Bumble bees and Honey bees are cousins!

Question: "Well, if you were a bumble bee and a bull sat on you what would you do?"

Answer: "You would sting him."

Those aren't just two lines from the story of "Ferdinand" the bull-- which by the way is Aditya's favorite!

(How interesting.... Ferdinand is a "special" bull who is different from his friends, who has no interest in fighting but instead sitting every single day under his favorite cork tree, quietly, smelling flowers!)

For a child with autism, a phrase from a book or a TV commercial often becomes what the child will say or ask pretty much any time of the day, seemingly with no regard for what's happening around!

In autism lingo, it is called "Echolalia", although I like to stay away from such words that tend to over-complicate the issue... something brought to the attention of our class by William, a wonderful senior Son Rise teacher! The child is not necessarily doing this because he does not know to say anything else. Certainly... Aditya can now speak on a LOT of different topics. But regardless of his reason to say it at that time, he is effectively wanting control over and predictability in his environment, including people in the environment.

That is how anything can quickly become a "control" issue for him. For example when he asks a question 5 times for whatever reason, and people start showing signs of frustration and want to run away or start re-directing him, it becomes a control battle, often leading to the child seeking even more control!

Aditya asked the question "Well.... if you were a bumble bee..." several times during this week, and after answering him a few times the way he liked, we tried some ways of redirecting him by answering his question differently!

GOSH... we were wrong, and the question continued! Then I reliazed: he really NEEDS the same exact answer he is looking for. It does not matter how many times he has asked already, or even that he has asked 2 minutes ago. If he looks like he needs that answer now, GIVE IT TO HIM!

So when he asked me again this morning:
"Well, if you were a bumble bee and a bull sat on you what would you do?"
I enthusiastically said: You would STING him.

Aditya's face lit up.

Then, to my surprise, he introduced an expansion himself: "And if a honey bee came there...?"

I could not believe this came so soon!

(Looking back, the only thing different today, was possibly, my attitude. I had no reservations in saying "You would sting him!" instead I was pretty much celebrating the fact in my mind that I was providing him with the answer he clearly wanted in order to find predictability.)

Equally delighted, I said: "she would ask the bumble be: it's boring under this cork tree.... do you want to come honey picking with me?"

Aditya liked the idea and said bumble bees and honey bees were cousins, and could go for a picnic.

And from there... we built a story of the two bees going out together to have fun!

Aditya proposed (with no prodding from me at all) that they carry bags of honey on their back! I agreed whole-heartedly celebrating him for his "planning"... now they can even visit their distant cousins in North Carolina (which is where Aditya's cousins live), without stopping at Detroit for food (where we had stopped when we visited them in North Carolina), instead they can just keep sucking honey from their honey-bags.

Aditya did seek control again, saying "Can we do that in 2012?" He was especially keen to do it on February 29, 2012. We agreed on that, and that we would meet again in 2016 on February 29.

Later, the bumble bee requested to meet on February 28, 2013 as 4 years is too much of a wait, to which Aditya said "Sure!"