. Lucas loved it so much; he ran back up and did it one more time. This time, we managed to film it and you should have seen his face – he was beaming!
He was so proud of himself.
I was so proud of him. I was also relieved as I know that had he not been able to do it, I would not have heard the end of it, and we’d probably have to go back every week until he could.
“I can’t do this because I’m autistic -> I CAN do this because I’m autistic”
Many of the books I have been reading on autism have reminded me to focus on the strengths of the autistic person rather than the weaknesses.
Recently, I came across this phrase in the book “Different, Not Less” by Chloé Hayden. When you do this, Chloé said “Instead of thinking, I can’t do this because I’m autistic, the language will change to I can do this because I’m autistic”. I found this beautiful.
I believe that Lucas managed to do the drop slide because of his unique focus and determination, qualities often found in autistic individuals.