Glasses, Eye Drops, and Drama

The first time I ever took Tate to an eye doctor for an examination I believe he was still in preschool. It was something the early intervention team wanted us to do. I had no worries about his vision but I wanted him seen by a doctor experienced with kids having autism. Children’s Mercy Hospital assured me they were the one I was seeking and I was very impressed. The Ophthalmologist at Children’s Mercy Hospital agreed with me. Tate was seeing fine. The second time we took Tate, he was in elementary school and was probably in second or third grade. I took him because the school nurse insisted he was not seeing well. I knew (or thought I knew) it was just his inability to understand the test directions and communicate with the school nurse. So we trekked over to Children’s Mercy again to see the pediatric eye doctor. His eyes again tested fine. When Tate was in fifth grade the school nurse failed him on the eye exam again and wanted me to take him back tot he eye doctor. I ignored her. When Tate’s sixth grade teacher and Para both told me Tate was struggling to see I made another appointment, fully expecting to fine nothing wrong with Tate’s vision. As we sat in that exam room and Tate tried to read the letters on the wall across the room I was stunned. The eye doctor asked me if I was sure Tate knew the alphabet. He’s known upper and lower case letters since he was a toddler. I wanted to crawl under the chair while someone made me a sign to wear that said, “BAD PARENT” because I had not known Tate needed glasses to see. He was as blind as a bat. Apparently, if a kid’s eyes are going to “go bad,” they often do it about the fifth grade.

The day Tate got glasses was quite a memorable day for more than one reason. It was snowing so hard that school was cancelled that day and I was going to cancel the appointment. It was a long drive and I did not want to make it. But my husband Shawn insisted he would drive us so we went. Normally if my husband goes to appointments with us he sits in the waiting room and works from his phone. He is a HVAC contractor and does a whole lot of his work on the phone. I asked him to come back with us. I suspected Tate was going to be a little difficult if they tried to put drops in his eyes. Wow. Was I glad Shawn was with us! Tate put up a fight. He did not mean to. He tried so hard to sit still and allow those drops to fall into his eyes but he just could not keep his hands down and his head still or his eyes open and he was thrashing around like a wild man. Tate is strong. He does not have much coordination but he is strong. And he is big. At that time he was over six feet tall. It took a lot of work and a long time to get those drops in Tate’s eyes. Without those drops though, they could not have really prescribed him glasses. Because kids like Tate cannot really go through the lenses and tell an eye doctor if their vision is better or worse, the doctor has to dilate the pupils and then look into the back of the eye and “see” for the patient.

Tate hated those drops so much. I don’t know if it was the stinging eyes, the dilated pupils, the required sunglasses, having to hold his eyes open for the drops, the invasion of his space, or the way his eyes felt for the rest of the day he hated the most. But when I told him a few days ago it was time to see the eye doctor again, it was the drops that became his number one topic of conversation for the next few days. He came up with every excuse in the book, including, “We only go to the eye doctor when it is snowing.” I got texts and his siblings got texts about this injustice. (I've posted his texts below.) He was sure I had made a grave error in scheduling an appointment in July. I promised Tate I would ask the eye doctor if there was any way we could forgo the drops this time. And I did ask but her answer was, “No.” I will insert here that both the doctor and her assistant were so patient and kind. They listened to Tate’s concerns in all his broken language. They waited for him to finish. We received a lot more than our fair share of time. They gave him several options, one of them being he could lie on the floor if he liked when they put the drops in. They worked hard to accommodate him. He chose to sit in the chair and try to do it without anyone holding his hands or head. He also opted to have Sydney go first (Yes. She had not had her eyes checked for about three years there so I had scheduled her too. Of course she was EXCITED to be there!) Sydney did fine as expected. And he did a great job compared to our last visit. He couldn’t keep his eyes open and his eyelids are SRONG. He kept raising his hands to “defend” himself but he tried hard not to. I held his hands down in the end but we got it done without other adults coming in. There were two nurses actually standing in the hall, ready to assist if we needed. He was proud of himself and he has not complained once since it was done! He has thin plastic slip-in sunshades for his glasses from the appointment and he is wearing them like a hot new accessory.  

