I’m Thankful for the Talking back

Last Saturday, a friend of mine came over.

As we were sitting on the stairs chatting, the boys were upstairs with my parents. 

I heard them jumping up and down on the guest bed.

I immediately called upstairs, saying, “BOYS! Come down here, now please!” 

Immediately, I heard my son Yuri say, indignantly, “NO!”

And then, I heard, his brother Aki say, “NO!”

Although I immediately said, “excuse me!?”

There was still a big part of me that chuckled as my parents said, “they’re pretending to sleep now!” and I heard the boys make snoring sounds.  

Another day, Aki was upset about something. I think was trying to pull a big pad out of the childproof gate and it was getting stuck.

He flopped himself on the ground and started to whine.

I went to him and asked, “Aki, do you want help?”

He said, “no. Mommy go to room and lock door?” 

Again, I chuckled a bit inside and said, “okay, baby” and walked away. 

Because you see, a year ago, none of this would have happened. 

They were not really talking.  And the talking that they did do, was usually one-word phrases or it didn’t make sense in the situation. 

Now, they are talking.

They are expressing what they want. What they don’t want.  What they want us to do.   

Yes, sometimes, they say do and say things that we say “whhhyyyy.”  But the truth is, we would not have it any other way.

A few weeks ago, we had a meeting with the boys’ school.  It was a parent-teacher meeting to see how they are doing.

We were told that they are blossoming. 

They are talking more and have made some friends. We were also told that they were extremely smart- “smarter than a neurotypical pre-schooler.”

They are able to identify letters and numbers, are starting to read words, memorize songs quickly, etc.   

They are pretty smart. 

Although we can get frustrated at times with them talking back, and of course, we redirect it when appropriate, we are also so, so thankful for the talking back.

For talking. For communicating.

For everything that they can do.

We are so thankful.

Written by, Chisato

Chisato is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a licensed professional clinical counselor in California. She’s also going to school to obtain a doctorate in social work, while working two jobs. Her husband is in a masters program for statistics. On top of it, she and her husband have two beautiful boys who are 4 years old and have autism. They are the reason that both she and her husband do anything at all! You can follow their adventures at therapist mama bear and two ausome cubs: https://mireicat.wixsite.com/therapistmamabear and https://www.facebook.com/Therapist-mama-bear-and-2-ausome-cubs-465214584037700/

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