Learning Not to Throw Money Away

Marisa enjoys buying dinner at the bowling alley when she bowls on Friday nights with her community bowling league. I never had a problem with that until this past Friday night. Because I didn't have cash on hand to give Marisa to spend on dinner, I asked her to take $10.00 from her own savings that I would later reimburse her for. After returning home from bowling, Marisa handed me a receipt to show what she had spent on dinner. "Oh, dinner was less this time. How come?" I asked as I paid her back $6.00. Usually, Marisa would buy a larger meal and spend just under $10.00. I couldn't yet understand why she chose a smaller meal.

"I want $4.00 more," she said.

"But you only spent $6.00 on dinner," I answered.

Marisa started complaining and frantically crying.

"I want my $4.00 back!"

"You spent $6.00 on dinner. I'm paying you back for dinner."

I then asked, "What did you do with the rest of the money? Don't you have it?"

"I was trying to win a VISA card," she cried, as tears rolled down her face.

Apparently, Marisa figured that since I said I would pay her back $10.00 for dinner, she could buy a smaller meal and gamble the rest of the money in one of the bowling alley slot machines.

"I HATE those machines. They do nothing but eat money," I told Marisa.

"Next time we're at the bowling alley, show me which machine you threw my money out in." I was infuriated that she wasted the money I gave her, simply because she assumed I was going to pay her back.

This waste of money is something I see over and over again from kids with special needs. The element of surprise seems to be what draws many of these kids to the slot machines filled with junk toys at the bowling alleys. While Marisa bowls with her after school community bowling league for kids with special needs, I observe kids emptying their pockets and wallets of money on the trinkets they purchase from the slot machines. Many of these trinkets end up in the garbage seconds after they are purchased, simply because they are useless items to begin with. So who is to teach our kids that they are throwing away their money if we are not there to point this out to them? And how many times will it take for them to learn this lesson? Well, apparently an endless number of times, because that is what I've observed.

And if I hadn't taught Marisa to save her receipts, so she could check what she spent her money on, I would never have known that $4.00 was literally thrown away on nonsense, and I would not have had the opportunity to help Marisa learn from her mistake. Marisa learned an important lesson when she wasted $4.00 on a slot machine. She thought she was going to win a VISA card. This was a cruel lesson for her, but when I didn't pay her back, she realized that she was out $4.00 that she could have saved for something useful and lasting. "Just think how much money you're going to save by not gambling any more money away," I told her, as she dried her tear-filled eyes and counted what she had left in her savings.

The Meaning of "In A Relationship"

Not long ago I checked out Marisa's Facebook page and discovered that her profile showed she was in a relationship with a boy "friend." Then later that evening she added that she was in a relationship with another boy "friend." Marisa was very pleased with herself for having friends to connect with, but she failed to understand the meaning of the words in a relationship. We had talked about this difficulty before, and I tried to explain to Marisa that being in a relationship with a boy could be misinterpreted by others. "Having a friend and being in a relationship are two very different things," I said. Yet, she continued to enter in her profile that she was in a relationship with one friend or another and would periodically change the person she would say she was in a relationship with. "Just because you correspond with a friend through e-mail, IM or on your Facebook page, doesn't mean that there is more than a friendship going on," I reminded Marisa again. In spite of all my reminders, she just wasn't getting it.

Finally the time came to sit down and review in detail the difference between a relationship and a friendship, and hopefully Marisa would understand the difference between the two. To make things as clear as possible, I needed to refer to the dictionary and go over the meanings of each word.

Friend: "a person who likes or is helpful to one" as in a friendship

Relation: "connection by blood or marriage" as in a relationship

Marisa needed to understand that to say she is in a relationship could be misleading to others who may think that she is intimately involved with one person. Not only had she listed herself as being in a relationship with a boy, but also listed herself as being in a relationship with one of her girlfriends. When one of her friends, who happened to be a boy, saw her profile, he wrote to ask her if she had a special interest in girls only. This was a good opportunity for me to explain how others could easily misinterpret her meaning.

"Remember, Marisa, that being in a relationship usually means that you are intimate with someone or married to that person. You have many friends! That's wonderful, because you can share thoughts and interests with many people who care about you."

This sounded good as I was saying it and seemed easy to understand, yet for Marisa it wasn't quite that simple. Marisa, my daughter with autism, wants to reach out and find a way to connect with her friends in her own very special way which she seems to do on a daily basis. What's the problem here? It's a matter of definition, so when Marisa is finally able to say to me, "I'm in a new friendship!" I'll know that she has finally come to understand the difference between the two words. That will be one more step in the right direction ... one more special moment to learn from!

Spilled Juice? Learning to Handle the Unexpected

Imagine you're dressed for work and need to leave the house in 20 minutes. You're about to sit down for breakfast as you shake the orange juice container. Then suddenly you're soaked, as the cap flies into the air and juice rains down all over you, the counter and the floor. What would your immediate response be? I can just imagine! Then, what steps would YOU take to clean up the mess quickly and get on with your breakfast ... assuming you still have an appetite. Given these circumstances, it would be an extremely difficult situation for anyone to deal with. For Marisa, who this actually did happen to, it was overwhelming, setting her off into a major meltdown involving a fist dance and verbally persevering on friends she remembers from her past in order to block out what was happening at the moment.

The best case scenario I thought of at that moment was to talk Marisa through the problem and help her to realize what to do first, next and last in this particular situation, as I went about cleaning her, the counter and the floor. In other words, "first clean up yourself with paper towels, then wipe down the counter top and sides, and last wipe up the floor with paper towels followed by a more thorough cleaning with the mop and pail of detergent and water." This was exactly how it happened, but Marisa did not help one bit, as she stood there doing her fist dance and reciting names of friends from her past. That being the case, she obviously didn't hear anything I was saying, in the calmest voice I could, about the steps to cleaning up.