Tate’s prescription had barely changed. But I got another surprise. Sydney needs glasses. She has always had a problem with her left eye drifting a little when she is tired. I don’t even notice it anymore but Shawn and her siblings do sometimes and they mention it once in a while. That drifting was the main reason I had made the appointment. I wanted the doctor to look at that again. Each time in the past the doctor told me it was not significant enough to treat. She told me that again today. However, now Sydney’s left eye has developed the need for glasses, unrelated to the other problem. The doctor said Sydney is using her right eye, which has almost perfect vision and not using her left eye, which is near-sighted. I have the same thing going on with my eyes and have since I became an adult. I caught myself just as I was about to say, “She gets it from her mama.” Oh yeah…. Ummmm No.  I have no family history on her birth mom’s eyes. Sigh.

So, we left Children’s Mercy and headed to Wal-Mart where we got three pair of glasses, one for Tate and two for Sydney. The total bill for three pair? $150.00 The frames are guaranteed for one year too. No questions asked. For kids under 18 years old, Wal-Mart does this as a service. Like them or hate them for many reasons folks but I like being able to afford the kids’ glasses so easily. I’m so glad a friend told me about their program for kids when Tate needed to get glasses. And of course, Sydney is excited and that will probably last a week. I imagine I will wish I had bought six pair when she starts losing them. 

This was 24 hours before
the dreaded appointment.
For ears? Seriously?
They made a huge
mistake then!!

There's been a huge injustice!
And he's still holding a
grudge about the past
appointment and the snow
day as well. Note:
Tate is always ready to
throw Levi under the bus.
He often tries to shift the
focus. HA!

He's desperate now. This was minutes
before we walked out the door. 

If you happen to be following Tate's photo gallery, he added a few today. While Sydney and I were looking at frames, I caught him out of the corner of my eye taking photos of the rows and rows of glasses. As usual, it's all about uniformity and lines. I added them to the post of his photos when we got home. You can find that here: Tate's photo gallery

And if you are interested in our dental visits then this is the post for you: cleaning, filling, and straightening the teeth of autism

An Autism Mom's Thoughts About Disney's Inside Out

Spoiler alert. I’m going to talk in detail about the plot and the characters from the Disney movie “Inside Out.” Stop reading if you do not like spoilers.

If you’ve followed my blog for more than five minutes and if you know anything at all about us then you know my son Tate has autism and our lives revolve around movies. He has the release date of all the movies he is interested in (which include most G and PG rated ones) on our calendar. I don’t know how he does it, but before most of us have seen the first trailer for a new movie, he has the release date on the calendar and has memorized the actors involved in the making of the movie. To Tate, these things are as important as our loved ones and our careers are to us. He spends most of his waking minutes thinking about movies and talking about movies. So, of course today, on opening day of Disney’s “Inside Out” Tate woke with great joy (pun intended.) He toe-walked and bounced as he paced all over the house in anticipation. I was a bit apprehensive myself. We had been told earlier in the week Tate should avoid popcorn as he has just gotten braces on his bottom teeth. Tate was not happy about this news and had been telling me all week the orthodontist must have been mistaken. But we went to a favorite restaurant before the movie, got some m&ms, and a bottle of water, and settled into our seats without incident over the missing bucket of popcorn.

The first five minutes of the movie were brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The writers and animators illustrated a baby’s first feelings and memories and how they are stored away. They took a very complex and abstract idea and made it simple and clear. I loved it. We were introduced to the emotions of a girl named Riley. There was Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. Each character was well defined for the targeted audience of children. The characters sat behind a control panel and used the controls to react to the things happening to Riley throughout her day. They collaborated to decide which of the emotions should use the controls and help Riley to react.

The moral of this kids’ movie was a credible message for adults. I cannot always find a real solid plot in animated movies but this one was pretty clear to me. And I think it was a good one for parents to think about. The character Joy went to great lengths to help Riley avoid Sadness and be happy all the time. Riley’s parents unknowingly had pressured her to be “their happy girl” so Riley tried hard to put on a front even when she needed to be something other than happy. The premise of the movie was that Sadness is an important emotion, and one we cannot always avoid. Sometimes our children have to be sad. We cannot shelter ourselves or our children from every sad experience out there. And we cannot ask our children to deny their genuine feelings of sadness so we will not be inconvenienced either. I understood the message to be that sometimes after a sad experience we can find happiness we would not have otherwise found. Without sadness there would be no joy.

