Not Your Usual Rainman

Alex is an unusual kid. I couldn't tell you if he's my easiest one or my most challenging. Often, he's both.

We knew early on that he was different from other kids. He didn't talk, for one thing. Until he was three years old, he didn't say a word. He's sit there and smile at us, friendly as a puppy, but he didn't seem to feel any need to try to communicate. And he didn't play, not really, not like his older sister, who would create her own imaginary world to inhabit. He liked to organize things -- to line up his beloved videos, for instance. Autism, the experts speculated.

I still wonder if the term fits. It's a spectrum, I know -- a very LONG spectrum -- and my son is definitely on the higher functioning end of it. He hasn't given us the horror stories that I've heard from many parents. He didn't stay awake for the first few years of his life, for instance. He doesn't rock and bang his head when he's agitated. He doesn't shriek when he is touched. He doesn't find his own feces fascinating (any more so than a regular boy!), and he doesn't come completely unglued when his routine is disturbed.

His challenges are far more subtle than that. His speech is still delayed, for instance, while his mind races far beyond his years so that he speaks often in three and four syllable words while listeners struggle to decipher his meaning. He loves to engage in monologues on his topics of interest. His brain can hold copious amounts of factoids, which he loves to share with anyone who will stick around, but he seems to have no understanding that others may not share his enthusiasm. And do not ask him to break off in the middle of a thought. It cannot be done.

Recess is a struggle for him, largely because he doesn't know how to play. Well, that's not entirely true. He lives to play video games, and he enjoys board games. In fact, he is a formidable opponent in games like chess or Sequence. But in these situations, he is fitting himself into an established structure, and his mind is oh-so-fond of structure. He cannot put himself into an imaginary world, become a dragon (or a dragon slayer), the jungle gym his castle, the wood chips a mote or an expanse of bubbling lava. He cannot jump into the middle of a ball game -- and wouldn't want to. The limbs on his extra large body hang loosely and do not work well together, except to get him from point A to point B.

Alex is fond of rules, to the point that he will not break them, even if given a chance. I offered him one such chance the other day when we were playing Sequence together. He had forgotten to draw a card, which puts him at a disadvantage for the rest of the game. I told him he could take it anyway. He replied, "Isn't that against the rules?" I told him that yes, it was, but that it was okay this one time. He said, "No. I'd rather not." The downside to this is that he expects others to be equally conscientious and tends to play policeman, annoying his peers and siblings to no end with his attempts to get them to do what only seems rational to him; i.e., to obey the rules. Alex is a black and white child in a gray scale world.

Despite all his challenges, Alex is truly the sweetest child I know. He loves to hug people and gets genuinely upset when he hurt people (which, sadly, he does often!). He is often the target of bullies, and I have been trying to teach him comebacks, but he refuses to use them. "That's not nice," he says. And he's right. It's not. But if I could get him to say, even one time, "If I'm weird, you must be totally crazy," life with his peers would be so much easier for him. If he could bring himself to kick back when he's cornered in the bathroom and tormented ... If he could bring himself to hurt those who hurt him, perhaps he wouldn't be the one on the bottom of the dogpile so often. And yet ... I cannot practice what I preach, either. I understand his logic. Meanness is vile, even if it's deserved, and I'd rather be at the bottom than claw my up at other's expense. At least my beautiful boy will be there to keep me company.