I once read an article about a man who had grown up oblivious to the emotions of others. I can’t recall the details of his situation, but much later in life he went through medical treatments that allowed him to gain the super power of emotion.
He hated it. It totally ruined his comfy middle class life.
It’s like the 30 Rock episode where Tracy Jordan regains his sense of smell, only to have the childhood mood ring jammed back into his nose to not struggle through his life changing.
Even though we have to deal with teachers and peers treating Finley differently from everyone else, he has so far been more or less ignorant to the emotional machinations of others. If a kid doesn’t want to play with him, who cares? Finley’s going to play with the kid anyway. For all of kindergarten, he never once complained about other kids.
Sure, part of that is being a boy, but I think the autism plays a much larger piece of it.
Kella is more neurotypical, so she’s well aware of what other kids say and think. And I have to say, Donald Glover was right when he said that kids are all tiny tiny Hitlers.
While we were asking Kella how she liked Kindergarten, she said that she doesn’t like it anymore because a girl “kicked her out of the club.”
I have no idea what precipitated this club kicking out crap–I like to believe as much as any parent that my little angel would never do anything to lead others to want to shun them, but I’ll admit there could be more to the story–but what are Kindergartners doing with “clubs” anyway? That’s super messed up that little five year olds are already shutting out other kids.
There will obviously be a lot more of this over the next…well, pretty much her whole life. Just one of a million social battles she’ll have to fight over the years.
But did it really have to start so young? Kids are supposed to be cute and kind, not little jerks. I just hope my kids aren’t conscientiously being the jerks to others.
Though calling everyone “bullshid” probably isn’t the best start.