When we found out that Lauren had autism, our number one fear was communication.
Would Lauren be able to talk? She had words then, but could she string them together to make conversation with us and people around her?
Our number two concern was friends. People with autism were not known to be sociable. Would Lauren gain enough social skills to make a few good friends?
That was 7 years ago.
Today Lauren is 12 years old and can speak. Although her topics of conversation are normally centred around her favourite things, we are thankful she is able to put her words together and tell you pretty decent stories about things she really like, like her books, and movies and songs...is there anything else...hmm...no, not really....
Lauren still has difficulty speaking smoothly especially when she is upset or scared and anxious but we're working on strategies to calm herself down and find ways to communicate.
How about friends, you might be wondering? Has Lauren made friends?
Yes, she has. She knows the motions of how to say Hi? How are you? And can ask a few questions on what they like and in turn tell them what she likes. She has learnt that in communication. But she has not been able to get much further than that. She is still struggling to go beyond two to three minutes of conversation. She finds it difficult to keep the to and fro of talking in motion.
Lauren has a friend, called Brooke, do you remember her from Lauren's first playdate? I wrote about it under
First Playdate Ever, http://www.whatsnextkids.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/first-playdate-ever.html.
Brooke and Lauren have had one or two pretty decent conversations. Lauren tells Brooke about the book she is reading. Brooke will ask her what she likes about the book. Lauren replies. Brooke listens patiently. And that's so far how it has gone. We hope Lauren will be just as good a listener one day when Brooke tells Lauren what she likes. We are planning to arrange another playdate for them next week. Tell you more then.
Lauren has another friend with whom she seems to be able to spend hours with. OK, maybe that is exaggerating it a little, but they can sometimes spend a whole morning or afternoon together.
This friend is Luke, Lauren's little brother.
They both like three things: movies, music and books. And it all started with movie nights here in Australia.
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| Buddies: Lauren and Luke |
Going out to the movies are an expensive affair here. AUD$15.00 - 18.00 for a cinema ticket. And we arrived in winter last year. So, we decided, why don't we just watch movies at home together on Friday and Saturday nights. We chose old movies that Kevin and I liked.
Star Wars - all six episodes.
Back to the Future The Trilogy.
Indiana Jones and all its sequels...the kids loved them.
We went on to children's movies. Home Alone 1, 2, 3 (maybe 4 also!), Dennis the Menace...
One day, we stumbled upon a movie, even I had never watched before (that is rare) which had really good Rotten Tomato ratings. Ok, don't always believe what Rotten Tomatoes rate because movies are personal, but they are a decent guide.
Have you heard of Pitch Perfect?
We watched Pitch Perfect together and the rest...as you say...is history!
Now Lauren and Luke, when they aren't fighting, love spending time making up stories about the movies they have seen, they do mash-ups of the songs they like to listen to on the radio and from movies (mash-ups are blending songs together) and they let loose and boogie to their favourite songs.
Luke is starting to read books that Lauren love like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Big Nate, while Lauren is starting to read books that Luke likes like Captain Underpants. We were nicely surprised when she even went to look for and borrowed a Captain Underpants book for Luke from their school library. She said she did that because her brother wanted to read book 6 (Lauren also borrowed Captain Underpants book 3 and 4 for Luke later).
It's quite amazing to see them enjoying their time together.
You must be wondering, "Don't they fight?". Of course they do. In fact, sometimes it feels like they fight all the time. Luke just knows what buttons to push when it comes to Lauren. When they are upset with each other, it's like cats and dogs in the house but thankfully they love each other's company too because just as quickly they started fighting, the next second, they are laughing over some silly joke they heard in a movie.
What have I learnt from this? I learnt it by accident really.
Shared interests.
I wrote about the importance of nurturing different interests.
In this respect, we also need to nurture shared time for our kids.
Especially for Lauren who isn't going to naturally want to spend time with people. I have seen that given the right interests, she has initiated, to some extent, spending time with Luke. It also helps that Luke is a persistent fella. When his sister has felt like retreating to her room and into her own world, he always starts pestering her to talk, tell stories, look for videos on youtube together.
We're praying for Lauren to have a few girlfriends with whom she can spend this kind of time with too. It IS possible...don't you think so?
Create opportunities for our kids to find things they love to do, together.