We were exposed to personifications of other characters’ emotions as well. If you go to see the movie, be sure and stay until the credits roll. It is then you will see Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust as illustrated for Riley’s teacher, a dog, a cat, a clown, and a few of the other people in Riley’s life. This was another magnificent part of the movie for me. Every character had the same five emotions that were almost identical in appearance. I began to ponder at that point, what would it look like if I were able to illustrate those five emotions for Tate in the same way they had done in this movie? Joy would sit at Tate’s control panel and giggle for long periods of time while everyone around him wondered why. Sadness would be very confused, underdeveloped and never able to convince Tate to cry, while Anger would be able to produce tears when he was provoked. Disgust would be overactive. Almost every food the rest of us eat would cause that character to recoil and gag. Smells other people barely notice would be a problem for Disgust too. Fear would have to be depicted as a hyperactive character who was extremely neurotic for Tate I think. He would always be trying to grab the controls from the other emotions. If I were able to personify Tate’s emotions I think I’d add a sixth character. He would be a sort of big brother to Fear. The sixth character would be named Anxiety (or Stress). Anxiety would tower above the other five and be a giant among them. Anxiety would have some massive muscles and would push the other emotions around. He would constantly be pushing his smaller brother Fear to talk louder. He would silence Joy anytime he got a chance. Anxiety would be a tyrant.

Even during the movie Tate had been so excited to see, his anxiety was ready to suck some of the joy right out of the experience for him. During one scene, Tate became stressed when Joy, Sadness, and another character were trying desperately to find their way back to headquarters. Tate became restless and said to me, “Nothing to worry about. Stay calm. They are going to save Riley.” Tate often reassures himself when he is anxious by offering support to me. Another time, Riley’s dad got stern with her and frowned after she had misbehaved. Tate became nervous and leaned over to ask me, “Her dad still loves her, right?” I assured him that dads still love their kids even when they are unhappy.” I know Tate struggles to understand these kinds of things and has always been nervous when someone speaks to him seriously about anything. He needs people to smile at him, even if they are explaining something quite serious or speaking to him about danger. Tate seems to believe Joy is equivalent to love while Anger or Sadness cannot be. After the movie I took the opportunity to talk with Tate about these things. I had hoped the movie would be a real teaching tool for us and I believe it was. I would highly recommend this movie to the autism community. Disney did a good job with this one. 

If you liked this post you might like to read about the anxiety Toy Story caused for a while. Woody and his hat were a big thing at our house when Tate was younger. Here's the link:  Unusual Attachments

Autism and Empathy

Not too long ago I accompanied my dad to a doctor appointment. It was wet and very cold outside. The parking lot and sidewalk were a bit slippery. As my dad and I were walking into the building a car pulled up, and a very frail, elderly woman got out of the car. She crept slowly toward the front door, one very tiny step at a time. She looked like she might topple over, as she was so unsteady on her feet. I stepped toward her and offered her my arm. She gladly took it. I could see she was not going to make it far without some help, even after we entered the building. I walked her very slowly to the office she needed. She was afraid her husband would not know where she had gone so I walked back to the front doors to let him know she was waiting in the office. I waited for what seemed like a long time. Then, I saw him, slowly approaching the front door of the building. This man was bent and decrepit, walking with a cane. Every step was almost painful for me to watch. I stepped through the doors, back out into the cold, and offered the man my arm. He was just a bit gruff, and declined, indicating he had the cane. I explained to him his wife was waiting at the end of the hall in the office. He thanked me and told me his wife never would have made it without help down the hall. He said he always helped support her if she had to walk more than a few steps. This elderly man was barely able to keep himself upright, and moving as slowly as I’d ever seen someone move, yet he was normally his tottering wife’s support! I walked with him to the office. I chatted with both of the older folks for a few more minutes. As I left, I stopped and quietly urged the receptionist to use a wheelchair to help the woman get back to her car.

I have thought about those folks several times since then and wondered how they are doing. They appeared to be long past the ability to live independently. I hope they are safe and well, and together.

