Imposing One's Will on Autism

Today Logan and I hit the mall after I picked him up from the clinic.  We like to cruise the mall, pretend we are in the big city.  With all the glitzy storefront stuff and pedestrians, you get the illusion of street walking but with the "safety" of mall cops and lots of air conditioning.  And you can buy Great American cookies, conveniently located in the central atrium.  They also have a great indoor playground that Logan likes.  I figured out that if you park at Sears, you get in right next to the playground, and Sears has a quiet restroom for Logan and also free shopping carts so that I don't have to load his huge jogging stroller into the car each time we go.

Today we had a great bonding time there.  This time, he actually shared some chicken nuggets doused in Ranch with me from Chik Fil A.  I haven't had luck with that til today, so I'm glad he ate some real (okay, more real than McDonald's) chicken and not just sweets.  He maintained loads of eye contact as he sat calmly beside me on a bench while a young boy played piano in the food court.  We also shared a jr. cone.

Then at the the playground, Logan bounded right in with the other kids as if no time had elapsed from last summer to now.  And I didn't have to coax him or show him what to do at all.  Last summer I would have to kind of help him warm up and remind him, almost hand-over-hand, of how to play.  But today he climbed into the treehouse, slid down each side, ran up the bridge and down, ran up the waterfall, climbed the little mountain, and perched on the tent all by himself.  One thing I kept reminding him about were the tunnels, but I didn't need to demonstrate this time.

Logan can't converse or do much talking at all yet at nearly 6 years of age, but on these days when he looks me right in the eye and smiles, checking in with me throughout a shared meal, and when I can hand him a bag of our trash and ask him to throw it away without hand-holding, and when we can enter stores without a meltdown or having him endanger my wallet by continually pulling delicate things off of shelves, and when we can just enjoy each other's company as we drive through the country in the truck (which he prefers over the van), and especially when I see him playing on a playground, doing what all other boys do without any overt signs of autism, I feel such a warmth inside and I feel hope and faith that he is really going to make it, and that he is going to be more than okay.

These things are more than I might have hoped for just a couple of years ago, when we weren't sure if he would look into our faces again with recognition.  Before ABA therapy, all we had was screaming one dark summer, just constant stimming with him stuck in a trance, opening and closing doors or drawers ad nauseam.  In those days, we could not get him to acknowledge our voices, to show any sign that we said something.  So now, just hearing him say "Hi Daddy" is something to be thankful for.  Nowadays he looks at us when we speak, and he obeys (pretty much) when we tell him to do something.  Nowadays he can use a word (usually he needs a prompt or hint of the right one to use) to request something.  But at least he knows that he needs to verbalize in this life, and at least he is willing to try.

Autism can manifest in so many different ways that I can't speak for anyone else.  There are some accounts I've read that in part mirror Logan's condition precisely, but in others are much worse, and in still others much better off than his.  For instance, some cases have the classic "doors and drawers" fixation, the lack of verbalizing and loss of eye contact.  But then I've heard about many children who also have severe bowel troubles and a hugely restricted palate.  Others cannot stand to be touched.  I am so thankful that Logan has not had these struggles to deal with.  But then again, some of the kids with those hardships have learned to talk much earlier than Logan.  So each kid on the spectrum is unique.

I do know one thing:  with this condition, you cannot leave the kid alone to "develop at his own pace" or march to the beat of his own drummer.  If you do not intervene and attack this autism with as much effort, creativity, and persistence as you can summon, and enlist all the hired hands that your retirement funds can afford, then there is a strong possibility that the child may get stuck in a very scary place, cut off from human contact.

When Logan's symptoms first began to show (before the family physician even intimated we should get him checked for autism), I just thought he was introverted and that I needn't get up in his face; let the kid alone to do what he wants, right?  Why impose myself upon him if he prefers the toy.  But when it became obvious that objects were totally engrossing, and in fact that we ourselves had nearly taken the status of objects in his mind, then I realized (with ABA training) that the only chance Logan has of developing a human will is for others to impose their human will upon him.

You have to "get up in his face" constantly, and pull him up out of his comfort zone.  You have to show him that what's going on out here among people is way better than whatever endless loop is playing out in his mind.  He has to be rewarded for engaging with us.  He has to trust that all good things come from us.  He has to learn that sticking to his self-stimulatory patterns, even though they may be soothing and comforting in the face of uncertainty or demands put on him by life, will only keep him stuck in an unpleasant rut.  He must be convinced daily that that rut is not preferable to what's going on out here with people, as challenging as that may be.

In the early, early days (and still to a large extent with any new multi-step task that most of us take for granted), Logan had to be taught how to figure out each miniscule detail of any process that other kids learn simply by observation and imitation:  toothbrushing, lifting a fork and piercing a chicken nuggest, dipping it in sauce, picking up a handful of CheezItz and putting them in a bowl to lift to the table, matching puzzle pieces after first learning that a puzzle is not something to chew on or simply flail pieces around with.  Now Logan can do all those things, and he understands the concepts of each thing as a whole, and even understands the verbal prompts involving these simple processes.  Today Logan can even dress himself, which we can thank our nanny for helping him to do each morning before school.  But with Logan, he would balk and fuss and whine and even scream to avoid these simple demands made on him, things that are reasonable to expect from any human being.  Today he does them willingly.  Not so just a couple of years ago (or for certain tasks, just a few months ago).

Thank the Lord for His Will imposed upon ours, so that by Him not leaving us alone to do whatever we like, we learn to like what is worth liking; and in accepting His demanding Will, we learn to toughen up enough to have a will of our own, that we may become a Self that can be known and can better know others.  Thank God for His humanity, for His human reason, for being a Man, for walking among us, for showing us how it's done.  Thank you, Father, for extending your mighty hand to work wonders even today.

[The mall playground photos were made 1 year ago, and the last photo is from May 3, 2013]