As I drove away from my son’s school this morning after dropping him off over half an hour after the late bell, I had my customary call with my mother. Irritation level being red, I attempted to remain calm as she asked questions about my son’s morning. “Is he sick?” “Did he sleep okay last night?” “He knows it is show-n-tell today, why did he stall getting ready for school?” Such questions led to other questions about earlier inappropriate behavior. “His teacher said that yesterday the only problem they had with him was about his gloves. Why does he feel like he needs to wear them in school all day?”
At that point I imagined my 7 year old son on a couch, in a semi-dark room, with an old man wearing a brown tweed jacket sitting nearby with a pad and pen in hand. Not necessarily Freud himself, but some psychoanalyst with good intentions trying to figure out why my son does what he does. That is when I stopped my mother and said “Freudianism does not fix autism.”
Of course, learning why my son exhibits a certain behavior should be analyzed, but I have learned to redirect the focus of the question. The focus should not on the gloves themselves and what they represent to my son as a symbol of some sort. The focus should be on what it is in his environment that is possibly agitating him or causing anxiety so that he seeks out to be soothed by wearing his red gloves. By the way it a hot April in Texas so cold hands are not the answer. Will I ever know the answer as to why my son disrupted his class yesterday by wearing his red gloves? Of course not. Can I live with that and move on? I have to.