When growing independence is frightening

Have you seen Rain Man?  If not you should.  There was a scene in it where Raymond, an adult with autism,  tries to cook frozen waffles in a toaster.  It all goes wrong, smoke pours out of appliance and the smoke alarm goes off.  His brother, played by Tom Cruise, comes rushing in, smashes the alarm off the ceiling and sorts out the smoking toaster. Raymond isn't safe to be by himself.  He was just trying to do was make himself breakfast,  but he is not independent.  He needs support, even to make breakfast.  And so does my son.

Anthony is a nine year old boy.  He has autism too.  Unlike Raymond though, he's not fictitious, he is a real little boy. He is our eldest son. He walks and he talks but he finds somethings difficult.  He goes to a regular school and has someone there who helps him, because he is not independent.  However, that doesn't mean he doesn't want to be.

About six months ago or so, Anthony started to ask to do more things "by myself."

I'm not going to lie.  When he says this it sounds almost exactly the same as when our three year old daughter says it.  "I can do it," she'll say whilst trying to pull on her socks and shoes. But whereas Jane has then mastered her shoes less than a week later,  her autistic brothers still needs to think about it several years later.  However, being able to put your shoes on or not won't burn your house down.  Being able to put your shoes or not, will not cut your hand open. 

One morning this last week, I was woken by the sound of Anthony scripting down stairs.  He was saying the same things over and over again and it took me a moment to realise he was talking about someone being hurt.  And then he said, "I'm going to die."

I jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs to find Anthony holding his hand.  "I was just trying to make breakfast," he said.  Oh... and this.

Anthony is often awake before us, but about two years ago we decided he could come down stairs and watch tv before we got up.  On this occasion, he'd suddenly decided he wanted to make breakfast instead. He had successfully made himself and his brother enormous bowls of breakfast.  Anthony and David both have exactly the same breakfast every morning.  Jane though has what she fancies, within reason.  Anthony had decided she might like custard(?) for breakfast and was trying to open it with one of the sharp knives he'd got out of the drawer.  He didn't actually cut himself whilst trying to get the custard open... no he decided to see if the knife was sharp by running his hand along the knife.  

As the cold water ran over a little cut so I could get a look at the damage he declared he had already cleaned his cut and pointed to the Mr Muscle Kitchen cleaner he'd got out from under the sink. 

I throughly cleaned the cut.  Applied a plaster, cleaned up the mess and then after the all the children had got to school, I ran over in my mind what could have been a very bad incident. 

We talked to Anthony about knives.  About waiting for us. We went to bed.

The next morning we were woken by the smoke alarm.

Anthony had tried to make Jane toast.    Smoke was pouring out of the toaster and Anthony was at the bottom of the stairs spinning in a circle trying to wave a small cloth at the smoke alarm. "It's ok, I didn't use any knives," he said.

Anthony's desire to be independent is a good thing.  But we really need to help him manage expectations. It seems unfair to force Jane to have the same (safe to make) breakfast everyday so that we can specifically teach Anthony to make it.  Instead, we are helping Anthony to understand what is safe and not safe to do... but this can mean thinking of everything.  We can quiz him... is it safe to go on the road?  Is is safe to use the kettle?  Is it ok to get a pack of crisps?  Is it ok to balance on a chair to get the pack of crisps?  And then help him understand solutions for these.

While this takes repetition and time we are fortunate in that he seems to have given up the 'making breakfast' phase.  But I can't help but wonder... maybe fear... what will he try next?

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