The theme of the meeting involved Thinking Day and Chinese New Year. All was going well, even The Boy seemed happy playing with Brown Owls slightly younger son who also happens to have an Aspergers diagnosis. The Baby was enjoying the plastic playhouse (the hall is also used by toddler groups so toys are around luckily!) and so I could turn my full attention to helping the Brownies with their Chinese Tangrams. Tangrams are all about using a square split into 7 shapes to make pictures or on a more basic level as a jigsaw where you use the pieces to make the square again. It is very mathematical and uses logical thinking.
The Brownies I was helping were trying to make a dancer shape from their pieces of square and they were struggling. I threw in a few suggestions but we could not work it out. They were giving up and I knew we needed success to make the activity worthwhile for them. So I took some pieces and tried to do the puzzle myself....a few minutes later I decided, like the Brownies, that it was not possible. Then I had a thought. If anyone in that room could do this puzzle then it had to be my son. The Boy is doing very well at Maths at school and loves logical puzzles. I called him over and sure enough after about 90 seconds of fiddling with the shapes he has done it.
My initial reaction was to be annoyed that he could do it easily when I couldn't. Shown up by my 10 year old son!!! But after that initial feeling I suddenly realised how proud of him I felt. The more I thought about it the prouder I felt, I was
Bursting with pride!
The Boy has struggled with many aspects of his life. He finds friendships painful and awkward and communicating is often difficult. His teachers need no convincing that he is bright and intelligent, he contibutes in class and has a brilliant mind but he finds it nigh on impossible to get any of this onto paper. Writing is a very weak area for him and he peforms poorly under exam conditions. This leads me to worry greatly for his future. After all, when it comes to it, exams are the be all and end all. University entrance, CV, you need them to get started in life.
So the feeling of pride that my Son was so clever and could contribute something was an important moment in helping me understand that even if he doesn't achieve in exams (and we hope by the time he gets to the important ones he will be able to manage better - they are 5 years away after all!!) he is bright, intelligent and a valuable member of society. He WILL find his niche and be able to use his talents in a worthwhile and profitable way. He will overcome his disability and have a happy and successful life.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Very cool.i guess our kids are supposed to outsmart us someday, that is how it should be! Geekdaddy is very poor at written skills but a brilliant engineer. It's a shame how important written exams are when they don't showcase other more important skills. Best of luck for your boy, I'm sure he will be sucessful
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