That's what little boys are made of

All my friends with 4 year old boys are at their wits end. The boys are constantly talking about killing and death. "I'm going to kill you!" seems to be a fairly popular statement. And weapons have become the greatest thing since sliced bread. (One friend even reported that her son made a gun from the piece of bread he was eating.) The boys sees guns everywhere and want to play with them. Now these are not gun people, at all. I live in an area of the country likely to be cordoned off when they start locking up liberals for re-education. Here the question is are you liberal or radical. There are no toy guns in these houses but the boys create toy guns out of whatever they can use. Ah I guess boys will be boys.

Unless, of course, your boy is not the "typical" boy. Q has never commented on guns at all. I don't even think he knows what one is. The concepts of death and killing are abstract enough to be totally beyond his understanding. Yes, he can be aggressive and regularly pushes and hits his sister when she is in his business. But then again, C has been wising up and doing the same when she wants a certain toy. No, in our household Dora is Queen, Thomas the Tank Engine rules, and the Teletubbies are always good for a laugh. Violence of any kind is not part of the vocabulary.

I am not claiming that this is in any way due to my incredible parenting. (Ha! I wish!) I think it is simply because Q is not typical. And so I have found one of the many gifts of autism that I have started to catalogue. You might think that autism is one the most horrible things that could ever happen to your family, but to me, while there are many, many challenges, there are also many unseen gifts. Next year when Q goes to a regular preschool maybe he'll start to pick this gun thing up, maybe not. I know he won't always be interested in being different from the crowd. But for now I value the fact that my little boy is still just that, and his being different makes him unique and beautiful.

Now I'm just waiting until C finds out about Barbie. Her father has sworn that Barbie dolls will never be allowed in this house. I wonder if you can make a Ken doll out of a piece of bread.