Autism Awareness

Since it's autism awareness month I thought I would share this with you. It's long but please read anyway. I have been struggling the past few weeks with some of Scott's friends. He wants so much to play with any and every child but it is becoming a little more obvious that he is a bit different. We work on his social skills hard but he gets so excited to be with friends that so much of what we teach goes out the window the moment his friends come around. But I woke up to this thought this morning and I wanted to share. Life is like a great dinner. We all came with our favorite dishes of food. When we sit down to eat we love to show and to share our favorite foods with others, especially Scott. He probably brought chocolate marshmallow maties, pb&j sandwiches and Dino chicken nuggets. Now out of all the things he could have brought, this probably sounds weird to you, maybe even gross. But that's what he likes, that's who he is. Now this is what I want you to tell your child, just because it looks weird or gross doesn't mean that you won't like it. Don't we teach that to our children about dinner anyway. Why are we good about teaching our children to eat a variety of foods and not good at teaching them to play with a variety of people? Because eating a variety of food is healthy, right?! Well so is accepting people, it's healthy, kind, and what true beauty is. Now just because Scott brought Dino nuggets to the table and that's weird doesn't mean that he's wrong and didn't understand what to bring. Cause he did, we are supposed to bring the 'food' that we value most to the table. He's not going to force feed you his meal, he'll try to share it with you, because he loves to share. Teach you're child that everyone's 'plate' is different. Remind them that people might look at your child's plate and think that what they brought is weird and/or gross too. The thing is though, I'm sick of teaching my child how to get along with other children who haven't been taught to get along with other children. I'm sick of parents who have 'normal' children and don't think they need to teach them how to play with others. Yes my child has autism which means that he doesn't know how to act in many social situations but if your child doesn't have autism it doesn't mean that they are perfect and it doesn't mean that you don't need to teach them 'table manners' i.e. how to get along with everyone. Ok, I'm off my soap box. ‪#‎autismawareness‬‪#‎scottosaurusrex‬