I have a very "colorful" language. My family can tell you, my friends can tell you, the dumb a** who cuts me off then proceeds to slow down immediately can tell you and sadly, my children can tell you. I'm sure I should feel terribly guilty about that, but AWEnestly I don't. There are some things as an adult you have earned the right to do. After all, we have to have some things that we are entitled to still claim as our own. Things that separate us from our children. They take over the bed, they eat the last Oreo (and leave the empty bag in the pantry to taunt me), they get most of the paycheck and they fill up the DVR with endless episodes of Spongebob, Olivia, and Avatar, which by the way they have watched 50 times. So, during the week, okay fine, the two weeks, when perimenopausal PMS takes over my body and soul and my language is a colorful as a bowl of Fruity Pebbles, I rarely feel shame. I think it's only fair that my repertoire of colorful language is mine and only mine...until they become teenagers and take that from me too.
When we were told of Ryan's autism spectrum diagnosis, I had days of crying "Why him?", "Why us?". Following my sobbing days came my angry days and along with that anger came many colorful words. Which was why it was so shocking to me that the mother of all bad words did not flow from my truck driver mouth, but from the mouth of the wonderful, fabulous psychologist. Yep, she said it....THE F Word.......FRIEND. I will pause a moment while you recover from the shock. Believe it or not, when your child has an autism spectrum diagnosis, the word FRIEND (or any derivative of the word such as friendship, best friends, friends forever, BFF, etc) is as vulgar as that F word that rhymes with duck.
When we were told of Ryan's autism spectrum diagnosis, I had days of crying "Why him?", "Why us?". Following my sobbing days came my angry days and along with that anger came many colorful words. Which was why it was so shocking to me that the mother of all bad words did not flow from my truck driver mouth, but from the mouth of the wonderful, fabulous psychologist. Yep, she said it....THE F Word.......FRIEND. I will pause a moment while you recover from the shock. Believe it or not, when your child has an autism spectrum diagnosis, the word FRIEND (or any derivative of the word such as friendship, best friends, friends forever, BFF, etc) is as vulgar as that F word that rhymes with duck.
We were told that Ryan was bright, sweet and very high functioning, but chances were good that he would never cheer, "Woohoo, I love friends". As someone who not only uses a megaphone to cheer, "Woohoo I love friends", but does a back handspring and a herkie when it's time for a girls night out, I could not fathom my son never cheering THE F Word. THE F Word wasn't the least bit vulgar to Ryan, but it became a very dirty word for me.
The way autism effects the brain, makes communicating and interacting with people difficult. Since many kids on the autism spectrum have difficulty expressing and understanding language, learning the subtle rules and nuances of games and play makes forming friendships hard. Making and maintaining friends is a struggle. When making friends, almost all of us gravitate towards friends who have similar interests. For someone on the autism spectrum, this is a necessity. Some kids on the autism spectrum become experts in their area of interest so they may talk a friend's ear off about said interest, but often the interests are not common among most neurotypical kids their age. In addition, there is usually very little give and take in the conversation, it's more like they talk "at you" (my husband accuses me of this with great regularity, if it weren't for my pom pom cheering of "I love friends", I could be suspect for being on the spectrum too). However, for a kid like my Ryan, who struggles with idle chit chat, finding a shared topic of interest is the only thing that makes him the least bit interested in a (whisper) friend. If left to him, he would almost always prefer to be alone.
I'm pretty certain THE F Word has caused me more heartache than Ryan. For example, field trips are AWEnestly a form of torture for me. Yes, I no longer share the back seat of the bus with my friend Denial, but for someone who places friendship right up there with new shoes, field trip is another vulgar F Word. On field trips, there is not the day to day routine of the classroom which Ryan thrives in, but it is more of a fun, social time. Rarely does an 11 year old boy happily jump in the bus seat to sit next to his mother when surrounded by much cooler classmates. My boy not only jumps in next to me, he smiles from ear to ear as happy as Mario riding on Yoshi's back. The other moms all sit together, familiar with one another as their children are fri***ds. In some ways it fills my heart with joy that I bring such happiness and comfort to my son, but in other ways I want him to ignore me completely and jump in a seat next to some other video game addicted child. Ryan isn't completely ignored by the other children, but very few kids come up to chat with him. Being the nutso, whack job mother that I am, on one field trip I decided to keep track of who all spoke to him. BIG. MISTAKE. Not one child uttered a single word to my wonderful boy in 5 hours. As I tried to hold back the tears and the OTHER F Word as I cursed autism, Ryan asked if he could check out the weather app on my phone to see if the rain would subside before we went outside to check out the Native American Wigwams. He didn't even notice that he was ignored. I believe that Ryan has ignored his fellow classmates for so long that they have stopped trying.
I'm pretty certain THE F Word has caused me more heartache than Ryan. For example, field trips are AWEnestly a form of torture for me. Yes, I no longer share the back seat of the bus with my friend Denial, but for someone who places friendship right up there with new shoes, field trip is another vulgar F Word. On field trips, there is not the day to day routine of the classroom which Ryan thrives in, but it is more of a fun, social time. Rarely does an 11 year old boy happily jump in the bus seat to sit next to his mother when surrounded by much cooler classmates. My boy not only jumps in next to me, he smiles from ear to ear as happy as Mario riding on Yoshi's back. The other moms all sit together, familiar with one another as their children are fri***ds. In some ways it fills my heart with joy that I bring such happiness and comfort to my son, but in other ways I want him to ignore me completely and jump in a seat next to some other video game addicted child. Ryan isn't completely ignored by the other children, but very few kids come up to chat with him. Being the nutso, whack job mother that I am, on one field trip I decided to keep track of who all spoke to him. BIG. MISTAKE. Not one child uttered a single word to my wonderful boy in 5 hours. As I tried to hold back the tears and the OTHER F Word as I cursed autism, Ryan asked if he could check out the weather app on my phone to see if the rain would subside before we went outside to check out the Native American Wigwams. He didn't even notice that he was ignored. I believe that Ryan has ignored his fellow classmates for so long that they have stopped trying.
