Parentella

Presidents Day was never a particularly major holiday in my book. There were enough fun holidays during the years to get involved with, holidays with built-in entertainment (Easter egg hunts, Valentine’s Day cards, Halloween costumes, etc). Pretty much the only thought I gave to Presidents Day was, “Oh, they don’t have school on Monday? Well, at least I don’t have to make lunches.”

And then everything changed.

My son is on the autism spectrum. From very early on, he liked looking at and drawing and thinking about organized groups of people, arrays of faces that were similar but different. The Greek gods were one passion. The Beatles were another. And the presidents of the United States were maybe his most super favorite set of similar individuals.

I don’t even remember how it began. Maybe a teacher had a poster of the presidents on a wall. Maybe we bought him a book. Maybe he studied them in class. For whatever reason, at a very young age he became fascinated with the American presidents and since we were always looking for things to engage him, to keep him from zoning out and self-stimming, we bought book after book after book about them. Mostly picture books.

His memory is astonishing. One day, we asked him some question about the presidents and he proceeded to list all forty-one (it was a while ago) of them. In chronological order. He was tiny (it was probably first grade) and still struggling with conversational speech, taking hours of speech therapy every week, but the kid could list every single United States president in ORDER. He also knew most of their vice-presidents and wives.

One of the most important lessons I’d learned from working with Dr. Lynn Kern Koegel (of the Koegel Autism Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara) was that the best way to help a kid with autism socially is to find a socially acceptable way to let him display his natural skills and talents so that others can admire and even try to emulate them.

Suddenly Presidents Day took on new meaning.

We let our son’s teachers know that he could recite the presidents from memory, and they were always great about calling him up to the front of the class to show off his ability the day before or the day after the holiday. His classmates would watch in astonishment and admiration as he would start at Washington and end at Clinton (or Bush, as time went on).

And we’d make sure we celebrated Presidents Day as a family, too. One year we drove out to the Ronald Reagan library to see Abraham Lincoln (well, a reasonable facsimile) deliver the Gettysburg address. Other presidential look-alikes wandered the grounds and our son was wild with excitement, running up to greet and correctly identify each one. It was so much fun to see him that involved and entranced.

Other years, we threw a Presidents Day party: made a red-white-and-blue cake, invited friends over, had a barbecue, and then gathered everyone together to hear our son recite the list of presidents. His performance was always a real showstopper and the applause was deafening.

Letting your child’s interests lead the way is a good strategy for parents in general: nothing builds enthusiasm and creativity like a genuine fascination with a subject, and kids love feeling like they have some say in what their family does and thinks about. When you have a kid with special needs, it becomes even more important, because it gives them the opportunity to shine, both at school and at home, to feel admired and appreciated and to see themselves as a very important part of their community. Presidents Day never meant much to me until my son made it very special for all of us.

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Claire LaZebnik is the co-author of Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies and Hope That Can Transform a Child’s Life and the author of four novels, including the recently published If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now. Contact her on Facebook.

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1. Let’s Celebrate “All Types of Minds” During Autism Awareness Month
2. Autism: How To get Support at School
3. Autism Through One Mother’s Eyes
4. Celebrating with a Bi-Cultural Extended Family
5. The Cost of a Notebook: 99c; Information: Priceless

Tags: Autism, President's Day

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2011 at 12:01 am and is filed under Guest, Holidays, Special Needs Students. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.