What made me stop and offer my arm to the woman? What made me return to ask her husband if he needed help and then almost physically ache when I saw how difficult it was for him to walk? What made me press the receptionist to help them with a wheelchair? What makes me wonder about them from time to time? It’s a kind of caring concern called empathy. Having compassion for someone and being able to put yourself in their shoes motivates people to stop and help others. Those two elderly people touched my heart. But where does empathy come from? Is it something that we are born with? Is it something we are taught? Does it grow gradually over years, starting small and then building?  

My four boys. They are alike, yet so different.

I’ve discovered a few things about empathy since I started raising kids. One of those things being: how it is acquired. Years ago I might have argued that empathy will not come naturally to children and has to be taught. And then my second son was born. From his toddlerhood on I saw a kid whose heart was tender and caring. He wanted nothing more than to make others happy. If he had a cookie he’d give it away. While I was trying to teach my other children to share, I was trying to teach this little guy to stick up for himself. I remember showing him that he should break his cookie in half and give half away but keep some for himself. He is one of the most caring people I have ever met. But I cannot really take credit. For him, it just seemed to be there from the beginning. My other children did have to be taught empathy and they have all become such caring and wonderful people. It took a little longer for some of the kids to learn to put others’ needs before their own than it did for the others. Being the parent of seven I saw a lot of different personalities and was amazed often at how differently they all learned and needed to be taught. Sometimes I just wanted to “knock” some empathy into them, showing that I myself needed to become quite a bit more empathetic at times.

I said all of the above to finally get to this. One of the characteristics of autism is aloofness, the lack of interest or concern for others. It is also hard for a child with autism to generalize the things they learn. In other words, something a child learns in one situation will not be applied in another setting. So teaching Tate about compassion and empathy has been very hard. I see progress though. He sometimes asks me if I feel better if he knows I have an ache or pain. He has started carrying the laundry hamper down to me when it is full without being told because he knows it makes me happy and it hurts my back to carry that full hamper. He has learned to try to listen to his friends at school when they talk to him because he knows it is important to them. Once in a while Tate offers to share things like cookies with his siblings and that is fairly new. All these things have been taught to him individually. I could not just explain the golden rule to him and expect him to apply it to his life. I have to teach it to him for each scenario I’d like to see him use it in.

Tate will do what he is told usually. He does want to please people. Like most people with autism he is a rule follower. He just has to be told the rules. The hardest part of teaching him to help others is getting him to recognize, without being told, what someone’s need is. Being young is part of it of course. Probably a lot of thirteen-year-old boys would walk right past an elderly woman who could have used their assistance because they do not realize what is needed. But there are many things Tate should have mastered a long time ago that he still struggles to understand.

For example: For years we have worked on the etiquette that surrounds doorways. It just seems to come naturally for his classmates to catch a door that is about to close and then hold it for the next person to grab. I don’t imagine anyone has ever had a door holding lesson for any of those kids. Instead they were taught to be kind and polite as a general rule and have begun to care for those around them and they act on those feelings throughout their day. They would never consider letting a door slam on a classmate. They can think about how that might feel and empathize with the one behind them.

When Tate comes to a door, if another person is holding it, he just squeezes through, never reaching to help with the door. If he approaches the door at the same time as another person he never offers to open it. He waits for them to open it for him. If he did have it open and another person was right behind him he’d just let it fall closed. He wouldn’t wait for them to reach out and grab it and he certainly wouldn’t hold it open for them. It is not that he is UNKIND. It is just that he does not think about being KIND. It does not seem to occur to him. Tate’s teachers and schoolmates have worked with him on this type of etiquette a number of times over the years and so have I. I remind him lately in the mornings before he exits my car to hold the door for the student behind him when he enters the school building. So, he has started trying to calculate his entry into the building so no one is around him at all. He slows his pace if someone else is walking up so he won’t have to try to figure out which of the etiquette rules applies. All these things that everyone else learns easily are still a mystery to him.

