Professor Ibby Grace says that whatever you do, don’t
RUSH your Child. “People might believe that rushing
someone will make the person speed up, but it is likely
to have the reverse effect. More than likely, it is probable. Rushing is very stressful and actually causes me to
be less excellent at thinking, speaking, writing or really
anything because I am so busy trying not to melt down
about the stress of being rushed that no resources are
left open to try to do the thing the rushing person wants
me to do more rapidly.”
Professor Grace also explains that for many autistics, including herself, time is a very vague concept. When we tell our children, for example,
to hurry up because school starts in 5 minutes, they may not have a clear understanding of what 5 minutes is. Ibby explains what it is like for her. “Time is a thing I do not
really get properly. It is not that I was never taught how to tell time properly. I was.
As a matter of fact, I have such a deep and vast knowledge of time-telling pedagogy
that I can teach teachers how to teach time-telling very effectively to a wide range of
children, and this is a huge part of my job. Despite the fact that I can appear to “tell
time,” I am not very rapid at it. I can read to you off an analog or digital watch. I also
always wear one because the alarms are helpful for me. But I do not feel time elapsing in the proper way, and I am sure this is the case because I have interviewed many
people about the real way time is supposed to feel. From my perspective, time seems
arbitrary, fake, like a trick.”
Have a question you want to ask? Are you an autistic
individual who wants to be an expert and offer advice?
Email us at [email protected] with “Q&A” in
the subject line.
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