Just in recent months I have noticed a change in Ryan in regards to THE F Word. Ryan has had one friend for many years. Friend #1 is great because he loves video games as much as Ryan. Of course that is the ONLY thing Ryan wants to do with his friend unless we go bowling, mini golfing or to an arcade (and God bless his friend if he beats Ryan in any of the above activities). I remember once Ryan asked if I knew Friend #1's phone number. I high jumped the couch and knocked over the lamp in an effort to get to the phone. "OMG, he's not autistic, he wants to call a (insert 6 letter F Word here)"! I dialed the number and quickly reminded him of his phone manners only to realize he had never talked on the phone to a friend so he had no idea what phone manners I was referring to. He asked for Friend #1 then promptly told him all he needed from him was information on how to get to the next level of the latest Mario game he was obsessed with. Sigh. Well, while he didn't ask him to sit by him at lunch the next day, he at least learned a valuable lesson in friendship. Sometimes a friend knows a secret game cheat that you don't thus making that friend highly valuable. Friend #1 has stuck by Ryan through the years even though I'm sure Ryan has ignored him more times than he has acknowledged him.
In the past few months, a new bond has formed with a kind, big hearted boy in Ryan's class. Friend #2 has evoked changes in my son. Although Ryan has acknowledged to his wonderful speech and language therapist that he "doesn't know how to show interest in other people", it appears he is trying. About three weeks ago while Ryan was eating breakfast before school he said, "Guess what today is?". I wracked my brain for holidays, lunch menu items, new episodes of Spongebob or if an impending weather event was on it's way. These are typically the few things Ryan shares with me. You can imagine my joyous shock when he said, "MY FRIEND, Friend #2 has his book report presentation today." WHAT?! Not only did he remember Friend #2's name, he knew what day Friend #2 had his presentation (and it wasn't on the same day as Ryan's thus making it easy for him to recall) AND he shared it with me. That has never, ever happened before. Ryan said THE F Word and I couldn't have been happier or more proud. In fact, I wanted to hear him say it again and again!!
Yes, slowly, but surely, Ryan is embracing the idea of a friend, but he still has a lot of catching up to do. On a bowling outing with Friend #2, Ryan asked Friend #2 if he had ever watched the show Gumball. When Friend #2 asked Ryan if that was his favorite show Ryan responded with, "I'm sorry but I don't share personal information." While laughing and trying not to wreck the car, I was grateful for that moment and even more grateful when they came back to the house to play video games and really seemed to enjoy each other's company. In fact, when I went to check on them and saw Friend #2 kicked back on the top bunk with the Wii U controller in hand while Ryan was on the floor with the other controller, it looked so "natural" that I descended the steps in tears.
Maybe in time, when Ryan realizes Friend #2 is as safe and trustworthy as Kyle and Emma and when he discovers that Friend #2 won't tease him when he repeats The Angry Bird's Pig noise over and over again, or care if Ryan doesn't like showering on weekends, maybe then Ryan will share "personal information" with Friend #2. Perhaps one day THE F Word will mean as much to Ryan as The P Word...Pudding, or at the very least find someone he trusts enough to share his pudding with. In the mean time, his friend cheerleading mother must accept that THE F Word is not a vulgar word to anyone in my house, but me. The only F Word Ryan recognizes as a swear word is that F Word that rhymes with duck (fart has been acceptable in my home for years...big surprise). Yes, THE six letter dirty F Word is mine and only mine just like that last son of a *@#@**## Oreo was suppose to be mine too. I would love for Ryan to one day just do a small toe touch jump when he mentions the word FRIEND, however, I am slowly beginning to recognize that although he may prefer to be alone, rarely is he ever lonely.
Yes, slowly, but surely, Ryan is embracing the idea of a friend, but he still has a lot of catching up to do. On a bowling outing with Friend #2, Ryan asked Friend #2 if he had ever watched the show Gumball. When Friend #2 asked Ryan if that was his favorite show Ryan responded with, "I'm sorry but I don't share personal information." While laughing and trying not to wreck the car, I was grateful for that moment and even more grateful when they came back to the house to play video games and really seemed to enjoy each other's company. In fact, when I went to check on them and saw Friend #2 kicked back on the top bunk with the Wii U controller in hand while Ryan was on the floor with the other controller, it looked so "natural" that I descended the steps in tears.
Maybe in time, when Ryan realizes Friend #2 is as safe and trustworthy as Kyle and Emma and when he discovers that Friend #2 won't tease him when he repeats The Angry Bird's Pig noise over and over again, or care if Ryan doesn't like showering on weekends, maybe then Ryan will share "personal information" with Friend #2. Perhaps one day THE F Word will mean as much to Ryan as The P Word...Pudding, or at the very least find someone he trusts enough to share his pudding with. In the mean time, his friend cheerleading mother must accept that THE F Word is not a vulgar word to anyone in my house, but me. The only F Word Ryan recognizes as a swear word is that F Word that rhymes with duck (fart has been acceptable in my home for years...big surprise). Yes, THE six letter dirty F Word is mine and only mine just like that last son of a *@#@**## Oreo was suppose to be mine too. I would love for Ryan to one day just do a small toe touch jump when he mentions the word FRIEND, however, I am slowly beginning to recognize that although he may prefer to be alone, rarely is he ever lonely.
Ryan's best friends are his siblings. It would appear he is open to having one or two more.
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