National Siblings Day: A Guest Post by Ben (Mostly)

For anyone just tuning in, we have four children. Daniel is almost ten and Gideon is 6.5.  They both have autism.  Ben is 8 and Katherine is 2.  

Since it is National Siblings Day, I thought what better person to talk about his siblings than Ben.  So, I sat down (while he bounced off the furniture) and asked him a few questions.

From Left to Right: Daniel, Gideon, Ben, Katherine

Question: Tell me about your brothers and sister.

Ben: My oldest brother's name is Daniel.  Daniel likes to play with his monkey*, his iPad, and he wears glasses.  My brother goes to therapy because he has autism.

My other brother is Gideon and he likes to say, "Eeeeeee.*" He runs around like a bear standing up sometimes.  Also, my brother goes to therapy because he has autism.

My only sister, Katherine, is sweet and she annoys me a lot. She always wants me to read a story to her. She's really cute.

Question: What's the best thing about having Daniel and Gideon as your brothers?

Ben: Daniel always like to play with me and I think it's funny when Gideon runs around like a bear.

Question: What's the hardest thing about having Daniel and Gideon as your brothers?

Ben: One thing that is hard is that Gideon can't really talk to me.  My brother Daniel annoys me because he doesn't always want to do what I want him to do.  It's hard to play games with them.

Question: What's your favorite memory you have about your brothers?

Ben: One of my favorite memories of Gideon is when he got flour all over himself.  My favorite memory of Daniel is playing cars with him and reading books. 

Question: What's one thing you'd want other people to know about your brothers?

Ben: I want people to know they have autism so they know they act different.  And that my brother Gideon gets into a lot of things.*

Question: Is there anything you want to tell you brothers?

Ben: I love you!

*Daniel carries a small stuffed monkey as a fidget toy.  Just for
clarification.

*People with autism engage in self-stimulating activities.  For short, we call these "stims." These activities have a wide, varied range and are fairly individualized.  They often help to calm in times of anxiety or stress or other times are done in excitement and happiness.  The "classic" stims are things like rocking and flapping hands. Daniel and Gideon have a lot of vocal stims.  Gideon sometimes runs back and forth, with his arms in the air, making a vocalization that Ben describes (pretty accurately) as "Eeeeee."  We try to put a stop to stims that are self-harming, harming to others or extremely distracting.  For example, Daniel often bit his hand when he felt anger, anxiety, or excitment.  He sometimes broke the skin and he had constant bite marks on his hands.  He no longer does this. Stimming is apart of our every day life.

*Yes!  Yes, he does.