Variations and Thinking

Yesterday I took the boys to a very small autism playgroup that just started up. We went last week as well, and Jman spent a lot of the time drawing pictures. This week we began with an inpromptu tea party, and later Jman requested the drawing materials again.

He and I sat down with some paper and markers. I'm not much of an artist, but I enjoy playing with paper. I thought maybe I'd make a book instead of a picture, and proceeded to fold my sheet of paper in half. I did not tell Jman to look at what I was doing. I did not tell Jman to DO anything. We were simply together, sitting beside each other, getting ready to draw our own things. Think of it as parallel play, if you'd like.

What does Jman do? He notices that I'm doing something a little different. Immediately, he adopts the idea and folds his piece of paper in half as well. I'm not quite sure why that surprised me, but it did, and I gave him a bit of a hard time about it, saying to him, "Oh man! Monkey see, Monkey do!!" Jman didn't mind my teasing and proceeded to work on whatever his new idea was. He didn't continue to copy my variations, because I proceeded to tear my paper along the first fold, and then folded the two half sheets in half again to make a four-leaf booklet. He kept his once-folded, not torn paper and was beginning a drawing.

I changed my mind again on what I was going to do. SB3 has his first birthday in a few days, so I decided to make him a card. When I finished, I showed it to Jman, thinking maybe he'd copy my idea and make a card too, since he'd copied me before. Briefly it flashed through my mind how often autistic kids are told what to think, what to do, what to draw, how to draw it. Everyone in a class has to work on producing identical projects. They even do it to 'normal' kids in regular classes too! What a drag. Instead, I just showed him my card. He could like it, copy it, hate it, ignore it--whatever. I was simply sharing my idea, and he could think for himself.











Jman was indeed thinking for himself, as I soon discovered. After a while, I noticed he was very close to finishing the drawing he was working on--more VeggieTales stuff. In particular, he was drawing a scene from "The Grapes of Wrath." I thought to myself, "Great--more VeggieTales. But hey, it could always be a VeggieTales card, I guess. They make 'theme' cards like that." Again, my thinking was too limited.Jman finished his drawing, then opened the piece of paper and drew a couple of concentric circles and a line inside. I had to stop and think for a second, and then it hit me: He made a DVD case! The DVD's we have for VeggieTales look just like the concentric circles with the line on the bottom. How cool is that? It totally reminds me of the kinds of things I'd make with paper when I was a kid--houses, radios, you name it. Nothing like paper and tape to entertain!So, anyway, this was very exciting for me on several fronts. First, Jman noticed my variations on his own, and adopted those he found interesting on his own. Also, he didn't copy me just for the sake of copying me. He took a bit of my idea and added his own thinking to it in order to produce his own unique creative project. And finally, I was even pleased with myself and how I shared with him without limiting or directing him. Another little tidbit is that while he was still drawing (so before I knew it was going to be a DVD case), I offered to do some of the time-consuming coloring for him, and he was just fine with it. I remember the days when other people were not allowed to interfere in what he was doing. Now, perhaps because I was respecting him and what he was doing, my input and assistance were welcome instead of rejected.

Being together, not forcing someone to comply, respecting each other's ideas, sharing and building off of each other's creativity, and even working together a bit--it just doesn't sound very autistic sometimes! (But trust me--he is VERY autistic!)