Tate might be able to quote the golden rule, but he needs to be taught how it applies in every situation individually. And he won’t just learn it by example. He has to be taught with direct instruction. We can teach him to hold the door for someone, teach him to share a package of cookies with his siblings, teach him to be attentive when his friends at school are talking to him, and teach him to take turns with a video game, but when a new situation comes up, one he has not been taught about before, he probably will not step up and behave as if he cares about anyone’s interest but his own. There will be literally hundreds, maybe thousands of things he will need to be taught. It becomes more evident to me every day.

This morning, my husband and I went out for breakfast. We finished eating and were just visiting when my husband noticed there were a lot of people in the lobby waiting for tables. So, instead of lingering at the table, making others wait longer, we jumped up and gave up our table. That is not something anyone had specifically taught us as children. We do it because we want to be kind and compassionate. We want to treat others the way we would want to be treated. Empathy comes naturally to us now. We have generalized that golden rule to all situations throughout our day. Can you imagine what it would be like if you could not generalize the things you learn in one situation and apply them to another? Can you imagine what it would be like if you had to be taught what was expected of you in every situation you might run into? Can you imagine what it would be like if your family were constantly becoming exasperated with you for not doing the right thing when you do not even know what the right thing to do is? People with autism are not necessarily rude or uncaring. Sometimes they appear rude or uncaring because they just do not know what is expected of them nor can they figure that out based on similar experiences. And so I teach empathy. And I explain empathy. And I have empathy for the one I am teaching empathy to. He is like the elderly lady I helped down the hall in so many ways, and I am like the man. Tate needs my support and guidance to make it a short distance, yet I am wobbly on my own proverbial feet at times. I can drive him right up to the door of empathy and I have to hope others are there to offer him their arm or even a wheelchair and help him make it down the hall. 

You might also like: Kindness and Mistletoe
And.... I wrote another blog post expanding on the door thing: It's not that complicated!

Tate's wisdom x 10

These are things that made me giggle this past year or so. I wrote them down and put them in a file.  I went through them today. What do you think? Funny or not?

1. Tate’s bank was full of change. I said, "Want me to take this down to the bank and get your money counted? They will give you dollar bills for the coins." He said, "No thank you. The coins are really high-strung. We don't want to scare 'em."

2. Tate saw a box marked FRAGILE and asked, "Hey, why do you have a box of Fragile?”

3. I was heading into a store with Tate and he said, “I don't see any robbers.” I asked, “What does a robber look like?” He said, “They’ll be wearing black uniforms."

4. My older son and I were discussing spy / detective type things. He said, "I know a good way to tell if someone is following you?" Tate piped up with, "You look behind you."

5. Tate got into the car after school and as usual I asked, “Did you learn anything today?” He said they had learned about Christopher Columbus. I asked, “What did you learn about him?” Tate responded, “He’s dead.”

6. My kids were trying to find a show they could agree on. My daughter said she’d like to watch The Bionic Woman. Tate said, “Anna Biotic Woman?” I said, “Antibiotic? This is bionic not biotic” and I explained what bionic meant.  Tate said, “A woman Superman? I don’t think so.”

7. I was sitting with Tate. He broke the silence with, "Hey, how 'bout we talk about Count Dracula?" I said, "Um okay, what can you tell me about Count Dracula?" Tate replied, "He's been dead since 1938.”

8. Tate’s teacher tried some word association with him. She asked what a fork and spoon had in common. He said, “They ran away together.” (I think it was actually THE DISH who ran away with the spoon!)

9. I got a perm and then picked my kids up from school. The oldest one said, "Did you change your hair?" I said, "yeah." Tate jerked his head around and asked, "What did you do with your old hair?"

10. Tate was studying Egypt in Social Studies. He told me that the Egyptians had build pyramids with their feet. It took me a while but after some back and forth discussion, I finally understood. My literal kid may have become confused when the teacher explained the height and width of the pyramids, in feet.

And a bonus: Our cat Tom was looking in the door. Tate does not like cats but they seem to adore him. Tate's brother Levi began to try to convince me to let the cat inside. Levi started with, "that cat deserves.... " then Tate cut him off with "....a ticket to the animal shelter."

Tate's little sister Sydney was being tormented at school by a boy who kept calling her “gross.” I told her to pretend the boy was invisible and not to interact with him at all. Tate was truly trying to help and piped up with, "I have an idea. Go to school tomorrow and pretend you are not gross."