Hanging by a thread

Both of my children are smart. This combined with their Autism can lead to some….interesting ideas.

I’ve always encouraged them to be curious about the world, I believe choosing to be ignorant is the only real sin and that knowledge of all kinds is important. How can you expect your children to make good decisions if they don’t understand what it is they’re deciding? And of course they also have hyperfixations like a lot of neurodivergents so they often go off researching new ideas.

I realised during covid that there are downsides to this. When the kids were little to encourage good hygiene I explained bacteria and virus and how they’re passed along and how we can help stop this by hand washing, not wiping our nose on our sleeves or coughing all over people. As usual when faced with anything scientific their little eyes lit up and away they went to discover the world of virology. Which then came back to bite me in the arse big time when covid hit.

You see they were intelligent enough to genuinely understand the danger but not emotionally equipped to cope with the fear that danger presented. One of the unfortunate side effects of intelligence and why mental health is lousy the higher your IQ.

But this fear never really seemed to leave my eldest. It slipped into this view of the world as something hostile that must be overcome, rather than a place of endless possibilities. I’ve tried all sorts to try to counter act this fear first mindset to no avail.

So now, instead of trying to stop him, I’ve decided maybe its better to join him. Rather than trying to down play the pit falls and dangers of this world I should help him put them in their place. Yes the world is dangerous, but that doesn’t mean we should stop living. I know what it’s like to carry fear with you wherever you go, and it’s the last thing that I wanted for my children. But I can’t just wish it away. Maybe it’s time to hope for the best but plan for the worst. To teach them how to keep themselves safe and prepared so they can weather anything that comes their way.

Maybe then we’ll finally FEEL safe.