The terrible terrors

Today we took Quinn to a sensory movie - a fantastic offering by AMC Theatres, where they show a movie once a month without previews, with the lights dim but not dark, and with the sound turned down to a reasonable volume.

Last time we went, we saw "Frozen," which kept every kid in the place mesmerized. Today's movie was "Muppets: Most Wanted," which was a little slow in parts and had the kids squirmy and a little bored - not great for a room full of kiddos on the spectrum.

Quinn stood up and down and up and down and kept wanting to move from chair to chair to chair. Directly in front on us was a pre-teen boy who flapped his hands constantly unless he was fiddling with a slinky he held up to eyes. Down in front was an older teen who laughed slowly and loudly at random moments. To the left was an older boy who would tantrum each time he dropped his sippy cup or his mom threatened to take away his crackers.

On one level, none of this worried me a bit. One of the great gifts of Quinn's autism is that I am totally comfortable around kids whose behavior would have made the pre-mom me very, very uncomfortable.

But on another, the whole experience was more than a little terrifying. Quinn is very high-functioning and is growing and advancing day by day. But will it last? Will he hit a peak? Will his habit of flailing his body around when he's bored turn into the kind of full-on stimming that was so evident today? Will he grow up to be someone who happens to have autism or someone who is defined by it?

Some days I am full of optimism about this little boy who I love so very deeply. And some days I am gripped by an unrelenting chorus of "what if..." playing in my head.

Most days, it's a little of both.

DTD = Quinn

Wow. Someone posted this in the Yahoo group for Quinn's orphanage, and it just about knocked me out of my chair.

Scroll down to the stuff about Developmental Trauma Disorder. Quinn looks so much  like at ADHD kid in so many ways, but I've never believed that he is. I guess I'm not alone...

This article isn't exactly light reading, but if you adopted internationally, you might see some stuff you recognize!

Are special needs funny?

Today I saw an adoptive mom's advertisement for t-shirts she's selling. One said something about how it wouldn't be terrible to have a kid with special needs, it would be terrible to raise a kid who was cruel to people with special needs. I don't love the implication that it is inherently unwelcome to have a kid with special needs, but I certainly appreciate the sentiment behind the shirt.

But another shirt said, "Ask me about my attention deficit disorder" and then listed a bunch of random thoughts, ending with, "hi." Um, isn't making fun of a very challenging special need just a little bit cruel?

I sent an email to the mom saying the ADD shirt really made me cringe, and she responded that humor is what parents of SN kids need and that the shirt is her best seller among her clients, who are loving Christians with senses of humor. She also said the creator of the shirt was her 11-year-old son, who has ADD.

I'm not comforted. If her son wants to laugh at his own challenges, awesome. But do the people who see such a shirt recognize and admire a kid who is laughing at his own challenges? Or do they see such a message as sanctioning their own prejudices? I fear it's the latter.

Humor? Absolutely! At our kids' expense? Never.

That's my take. What do you think?