Sssssoooo, if you live in an autism household, chances are you are more than well aware that today, YouTube completely crashed.
In the words of Captain Smeck,
“This is number one disaster!”
Without transition time, the boy doesn’t give up easily on having things work properly – especially when it comes to his tablet – and even MORE especially when it comes to YouTube on his tablet. When an unexpected change happens, his anxiety spikes.
It’s a loss of control.
The world gets louder.
Moves faster.
Everything. Gets. Harder.
An unexpected loss of control in our house usually ends up in a household shutdown while we help mama help the boy.
In those moments – the loud, the frantic – things getting kicked and thrown – I don’t have a mechanism for that. All I’ve ever known about getting someone to quiet down is to be louder; I go bigger bear.
You can’t “bigger bear” the autism out of a child; you CAN make everything a lot harder though.
So in these moments, I tend to take the pillar approach. I position myself nearby, ready to take action should mama need me – but most of the time I just end up witnessing her grace and intuition, and find myself enamored with her ability to figure out what our son needs even though he can’t express it.
Tonight was one of those moments. All is well now, but it definitely was not always so gleeful. Trista worked through kicking, screaming, anxious scripting and tears until she got our son calm enough to agree to his pod swing and a saved video.
I watched her sit with him and give him about 20 minutes of stim input, pulling and pushing his 80 pound frame around to make him forget that he’d lost control just a short time ago.
All is well with the world now.
That boy loves you mama. We all do. ❤️
Hurricane Heffners 