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FINDING YOUR CHILD'S WAY ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM

Moody Publishers

Contents

Foreword..............................................................9Chapter 1 In His Way................................................11Chapter 2 First Steps in the Way....................................21Chapter 3 Shepherding the Heart of Your Child.......................33Chapter 4 Educating the Mind of Your Child..........................45Chapter 5 Stims, Rituals, and Obsessions............................57Chapter 6 Managing Emotions.........................................67Chapter 7 The Relationship Puzzle...................................79Chapter 8 Mad Elephants and Maturity................................91Chapter 9 For This Child I Prayed...................................103Appendix A "Is My Child on the Autism Spectrum?".....................113Appendix B Selecting a Treatment Program.............................121Appendix C Eric's Valedictorian Speech...............................127Glossary of Terms.....................................................131Notes.................................................................137

Chapter One

I'VE LOVED THE OLD children's movie Dumbo for many years.

Dumbo is a little elephant with enormous ears. In fact, his ears are so big that he trips over them all the time, producing all kinds of problems. Dumbo is mocked about his ears and snubbed when his clumsiness embarrasses the other elephants. But one day Dumbo discovers that his ears are large enough to act as wings. Upon realizing that Dumbo can fly, his only friend cries, "The very things that held you down are going to carry you up!" As the movie ends, Dumbo is rich, famous, and admired by all, performing in the circus as "the world's only flying elephant."

I remember watching the movie when Eric was a newborn. Sympathetic tears rolled down my cheeks as the other elephants ridiculed Dumbo. Couldn't they see that he was beautiful? His big ears were just different, not ugly! I would sing the lullaby that his mother sang in the movie to my own adorable baby, little knowing that this movie would become more than just a story to me in a few short years.

Three years later Eric, by now diagnosed with autism, became fascinated with Disneyland's Dumbo the Flying Elephant Ride. Every time we went to Disneyland we had to ride it over and over. In those days the ride had a motto painted on its top, "Believe-and Soar." As we rode again and again I'd pray, "Lord, I believe that You can do anything. Please make Eric soar."

I bought Eric an enormous stuffed Dumbo for his bed. He never cuddled it, but sometimes I did, and prayed again that Eric would one day soar, like Dumbo. I also prayed that one day he'd smile, he'd speak, he'd cuddle stuffed animals, and most important, that he'd tell me that he loved me. And do you know what? One day he did all of these things. In fact, the first unprompted sentence Eric ever spoke, at age four, was "I love you, Mommy." God has been so good to me!

One day Eric soared, too. I sobbed with joy as I listened to him give the valedictorian address at his high school graduation. (You can read his address in appendix C.) His top-ranked university recently announced that his GPA placed him in the top 5 percent of students in his college. It seems that the sky is the limit for the young man who was once a mute, unsmiling little boy with vacant green eyes.

I've thought about Dumbo many times since the summer when we rode the Dumbo ride over and over again. In the following years, as Eric struggled to learn to ride a bicycle, understand the concept of team sports, or make friends, he was often ridiculed, and I remembered Dumbo tripping over those ears. I sometimes cried myself to sleep, singing the little lullaby to myself.

Baby mine, don't you cry, Baby mine, dry your eyes. Rest your head close to my heart, Never to part, baby of mine. Little one, when you play, Don't you mind what they say. Let those eyes sparkle and shine, Never a tear, baby of mine.

From your head to your toes, You're so sweet, goodness knows. You are so precious to me, Cute as can be, baby of mine.

BORN TO FLY

One day I realized that the reason Dumbo tripped over his ears was because he wasn't born to be a walking elephant at all. Dumbo was born to fly. As I understood this, Dumbo's story became a parable for Eric's life. I began to pray that his challenge might one day turn out to be the source of a unique ability, just as Dumbo's had.

Like Dumbo, Eric often didn't meet the expectations of other adults or his teachers. He was teased and sometimes rejected by his peers because of his differences. His doctors talked about his "neurological deficits" as if the essential truth about Eric was that he was lacking necessary qualities, which had to be made up somehow if he was going to have a meaningful life. But the essence of what made Dumbo himself didn't lie in what he was unable to do. Dumbo would never have flown if his ears hadn't been long enough for him to trip over in the first place. The tripping was a necessary stage in his development into the elephant he was born to be. He was never defective or inferior. He was just embarked upon a different path, born for a different kind of life.

I believe that this is true for all of our autism spectrum children. Granted, their differences will probably keep most of them from becoming rich or famous one day. But each one is unique, and the contribution that each makes to our world will be, like Dumbo's, because of their uniqueness, not in spite of it. This is true even if their main contribution is in teaching the rest of us the joy that comes from loving and caring for those who cannot care for themselves. Because this is so, our focus as parents must be on so much more than simply trying to help our children be more like everyone else's.

If Dumbo were a child today, his loving mother may have arranged for plastic surgery to make his ears look more like the other elephants'. But if she had, Dumbo would never have made the distinctive contribution that he was born to make. Please understand that I'm not saying that we should just leave our autism spectrum children as they are, and not work to equip them for the most functional and rewarding adult life they are capable of. As you'll learn, I committed myself to finding all the assistance I could to help Eric to become all that he was born to be. But because I am a Christian, I also believe that God had a purpose in making Eric just as he is, and that my role is not primarily to "fix" him, but to help him realize his full potential as the unique individual he was born to be. Come to think of it, isn't this our role with our typical children, as well?

WHAT IS GOD'S PURPOSE FOR HIS LIFE?

I don't see Eric's challenges primarily as the consequence of a genetic mistake, a birth...