Ian's school-camp ended last Friday. It's really his same old school, but without homework. We call it school-camp, so he can pretend that he has camp like his brother Jonah.
Of course, it's nothing like Jonah's camp. Jonah spends the day in the sun getting brown like raisin. He's in the pool, making lanyard bracelets, laughing with friends, and spitting out watermelon pits.
At school-camp, Ian is walked over to a town recreaction program for a couple of hours, where he and his friends sit on the outskirts of the action. Then he goes back to the classroom for speech therapy, handwriting lessons, and math review. There are proper camps for kids like Ian. However, they are very, very expensive. I always feel guilty that Jonah gets all sorts of experiences that Ian doesn't get.
When school-camp ended, Ian rejoiced. He really just wants to play video games and draw pictures and hang out with me. A little computer time is fine, but he we can't let him play Plants vs. Zombies for six hours straight. To distract him from the computer, we keep on the move. He saw the Smurf movie with my mom. We went to Barnes and Noble, the swim club, and the nature center. We went to IKEA for breakfast this morning. After a quick shove out the front door, he always has fun, but sometimes it does take a shove to get moving.
It's lonely, because he doesn't know any kids his own age. His school is 30 minutes away, and his classmates are spread out all over the area. There are no playdates. No neighbors to horse around with.
It will be easier next week, when Jonah is home from camp, too. Ian blends into Jonah's playdates, and Jonah has the patience to play board games with him. I, on the other hand, lose my mind when playing a game with a kid who is unable to deal with random actions.
All week, it's been just me and the kid roaming around New Jersey looking for fun.
Apt. 11d 
Couple of suggestions. First, as far as games? Minecraft. I think it will make you feel good in terms of it being constructive, creative, so on. I really don’t think it’s much different from sitting a kid down with clay for six hours. Would you feel bad if a kid made a whole clay village after six hours of work and it was aesthetically interesting? No? So what makes software different if it amounts to the same thing?
Second, maybe find a gentle way to allow some kind of online connection or conversation in a very controlled way? I’m starting to let my ten-year old experiment with a kid blog, with certain online communication, etc.–she sits right behind me and we talk about what she’s doing, but it’s a way to open his communicative world.
Third, maybe a shared project? I know it sounds good and is hard to do. We keep putting off our next Mindstorms robot and the things we’re planning to write together, but even talking about them is nice. Maybe it’s because I’ve cultivated my connection to kid culture, but I really think it’s not that hard to get yourself into a space where a kid’s creativity and yours are at least somewhat proximate, where you’re not just doing a project *for* them.
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The kids last camp ended last week. Our high temperatures have been hovering around 109 degrees and the kids and I just finished up watching all three extended-length LOTR movies. We also have started watching cute cat videos and Cake Wrecks (quickly scrolling past anything inappropriate). The kids and I love Basement Cat and Monorail Cat.
http://icanhascheezburger.com/cheezburger-confidential-basement-cat/
http://icanhascheezburger.com/monorail-cats/
More educationally, my husband was doing an experiment with the kids where they filled a syringe with 10 ccs of water and then froze it and thawed it to see what would happen to the volume.
School starts in about 10 days, but the kids have been out of school since around May 26.
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Yes. We know all about Minecraft. Today, ian hacked into Jonah ‘s cellphone and found the codes for multiple-player game in Minecraft and found his way into a room with people using inappriate language that Ian will use in very inappropriate ways at school, which will lead to group meetings at school where administrators will question my parenting. (yes, that has happened.)
Ian isn’t like other kids. He is a savant on the computer. He is very bad at social skills. If he’s on the computer too much, his social skills regress. Now, unlike his school, I think that Ian shouldn’t always have to do stuff that he’s bad at and never do stuff that he’s good at. But there has to be a balance.
It’s very hard to do joint computer activities with Ian on the computer, because he goes too fast and is very controlling.
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“…which will lead to group meetings at school where administrators will question my parenting. (yes, that has happened.)”
Are they just used to brow-beating lower-middle class moms?
“Now, unlike his school, I think that Ian shouldn’t always have to do stuff that he’s bad at and never do stuff that he’s good at.”
!!!
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Speaking of stuff to do, Instructables has a contest going right now with really nice prizes.
http://www.instructables.com/contest/
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We didn’t get an hour of respite activities for youngest this summer so it’s all parents, all the time. Fortunately, Mike only had two classes for his library tech diploma and I’ve been doing editing, writing or supervising, so we can hand her off between each other. Otherwise, this all sounds painfully familiar.
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We know all about Minecraft.
I hear Dwarf Fortress is where you separate the men from the boys, gaming-wise.
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Single-player Minecraft, SINGLE PLAYER.
Because unless it’s multiplayer with people you know and find amazing, the first thing unknown people tend to do is build giant penis towers.
But single-player? Awesome.
Dwarf Fortess is also pretty great but it’s a journey into deep Asperberginess.
Re: Instructables another thing to consider is not communicating with other people many-to-many but helping Ian to make content for broadcast to others.
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“Because unless it’s multiplayer with people you know and find amazing, the first thing unknown people tend to do is build giant penis towers.”
Thanks for the heads-up (so to speak), because that would probably never have occurred to us girls.
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How does the single-player mode stop you from building giant penis towers?
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I haven’t done the Instructable contests myself, but my husband is cooking up a third entry. The format is something like this:
1. come up with project
2. photograph the key steps (ideally as you work)
3. write up how you did the project, using the photographs as visual aids for your readers
#3 is harder than it sounds (even for an adult), but it’s potentially a really valuable translation exercise for converting visual/spatial information into verbal information or for moving information from Ian’s head to other people’s heads.
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but it’s potentially a really valuable translation exercise for converting visual/spatial information into verbal information
So is making a penis tower.
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I should remember not to put up stupid comments on the weekend when they are more likely to stay at the top for a long time.
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MH,
Here’s a little help. This is a video trailer for a book: 50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do. The video showcases a bunch of kids licking a 9V battery.
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2011/08/dangerous-educational-fun/#comments
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I’m going to require licking a nine volt battery if he comes out of his room again in the next fifteen minutes.
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Here’s Katharine Beals’ list of one autistic child’s activities (I think he’s an early teen):
“Let’s order 3 lbs of squid from the fish counter while Daddy’s not looking. Surprise: the fish guy fills my order!
“While Daddy’s driving, let’s rig his cell phone to forward all calls to W’s cell phone (W’s has 10 ceiling fans so I have her number memorized). That way, when Mommy tries to call Daddy from the train to find out where to meet him, (surprise!) she’ll instead be calling W.
“Let’s put my Malen vibrating bed-wetting alarm on my floor, angle my Radio Shack solar panel eastwards, and hook the one up with the other in such a way that the electricity generated by the latter triggers the wetness sensor on the former. That way when the sun rises my parents below me are awoken by a loud, low rumble overhead unlike anything that’s ever woken them up before.
“Let’s put a tomato in the freezer and see what happens.”
http://oilf.blogspot.com/2011/08/autism-diaries-xxvii-roundup-of-latest.html
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just f*cking precious that. At least you all got out before he removed the tighty whiteys. What a perv…I don’t think stippers can be truly appreciated without lots of alcohol.
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