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I begin this blog with a bit of information about my son.

He is somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum - some say High Functioning Autism, some say Asperger's, I say neurologically atypical... don't care about the labels, care more about how to be the best mom to him given his uniqueness.

You probably bump into kids on the Spectrum every day and don't even know it. 1 out of 150 kids is neurologically atypical and until last August - when I diagnosed my child after a fluke google search of "sensory overload"... a diagnosis the school system ignored at first yet later agreed and doctors and other professionals agreed, wholeheartedly... all of a sudden the sky cleared and I had a reason why and a way to work with him just slightly differently which will ensure he is successful AND quite a bit happier.

Behind this link is an article which is helpful not only for kids with autism, it may be helpful in dealing with your "regular" child, too.  When I first read this article (and the book it inspired) I sat in Barnes and Noble on California Avenue, crying.

With that, a bit of an essay I wrote the other night after I watched my son's first attempts at diving when he was trying out a local swim team. I had told the coach "Oh, he can't swim 25 yards without stopping" and he did. Not once, not twice, but at least six times in one evening.

Then it came time to try diving, a brand new skill.

Here is what I saw:

I prefer not to see it as "stong-willed" I prefer to say "stubborn determination" or simply "wildly tenacious."

I watch my son move from "I am too scared!" and "I can't do it" to "Show me, let me try it a little bit and in a way that helps me get to the goal" to "OK, I am taking it on - just try to stop me" over a less than thirty minute period.

The problem is conventional methods say one can't continue until you "pass go" so to speak and master whatever it is that remains unmastered.

That doesn't work for my son.

Nagging, cajoling or almost any verbal prompt only serves to add fuel to his frustrated fire, which then takes the guise of anger or belligerance or defiance.

He is not being defiant, he is processing. He is taking the language, the scenario, the "what needs to be done" and allowing his brain to assimilate it all.

My daughter tends to do that by building UP a wall of fear. She starts with "I'm too scared!" and the scared gets bigger.

Sam says "I am scared" and then systematically - using his own mind tools and methodology, he works it out.

He uses the "I am scared" as inspiration.

I look at my children and wonder what makes them different, where do the two splinter off into building the fear and dismantling the fear?

Secondly, I look at myself and wonder, "where can I bring shifts in myself to be more like Sam?"

Ahhh, that brings tears to my eyes again. "How can I be more like my neurologically 'atypical' son? My son with a 'special ed' label, my son who is so profoundly deep, so aware, so unique."

Yes. I want to be more like him.