So how can I help Marisa to learn the steps to cleaning up an unexpected kitchen mess, when she is having a major meltdown and is completely unable to focus on what I'm telling her to do?

Visuals have always been helpful for Marisa as they are for many children with autism. I think that it will be worth a try to create a chart entitled, Kitchen Mess Cleanup, record the steps with pictures, and then create messy situations for Marisa to clean up. Now I'm not totally crazy, and I'm not going to go so far as to spill juice all over Marisa and the floor, but it might be worth while to spill some water and allow her to follow the steps to clean up.

Like learning to cook, clean up dishes, do laundry, or straighten one's bed in the morning, cleaning up a messy kitchen accident is another thing to learn. However, because it is unexpected, and not part of a regular routine in which one learns through repetition, it becomes much more difficult to learn. So while I'm at it, maybe I should make a chart for my whole family. And in time, wouldn't it be nice to see Marisa telling someone else in the family how to clean up their own unexpected kitchen mess. "Oops, here's what to do ..."

Making Logic Work to Our Advantage

Marisa has always been extremely fashion conscious, so when she was 16, she decided that it was much more fashionable to have straight hair. I helped her to achieve her goal by teaching her to dry her hair with a hairdryer and then follow up with a flat iron. Marisa was so excited to be able to achieve the smooth and straight hair style she had been longing for. This styling technique continued over the next two years, and then I started to notice that Marisa's hair was breaking, splitting, thinning and becoming very dried out. It just wasn't looking very silky and healthy any more. So it was time to make a change, but this was not going to come about quickly or easily.

I had switched my own straight hair style to a natural and curly look. From years of blow drying and flat ironing, I noticed my hair had also lost it's sheen and had become extremely dry. I started to learn the proper way to care for naturally curly hair and worked at perfecting my new hair care regime.

Unfortunately, teenagers usually are not interested in following the example that their parents set for them. They prefer to emulate the styles of peers or celebrities in their age group. I knew that I had a difficult task ahead of me. I was faced with a very real challenge, not just because Marisa is a teenager but because of her autism. I knew that the best approach would be from a logical standpoint, because when it comes to autism, problems are best resolved through the use of logic. People on the autism spectrum see things differently than us neuro-typicals, and when I think about it, the way Marisa sees things usually does make sense. I have a great deal of respect for Marisa's way of thinking, because when she explains why she does so many things differently than I would, it always seems to make sense. That is why I knew that if I could approach Marisa with a logical reason why it would be good for her to switch her hair routine, I would have a good chance of succeeding.

I set out by explaining the problems that arose from straightening her hair. By viewing the ends of her hair in the mirror and comparing it to the hair near her scalp, it was plain to see a very real difference. The hair near the scalp had a silky shine, and the hair near the ends was thin, dry and dull. Marisa was able to make the comparison for herself and was not happy with what she saw, but this was not enough to convince her.

I explained to Marisa that we needed to trim off the damaged ends. I would need to do this periodically till the hair would once again appear healthy and strong. Marisa could see for herself, how damaged the hair ends were as I cut them away. Once the damaged ends were cut away, she could see and feel how much thicker the hair was.

Next I searched for pictures of all the pop stars Marisa admired and here too, we were able to find quite a few that she could emulate. So I figured I had it made, but not quite yet. Marisa was still insisting that she needed to straighten her hair for school, but agreed to go natural for the summer while at camp. Well, at least it was a step in the right direction.

It's been three years since I started to push in the direction of this change over to natural curls. Marisa is wearing her hair curly most of the time now, but last spring and summer, still seemed to think she needed to straighten her hair for parties and proms at school and camp. Then recently, I smiled to myself when I noticed Marisa on the computer checking out some hair products for curly hair. When picture day at school arrived, Marisa walked in to the kitchen dressed in all her glory from head to toe in bling as she always did for picture day. One thing was different this time. Marisa was sporting a natural curly hair style! My heart skipped a beat, and I smiled as I joyfully told her, "You're picture perfect today!"

Keeping One Step Ahead of Our Computer Savvy Children

Many children with high functioning autism are harder to keep up with, as they get older. I spend an enormous amount of time having to check up on many of the computer groups Marisa joins. For example, just last night I inadvertently joined one of her health and fitness related groups in order to see what she was learning from being a member. What I ended up learning by joining the group, was that there was 100% chance that everyone in my e-mail contact list was going to end up being subjected to joining too! And not just that, but there is also the chance that if one clicks on an advertiser on the website, there's the chance that they will be billed by entering their mobile phone number. I ended up having to send out a follow-up e-mail apologizing to my entire e-mail contact list explaining to all involved that the e-mail I sent out asking them to join was an error. How embarrassing that was!

Next, I have to make sure that Marisa understands that even though the health related website is supposed to be free to it's users, there's the chance that clicking on some of the website advertisers could result in fees being added to her cell phone number. This is something I will have to go over with her when she comes home from school today. Marisa still has not learned that nothing in this life is free, especially when the word "FREE" is flashing in front of you. I have come to realize that any time Marisa has accrued fees, the best way to make her aware of this danger is to have her pay for it out of her own money. That is the warning she will get today, and hopefully it will be a reminder for the next time she joins some "FREE" group.

However, there's also something good to come out of this. Marisa is learning once again, how to be cautious in the tricky world of cyberspace. On a more positive note, she may be keeping in closer touch with some of her friends by sharing something that she feels may be helpful to others. Odd but true, Marisa, my daughter with autism, actually has a lot more friends than I do. She is always looking for ways to reach out to her peers. It's funny, but as a result of joining Marisa's group, some of my friends actually contacted me to get together. I now have new plans on my calendar as a result of Marisa's reaching out. How ironic is that?