Whenever the phone rings and it's Holland's school calling (love caller I.D.) and the conversation begins with, "We've had an interesting day..." I know something's askew. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, it has to do with electricity. He really is a smart kid trapped in a non-executive-functioning body. He has so much natural curiosity, so much passion and so much impulsiveness that the combination is deadly. Luckily (actually it wasn't luck, but divine intervention) he was spared from injury at school.
I haven't been able to get the whole picture of what happened, but I've pieced together that he was frustrated that he wasn't being allowed to build something. He was persistent and asked several different adults in the class. Each one responded with no, not now. He was in the reading area of the room and he had found himself a paper clip, unbent it and stuck it in an electrical outlet. Sparks went flying. Somehow he managed to touch part of the outlet that resulted in big sparks, but didn't feel a shock. His teacher told me he cried for several minutes and then just sat at his desk staring off into space. This is the same kid who at about 1 year of age, touched our glass fireplace with all ten fingertips. He had blisters on each finger and guess what? He did it two more times before he learned something. You're probably wondering why I didn't teach him not to touch hot things or stick things into an outlet. BELIEVE me, I did. This is the executive functioning and cause and effect skills he lacks.
We had another conversation about making good choices and I don't believe he will be sticking any more paper clips in outlets. He will, I'm sure, continue to invent, create, build and construct various masterpieces that will require a keen eye, constant supervision and total disregard for housework.
911 is too many numbers to dial in an emergency. I'm gonna need to put that in speed dial.
1 comment:
Sure, it sounds like you have the next Little Einstein in your household.
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