Tonight I was sitting on my front porch handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters stopping by the house while my wife Tiffany was out with Benjamin (our oldest) and Ava (our youngest). I was holding down the fort with Jack, our severely autistic 10-year-old. He was hanging out in the basement doing his thing — watching TV, playing on the computer, not knowing the difference between March 31 and October 31.
If you’ve never been here before, Jack is barely verbal and pretty much off in his own world. He has severe diet issues and we can’t take him trick-or-treating because he can’t eat the candy. He doesn’t understand why he can’t eat the candy, so it would be miserable for him to go out. He doesn’t really know or understand that it’s Halloween, so he doesn’t feel like he’s missing out on anything if he doesn’t go out. It’s sad for us as parents, but it’s in Jack’s best interests to be as happy as possible and going out and watching everybody else get to have candy would not make him happy.
So I was sitting there handing out candy and after about 20 minutes, he came up and wanted to sit on my lap. This was apotential issue on my hands because it wouldn’t have taken him long to see what was going on and he would have probably had a meltdown wanting some. But within a minute or so, Tiff randomly came back home and told me she had an idea — she would grab a bunch of organic lollipops that are dye-free that he can have and we’d go ahead to a few houses and give them to the adults to give to him on the sly.
We’re starting to learn more and more by the day that Jack understands a lot of what we’re saying. That doesn’t mean he’ll listen or obey, but we know he understands. Earlier this week, Tiff told him that he left the remote control to the DVD player up in Ava’s room and he went upstairs and got it! That might not seem like anything big for a 10-year-old, but for us, it was huge. That little stinker knows what we’re telling him!
The reason I’m telling you this is because when Tiff told him she was going to put him in a costume and take him trick or treating, he got super excited! So he became a skeleton, we shut off the porch light and house-to-house we went. Ben and Ava would go up first, get some candy, and Ava would explain to the adult about the lollipop. Everybody was very receptive and accommodating for this.
Ben ended up with 93 pieces of candy and Ava had 85. Jack had a rotation of about five little lollipops, but he didn’t know the difference. And he had FUN! It upsets us that he’s missing a lot of the things that typical kids get to experience during their childhoods, but tonight, he didn’t have to get the short end of the stick! He got to go trick-or-treating like every other kid and eat too much candy and get a little hyper. He had a blast, which is something he and every other kid deserves.
It was BYOC (bring your own candy) trick-or-treating, autism style! I thought it was a clever, last-minute idea. And I’m glad that finally, Jack got to have fun like all the other kids!
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