Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Learning

Saturday morning B & I went to a black belt ceremony for one of his friends.  There was a lot of talking. I thought it was fascinating to hear about everyone's journey to their black belt.  B struggled.  He tried to pay attention but it was hard.  He only knew one of the people who had earned their black belt.

Bman played on my phone most of the time.  I did have to remind him to keep the volume off.  I also had to ask him to put it down when it was his friends turn.  But I do know that he was paying attention because he did try to add to what one of the speakers said.  That's hard for people to understand, that he can pay attention and be on the phone at the same time.

When we left, B and I talked about why it was important that we had gone. I told him one of the ways that we show people we care about them is to care about what they care about.  We've talk about this often with the Bigs.  How going to their games is a way to show them we care about them.  But something different happened this time. 

"Did I do a good job at that?"

I told him he did, mostly. Then we talked about the phone.  I told him that I could tell he was listening when he added to what the instructor said but that most people don't know that about him.  We talked about the importance of looking at people when they're talking. 

Autism is a weird thing.  I forget that there are things like this that B does not actually know. I think I assume that he knows but just doesn't care.  But, nope, he has no idea.  But he's learning.  Next up, conversations...




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