Sunday, June 17, 2012

Stims - a cautionary tale

So there we were, soaked to the skin, my little family and two nice teenagers,
listening to my son wail about a missing string.
Needless to say, this was not the performance my husband and I expected.
My son had some issues during theatre camp, but the reports were positive.
He had not volunteered to do extra,
(he didn't understand what was asked) but was otherwise "doing great."
Our first inkling of something wrong was when we saw he had
a string on stage.
Strings are his stim. They are strictly limited to his bedroom.
This has been true for so long now, we don't think or talk about it.
Put a string in his hand and he's gone-you've got physical presence,
not much more.
No one could tell us when or how the string showed up-
it's even in the little bio they posted (not shared with us before the show).
When the string fell during the show he wanted to find it. Disaster.
For the next show we told him, no string.
Almost as simple as that, though because it was an unexpected change,
we told him he could have it in the car on the way home.
I had him write it out.
He did fine.
He seems fine.
I'm not.
Next order of business,
writing out "no string" for him and his counselors for his next camp.
Reading, by the way, was not a problem.
He could have read and memorized 100 lines.
He had two.



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