My son has to know where we are at all times. That includes the pets. We don’t own a 5,000 square foot mansion so when we leave the room we’re not that far away. But when one of us steps into another room Braden immediately gets up and starts asking where we went.
The other night Braden (Brad-inn) was eating dinner when Mom decided to go to the bathroom. As soon as he noticed, Braden started asking me, “Where’s Mama go?” even though he knew where she went.
This wouldn’t be such a big deal but for the fact he gets fixated on it. That drives us nuts! He’ll keep asking until we answer the question that he already knows the answer to. And sometimes he’ll keep asking anyways.
Follow up:
Zip is the cat and Lucy is his dog. If they aren’t in sight stop the pressesuntil we figure out their exact positions on the premises. I think we need to install GPS transmitters up their butts and give the receiver to Braden. Sheesh!
This is one of my son’s little autism traits that we’ve gotten accustomed to. It isn’t new. But we’ve dealt with it for so long that I haven’t thought to write about it until now.
Another thing; He really fixates on bugs. He wants them dead. He does not like bugs. If he’s eating dinner and he sees a fly zooming around the room everything must stop until the fly is dead. He won’t take another bite of his food until the fly is dead.
It doesn’t matter whether or not we are sitting down eating our own dinner. No, we still have to get up, find the fly, chase it around the room, and give it a proper burial. Then we can return to our cold food.
If the tiniest little spider is on the ceiling 12 feet above Braden fixates on it and talks about it. He wants it dead. If he could he would kill it himself. It’s crazy!
It’s gotten so bad that when we barbeque we don’t use the sliding glass door nearest the grill and kitchen. When we use that door a fly or two tends to slip inside the house and then we have a major issue on our hands. So we use the garage door to go out the house and around to the patio when grilling.
What else does our son fixate on? Anything that we tell him to NOT touch. If he can’t touch it, then he absolutely MUST touch it.
Wasn’t too long ago that I had a sore on my nose. It was tender. Naturally, Braden saw it and immediately wanted to touch it. When I told him not to touch it, his wanting to touch it increased by the power of 10! He had a fit because I was avoiding him because he was reaching for my nose constantly. Ultimately, the pain of just letting him touch the sore was easier to bear than the pain of his fits. Grin and bear it as they say. And so I did. And then Braden moved on.
Kids with autism tend to fixate on one thing or another. Locks, bugs, sprinklers and our current locations are just some of the things that cause our son to fixate and forget about everything else.