While eating breakfast, Brady asks, “Would a dinosaur’s dollar be as big as that door?”
These are serious questions from a pensive, imaginative eater every morning at breakfast. It can be challenging to answer such left-field questions about a vast range of topics. I do my best to give serious and thoughtful responses.
“Yes, dinosaur money would need to be very big. But do they really need money, Brady?” I reply.
His eyes look focused on the air between him and me. I’m not sure if he’s processing my answer but I’ll find out in the next few seconds.
“Mom, when Daddy dances his coins jump out of his pants and I find them,” Brady responds. His brain has shifted to coins, a topic he touches on multiple times every day since late June when he found a quarter and a nickel in a parking lot.
I pick Brady up from camp later that day and he has bandages wrapped from his knee down to his calf on his left leg. He has an eye patch over his left eye.
“Oh, no!” I play along when I see him, “What happened, Brady?”
“I lost my eye, Mom. My leg broke in a pirate battle, but I can still walk.” He limps down the hallway as we head for the car.
It wasn’t until the last two years that Brady started playing creatively. Pretend play wasn’t something he comprehended for the longest time. His literal mind made it hard for his siblings to include him in play for more than a few minutes.
But now he gets it and that’s a BIG deal for a child on the autism spectrum. He plays with character toys and voices each of them. I love hearing him playing in the room just off our kitchen where I can see him as well. If I were to close my eyes, I might believe it is a 6 or 7-year-old immersed in pretend play, but this doesn’t matter at all to me. He’s now doing something that I thought would never happen – creative play with a loose storyline. If you listen closely to his characters, you will most certainly smile.
For years, I thought Brady’s imagination was largely nonexistent. With his siblings playing around him in the same room, he was the one biting army men and saying the same word over and over (Mooooooo! MOOOOOOO! Mooooooo!). He was my baby cow who seemed to be in his own world – exploring everything with his mouth even though he was way past the exploratory mouthing age.
Tonight, I gave Brady some chocolate cake and after a few bites, it was falling into crumbs on his plate. He noticed and immediately made chocolate dirt with the remaining cake. He looked up at me for my reaction and instead of getting upset over the mound of chocolate crumbs on his plate, I tried not to react.
“It’s now DIRT, Mom!”
“Seems that way. Keep it on your plate,” I reply.
“I’m making a chocolate dirt star,” he says not looking up as he squeezes crumbs together and pinches them into triangle points on the plate.
Brady loves to do things with his hands, whether it be weaving, making card houses, stacking blocks, moving cars, or pressing materials together to shape something bigger. He explores his environment with his hands and his imagination takes off.
Instead of getting upset about the mess he’s making, I’ve learned to settle into his world and observe. I want to foster his imagination and allow his brain to walk down the road of endless possibilities. When Brady is in his creative mode, he’s doing his most important work. He’s taking the knowledge he’s consumed and expanding on it through his imagination. It thrills me and excites me; for this is imperative to his self-discovery. Who is Brady? How does his beautiful mind work? He sees the world so differently than most as evidenced by his art and his verbal observations.
A study published in The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders* found that people with autistic traits tend to exhibit more “divergent thinking.” This doesn’t surprise me. Brady’s brain processes his environment differently than the brain of a neurotypical person. His senses are heightened, so he picks up on things that others often overlook. Put bluntly, he naturally thinks outside the box – with everything!
An example of Brady’s divergent thinking occurred on the beach today. Brady was helping his younger brother dig a wet sand hole near the shore. They were both shoveling heavy sand out of the same spot and tossing it aside, creating two separate sand piles on the edge of the water hole. Ocean water rushed in to fill the hole again and again. Suddenly Brady paused and excitedly exclaimed: “The piles are now ISLANDS, Cedric! We need to dig around the piles. Quick! The water is making islands. Dig more, Cedric!” It took Cedric a second to look at the hole in a new light. No longer was the hole just a hole, it had become a lake surrounded by islands.
I believe that autistic children perceive the world in an especially unique way, which in turn, aids them in coming up with very creative ideas and unusual observations. To me, Brady’s mind is like a mystifying puzzle without any boundaries. Often I don’t understand why his mind has fixated on some of the most jagged puzzle pieces (that most people would push aside). However if I focus singularly on these preferred puzzle pieces with him, I am sometimes able to understand what is so intriguing about these outlier pieces and how they actually DO fit together. When I am able to look at the world for a few moments through Brady’s eyes, I laugh out loud because I’ve finally gotten it – “how clever, Brady!” As his adoring mother, it’s such a delightful feeling for me to connect in this intimate way.
Sometimes though, I really don’t get it and so some of the pieces remain floating islands that only tie back together in his mind. My neurotypical mind is too restricted; whereas Brady’s is vast and free. But because of him, I’m able to see the world differently as well – To absorb more layers of vast complexity and beauty, to peer more below the surface than I would have before having Brady in my life.
“I can’t eat this chicken in front of the seagulls. They might be embarrassed by me,” Brady told me last summer when I handed him his lunch on the beach.
“Why is that?” I ask, searching my mind for a connection.
“I’m eating BIRD MEAT, Mom,” he replies as he keeps the chicken legs hidden in the aluminum foil so the ocean birds, of whom he’s so fond, aren’t too horrified.
- ”The British study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, involved the analysis of data from 312 people who took part in a series of tests on creativity. It turned out that those who had autistic traits offered fewer responses to problems presented, but their solutions were more original and creative than those who did not have autistic traits.” – Study: Autism, creativity and divergent thinking may go hand in hand, The Washington Post, August 2015.
This blog post is part of Finish the Sentence Friday, hosted by Kristi Campbell of www.findingninee.com and Madra Sikora of www.madrasikora.com; this week’s theme is VAST.
OMG that he hid his sandwich!! LOL! I love that reasoning (and would probably have thought something similar myself as a kid). I know what you mean about how much joy it brings you to hear Brady playing imaginatively in the room off the kitchen. That’s HUGE and big and you’ll always remember that joy.
Hahaha the story about the seagulls and the sandwich made me laugh… that’s so Brady! I’m pretty sure that quote will go through my head every time I’m eating lunch at the beach now. Hope you’re all having a relaxing summer!
Yes yes yes!!!
“When Brady is in his creative mode, he’s doing his most important work.” You go Mom! Creativity is where problem solving happens, it’s where invention begins, it’s where dreams grow! Such an under appreciated (and under cultivated) skill. I loved reading this.
I totally get that creative thinking is a big deal. I really get it. I love how his brain unfolds.
Also, I’ve had similar thoughts about our chickens watching me eat.. other chickens. And my kids do too!