You know what scares the hell out of me? Water. My son loves the water. He is never more happy when he is in my fiends' Tom back yard pool, where he can touch the ground and bob up and down. I visited my friend Tom twice last summer and we were both amazed at how long Luc wanted to stay in the water. He couldn't swim, or dogie paddle, but he could walk / use his hands to move around the shallow end, and enjoy the pool and the feeling of buoyancy.
Kids with autism love water. The are drawn to it.
Kids with autism have no fear. They will jump in a fountain, lake, river, deep end not even understanding that this is a dangerous thing to do.
I read about one boy with autism who had a special dog that he was tied to. This boy whenever he saw water, would bolt to it. On a class trip downtown he ended up in a fountain before his teachers could corral him. The boy is a teenager with autism and still had not learned appropriate behavior. The teacher is lucky it was just a fountain.
So now he has this dog who knows to put on the breaks when the teenager starts to bolt.
I'm writing about this because a family member wants to spend some great quality time at a cottage next summer. Right away my mind goes to a family vacation we took 2 summers ago and every moment Luc was heading for the river. I would lean over to hammer in a tent peg, then look up to see Luc 20 meters away and going for the river. I came close to tieing a rope to him. I know - this sound horrible, and I never thought I'd be that kind of father, but I was at my wits end with trying to keep control of him. I didn't tie him up, but I'll tell you this, if I ever hear of another parent putting a leash on their child with autism, what would have been distain, is now understanding.
To heighten my fears, or educate me, depending how you look at it, Autism Canada sent out a story about 2 kids with autism drowning in Florida, separate incidents.
I guess the reason I write this blog is so that the reader can understand that autism is always there. You can't take a vacation from it - you can't just go to the cottage.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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