Happy. Sad. Angry. Sleepy.
No, not the seven dwarfs. Emotions. Feelings. Those things that we all deal with every day.
It's like a foreign language for kids with autism, did you know that?
It's a fact I learned the hard way.
Kai doesn't understand emotion. His own or anyone else's. It's like being a foreigner in another country whose language you've never learned. (See "Welcome to Holland" poem for details.)
Conversations about emotions have always gone a little something like this: "It's okay, honey. Mom's just frustrated." "Oh. Kai fwustewated too, Mommy." "Ya? How come?" "I don't know."
It's not that he can't feel. He does. It's not that he can't empathize or sympathize. He does. He just doesn't know what it is. He has no clue how to identify any of the emotions.
After a lot of early intervention and therapy and feelings charts and discussions and play and LeapPad 2 apps, Kai has finally learned happy. He knows happy. He's GOOD at happy.
But human beings are not a single set dial on the radio. We are complex beings with complex emotions that reach far beyond the realms of "happy."
Understanding one emotion will not get a person far in this world.
Which is why I danced for joy in my front yard, not caring who saw me or what they thought, when Kai looked at me yesterday as he was helping my sister bag up the leaves I'd raked in to piles, and said "I'm mad! My shovel won't work. Kai is mad!"
His orange toy shovel had gotten stuck in the dirt of the front yard, and he couldn't get it out. He was angry.
AND HE KNEW IT.
I have never in my life been so happy to hear that someone is angry.
No, not the seven dwarfs. Emotions. Feelings. Those things that we all deal with every day.
It's like a foreign language for kids with autism, did you know that?
It's a fact I learned the hard way.
Kai doesn't understand emotion. His own or anyone else's. It's like being a foreigner in another country whose language you've never learned. (See "Welcome to Holland" poem for details.)
Conversations about emotions have always gone a little something like this: "It's okay, honey. Mom's just frustrated." "Oh. Kai fwustewated too, Mommy." "Ya? How come?" "I don't know."
It's not that he can't feel. He does. It's not that he can't empathize or sympathize. He does. He just doesn't know what it is. He has no clue how to identify any of the emotions.
After a lot of early intervention and therapy and feelings charts and discussions and play and LeapPad 2 apps, Kai has finally learned happy. He knows happy. He's GOOD at happy.
But human beings are not a single set dial on the radio. We are complex beings with complex emotions that reach far beyond the realms of "happy."
Understanding one emotion will not get a person far in this world.
Which is why I danced for joy in my front yard, not caring who saw me or what they thought, when Kai looked at me yesterday as he was helping my sister bag up the leaves I'd raked in to piles, and said "I'm mad! My shovel won't work. Kai is mad!"
His orange toy shovel had gotten stuck in the dirt of the front yard, and he couldn't get it out. He was angry.
AND HE KNEW IT.
I have never in my life been so happy to hear that someone is angry.
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