SPOILER ALERT****************************************** I actually don't know if I give away too much but I am putting the alert here just to be safe.
As a mom of a little boy with autism, I was drawn to this movie and come back again from time to time. I always cry at the end knowing that is not a reality for families with autism but wishing it could be. The school where the doctor teaches other kids is the reality I know. And the line (forgive me if it is not exact), "Here, ordinary is extraordinary" is something I think only families dealing with autism truly understand. My son and I have been working with specialists since he was just over a year old. And at 3 years and 9 months, I got my first, self-initiated "Mommy, I need a kiss." I cried with joy for days. He expressed an emotional need, self-initiated it, and said it in a sentence! You can tell when you meet people new to my son and they get so excited about the extraordinary things he can do. But like in this movie when you look at the parents and teachers working so hard, it is on the little things you take for granted. Don't get me wrong. We love the extraordinary things that make our children so special and fascinating. But when the ordinary things happen like the boy at the school hugging his mom for the first time, that is when we parents shout for joy and hoot and holler in celebration.
Dealing with a child with autism is like putting together a giant puzzle with infinite pieces. If you like the thrill of figuring things out, then it is great because the puzzle never ends...it just develops into a clearer picture the more you can fit things together. And since the number of pieces are infinite, you don't get a neat little picture on the box that lets you know exactly how things should look and you work towards that. Nope, that kind of puzzle is for amateurs. With autism, you study the pieces as they fit together and learn how they relate to one another and get glimpses of what a bigger picture may look like. But you know at any time one section of the puzzle may elude you completely while another section starts coming together quickly, making sense out of the patterns. And what you get is an ever-growing and changing picture of who that child is.
As a mom of a little boy with autism, I was drawn to this movie and come back again from time to time. I always cry at the end knowing that is not a reality for families with autism but wishing it could be. The school where the doctor teaches other kids is the reality I know. And the line (forgive me if it is not exact), "Here, ordinary is extraordinary" is something I think only families dealing with autism truly understand. My son and I have been working with specialists since he was just over a year old. And at 3 years and 9 months, I got my first, self-initiated "Mommy, I need a kiss." I cried with joy for days. He expressed an emotional need, self-initiated it, and said it in a sentence! You can tell when you meet people new to my son and they get so excited about the extraordinary things he can do. But like in this movie when you look at the parents and teachers working so hard, it is on the little things you take for granted. Don't get me wrong. We love the extraordinary things that make our children so special and fascinating. But when the ordinary things happen like the boy at the school hugging his mom for the first time, that is when we parents shout for joy and hoot and holler in celebration.
Dealing with a child with autism is like putting together a giant puzzle with infinite pieces. If you like the thrill of figuring things out, then it is great because the puzzle never ends...it just develops into a clearer picture the more you can fit things together. And since the number of pieces are infinite, you don't get a neat little picture on the box that lets you know exactly how things should look and you work towards that. Nope, that kind of puzzle is for amateurs. With autism, you study the pieces as they fit together and learn how they relate to one another and get glimpses of what a bigger picture may look like. But you know at any time one section of the puzzle may elude you completely while another section starts coming together quickly, making sense out of the patterns. And what you get is an ever-growing and changing picture of who that child is.