April 13, 2010 - CO-PILOT

I think of myself as my daughter's co-pilot - her navigation system. She often finds herself in uncharted waters, and while she's getting better she still has trouble navigating those blurry middle school social waters.

We had an incident today that really began last week. My daughter tried to enter into a conversation that some other children were having about rap music. She thought about it first and really wanted to join the conversation, so she decided to chime in. Unfortunately, what she said was "I hate rap music". And when the conversation turned to Lil' Wayne, a rapper who was recently imprisoned on gun charges she asked "Didn't he just go to prison?" - When they answered yes, she said, "well, doesn't that make him a criminal?" Ok, maybe to me and to you this is a perfectly acceptable opinion and question, however, the other children were offended because they're big fans of rap music and Lil' Wayne. She just didn't recognize the change in body language towards her when she made the initial statement, so didn't understand it might be better to back off that approach to rap music in that particular conversation.

Then today, one of the girls from the first conversation confronted my daughter by asking her why she hates black people. My daughter was confused, and told her that she doesn't hate black people. The girl then told her that if she hates rap music, she hates black people. My daughter then told her that that was the "stupidest thing she'd ever heard". As you can imagine, that didn't go over well and things escalated from there. My daughter kept saying "you're not making any sense!" Because she's literal, some insults that aren't direct kind of go over her head. The girl came out of her chair and stood over my daughter's face while confronting her, yet when I asked her if the other girl was aggressive, she said no. I would interpret someone coming out of their chair and getting in my face as aggressive - but not someone with Asperger's. The whole incident was more confusing than scary because she didn't understand the initial confrontation.

On the way home from school, while we were talking about the incident my daughter became increasingly upset and began to cry because she was hurt and confused. Come to find out the girl also asked her why she hates people. My daughter was completely incredulous. I tried to explain to her that her confusion about the situation and her response were part of her disorder and that it's harder for her to understand what people are thinking/saying. For the first time she said that she hates having Asperger's and wished that she didn't have it. She also acknowledged that she would have it for the rest of her life and that there's nothing that we can do to change that fact. I told her that we can change it - trying to explain to her that with treatment and hard work, she can do just fine - that she'll have to think things through a bit more, but otherwise, she would be ok. She cut me off, saying that there is no cure.

Ugh!! What do I say? I told her that the other kids don't understand that she has Asperger's - that they don't understand her way of communicating. Then I asked her if she'd like for me to speak with students to explain to them what Asperger's and autism mean to students like her. I'd never thought to do this because I thought she'd rather other students not know. But as usual, she surprised me by saying that she'd like me to speak with her class if it would make things easier for her. WOW!

So, now I'm off to research the best way to educate middle school children about Asperger's and autism. This is something that should happen in all schools. With the rate of diagnosis rising at an alarming rate, all students are going to come into contact with individuals with differences. Tolerance and compassion should be part of the education vernacular, anyway.

Remember...DIFFERENT IS BEAUTIFUL!!