A Blessing

Today is World Autism Awareness Day.  A day for people to learn more about autism and the many challenges that it encompasses. I'll admit that I didn't know too much about autism until Stone began struggling.  Once we got a diagnosis, I fully submersed myself in all of the literature/research on autism.  I was pretty floored.

Until then I thought that children with autism were non-functional.

Now, I know that children on the spectrum are some of the biggest blessings this world has.  Stone's strengths are much stronger than his weaknesses.  Quite simply, he's amazing.

Of course, I'm his mom, but...

His skills in math and his ability to recall are amazing.  I see nothing wrong with helping him to exploit these amazing talents, while letting some of the things that he's not "great" at fall a bit off the radar.  I want to build his self esteem, I want him to know that we're not all amazing at everything.  But he's amazing at several things.  What a blessing!

Of course, we still work on some of the skills that are difficult, like fine motor skills.  And he's making progress, actually he's making amazing progress.  Did you catch it from the two pictures above?  He's doing his copywork with both hands.  And doing a great job with both!

(all the green R's in this picture are made with his left hand, the pink with his right hand)

A lot of people would view the above skill as an issue.  Undetermined hand dominance at the age of four is actually considered a delay, but I don't see this as a delay at all.  What a blessing to be able to do something so well with both your hands.

I couldn't do it, can you?

Each one of us has individual talents and challenges.  Children on the Autism spectrum do have a lot more challenges, but they have a lot of blessings too.  I want to make sure these blessings aren't overlooked and that my son grows up knowing his strengths, because HE is such a blessing to me!