I don’t know if telling this story will date me, but I guess it doesn’t matter that I grew up in the sixties. I remember as a child, that song and story about Puff the Magic Dragon. The special friendship he and Christopher Robbins had together, but then the boy grows up and Puff hangs his head and cries. (Or was that Tom Dooley and Winnie the Pooh? LOL) Anyway, my kids have been best of friends since the beginning of time and long before that. My daughter, Carmen, and son, Jesse, have a sort of love for each other that I pray every day never ends. They even have a secret language and I often hear them babbling away together and cracking each other up with their private jokes. My son looks at his sister and her funny little ways and I can see it in his eyes that she brightens his day, and he her’s.
In just the last couple of years, this has been a growing concern for me. They are getting to an age where most siblings just can’t tolerate the sight of each other. Luckily this hasn’t been the case in my home, but I see something else occurring. My daughter has been developing in a more sophisticated way than my son. Her speech has greatly improved, her social skills are growing in leaps and bounds, and she is succeeding in general ed classes.
I am sad to say that in some ways, she is leaving her brother behind.
My daughter’s teacher called me the other day and we had talked about taking her off the gluten free diet so that we could open up new opportunities for her to socialize amongst her peers. She enjoys being with other little girls of course and this diet has created a barrier. The diet is mostly for her brother and it is just more convenient if we are all eating the same way than to have different menus.
I agreed that she needed this opportunity to flourish. At the same time, I am feeling kind of sad for my son. She really is his only friend and he has no interest in making new friends. I worry about if he is feeling left behind. It’s not easy to tell with him because he can’t express himself the way she can.
So, how does a mother make a decision that helps one child but might hinder the other?
I would like to think that I am doing what’s right for both kids. I would not want to have to choose the wellbeing of one over the other in any way shape or form, but sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture.
My husband and I often wondered if our daughter’s delays were, in part, due to the lack of interaction with NT kids of her age. She grew up right alongside her brother with no other children around.
It gets rather isolating being the sibling of a child who can’t cope with social situations.
Sometimes we feel guilty because we haven’t made a bigger effort to provide social opportunities for our daughter, but our thinking is that it is very difficult to take one child out without the other, so we opted to stay home for the sake of Jesse. Now the time has come that we need to think of what is best for Carmen.
I think that as parents, we need to give ourselves more credit. We do what we can, when we can, and we have to let Carmen move on from her brother. Maybe this will encourage Jesse to grow and seek friendships outside of his sister. I can only hope they can maintain that childhood magic they have now, over time. Or at least get it back when they grow older.
by Katherine Goodsell
Katherine Goodsell M.ED is the mother of two amazing children on the Autism Spectrum. Her children were the catalyst that started her journey down the road of Early Child Development and Education, Developmental Disabilities and Autism Spectrum Disorders Advocacy.In a 25 year span, Katherine is proven as an effective and culturally sensitive Life Coach; a capable director of resources and designer of Behavior plans and individualized educational plans (IEP) for children with developmental delays.
Hi again
So I want to respond to what you said about “Puff the Magic Dragon”. I laughed so hard when I read what you wrote. I’m an oldies music whiz, and I know a lot of soft rock songs too from the 1970s to mid 1990s. I’ve met very few people who have the depth of knowledge I have in oldies music from the 1950s and 1960s. I collect 45 rpm records and I actually have a promo radio station 45 rpm copy of Puff The Magic Dragon, recorded in late 1962 (released January 1963). The boy’s name in Puff The Magic Dragon (actually it was labeled as just “Puff” on the record label; it was on Warner Brothers Records) was JACKIE PAPER. Not Christopher Robin – that’s from Winnie The Pooh, lol. And Puff could not be brave after Jackie Paper stopped coming, so Puff sadly slipped into his cave. He never hung his head – that indeed was Tom Dooley, sung by the Kingston Trio in 1958. LOL. Tom Dooley who got hung. He may have actually never murdered his girlfriend, he may very well have been innocent. 1959 was teeming with ballads and songs about murderers – from “Mack The Knife” by Bobby Darin to “Stagger Lee” by Lloyd Price to the just mentioned “Tom Dooley”. Ironically some of my most favorite songs are ranked some of the worst of all time by listeners, such as “MacArthur Park” by Richard Harris (1968) and “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro (1968) and Alone Again Naturally by Gilbert O’Suilivan (1972). I want “MacArthur Park” played at my memorial service when I kick the bucket. I also like Barry Manilow and I adore Anne Murray’s songs, especially “You Needed Me”. Then again, I also loved Barney (the dinosaur) in college and Teletubbies too, and Maurice Sendak’s Little Bear too.
I actually also was an DJ host at the library sock hops we had during Halloween, Christmas, and sometimes Easter for preschoolers at the library auditorium. Me and my librarian friend played a lot of oldies songs, other than children’s songs.
Take care
Codi Preston D. from Northern California
I am 49 years old and I have Classic Autism and ADHD. I am actually like a 4 1/2 year old emotionally and socially, in spite of my having a college degree in Geography. Even after I became a so called “adult”, I had friends who were young children. The scary part is that some of these young children are now adults and long since outgrown me totally. Even the ones who were 5 years old when I was 35 are now almost 20 years old in college, and they have long left me in the dust. I also was an assistant co-host at Preschooler Storytime for 3 to 5 year olds for 16 years (2004 to 2020) at one of my local libraries. This librarian that was a children’s librarian asked me to help her with children’s storytime, so I decided to help her. After COVID 19 quarantine started, that ended that, unfortunately, as my library that I went to was closed for 2 1/2 years, and my children’s librarian friend (Lauren) retired at age 63 in 2021. But I do have Classic Autism and it’s beyond frustrating. In addition, I have such bad ADHD that I can’t even drive a car past 25 minutes. I still live with my parents. I wish I had a friend who could permanently play with me. I was mainstreamed in school mostly, and I got bullied immensely after 4th grade. I even got bullied in a state university college apartment dorm. I don’t know how many times I was called the word that used to mean intellectual disabilities. I’ve been called way worse names than that actually. The moment I went to kindergarten, all Hell broke loose. My attention span wasn’t even appropriate for kindergarten, I almost had to redo kindergarten. I went to public school from kindergarten to 5th grade. I missed homework assignments regularly in Catholic school from 6th to 8th grade. I knew little girls in kindergarten and first grade who wore babyish dresses and T strap shoes or Mary Janes, in 1989, that were more responsible about completing their homework, same with the little boys that age, and I was in 8th grade. The only time in my education where I wasn’t complained about was when I was in nursery school. I have something to say funny about the song anecdote, but will in my next message as this response is getting long – Codi Preston D. from California (I want to move to Upstate South Carolina)
As an HFA, my NT sister was my only friend for the first 13 years of my life. When she switched her attention to a boyfriend I was shattered. We rarely spoke after that. I believe that there must be a way to prepare an autistic child for such an event. It might help.