Yes! Play with Your Food

A big part of therapy with Ethan is getting him to try new things. Thankfully, he is fairly flexible. There are kids on the autism spectrum who will refuse to be in the same room as a particular food, for example, or will only drink from a particular cup, sit in a certain seat, or eat a specific type of cracker. I am so thankful Ethan rarely tantrums if we mix things up on him, and mixing things up early in the game, before he gets too set in his way, is a very good thing. For example, if we're playing with Play-doh, we try to do all sorts of things with the Play-doh (rolling, cutting, squishing, poking) before he decides to play with it just one certain way.

Or drawing. The occupational people really want to work on coloring/writing with him, because that's his weakest skill right now. He doesn't have much interest and plus he's clumsy with any kind of writing implement. I was playing a great drawing faces game with him that he absolutely loved (basically I draw a sad, happy, mad, etc. face step by step and then he helps cross it out, which is helping to teach about emotions and facial expressions). We played the game so much that I quickly realized that every time Ethan did express interest in writing on his own, he was trying to copy the game. I'd hear him trying to say the first steps ("Circle. Eye. Eye. Nose.") in his own fumbly language. It's funny, because most of the words were indeciperable, but the cadence to them was perfect, just as I'd said it in the game. Anyway, once again Ethan had gotten stuck, so I've had to pull back from doing that game, which means he's not interested in coloring all that much once again. I'm constantly thinking (and so is the therapist) -- what would pique his interest once again? The Magna doodle or Aqua doodle? Chalk? Markers? Finger painting?

The thought of finger painting brings me to the issue of food. This is another area where thankfully Ethan isn't horribly inflexible but could stand to do better and expand his repertoire a bit. One thing that came up after talking to the therapist is that Ethan doesn't like to play with his food. Awhile back when he was pretty young he was a bit interested in making the whole baby mess with mushy baby food but after that lost its novelty he's pretty neat, unless he's focused on devouring something he loves, like yogurt. He never hit that toddler, throwing food on the floor, mushing everything with his hands phase. I didn't see this as necessarily a bad thing (quite the contrary, thinking like a mom!) but his outpatient occupational therapist, Diane, is suggesting we let him do it a bit. Exploring food means being open to new textures, flavors, and colors. Being willing to explore it with his hands can translate into Ethan eventually being willing to explore with his mouth (right now his diet, while passable, is rather limited). And that openness to getting a little messy can carry over to art projects, the sandbox, water play, and so on.

Really it all boils down to curiosity. I think I've mentioned previously that in Ethan, I see reflections of myself. I have to admit I have never been a curious person. I've not been the type to say, "Let's try this and see what happens." As a result, I think there were many questions I never asked even about the basic world and everyday life around me, and many facts that are common knowledge to most people that I never learned (such as how certain things work). So with Ethan, I learn why curiosity can be so vital to learning. I want him to get messy. I want him to dump out the toy box and explore everything in it. The mom part of me may grown about the clean-up, but the results will be well worth it.