The Beauty Of Autism

I many times wonder what thoughts run through my daughter's mind when she looks at the moving fan, a light bulb or just pure nothingness and gets into splits of laughter. Or sometimes when she shouts, smiles or randomly hugs me for no apparent reason at all. I keep on telling her that her life is so full of fun that she can enjoy things which don't even matter to us. As one of my friends said 'this is the beauty of autism' and I couldn't have agreed more. I know there are many challenges. Not being able to make sense of surroundings could be scary and uncomfortable many times but I am sure there are parts of autism world which are beautiful to those who live it or understand it, however weird it may look to an outsider. Sometimes as parents or professionals we become so preoccupied with the need to fix our children in a normal mold that we forget that they are children, not just autistic children and that they also have their own personality and needs.
Many things that Tuhina does could well be done by any five year old. So tagging each and every behavior to autism is like steeling the right to childhood. Each action cannot be attributed to autism and every action need not be required to be fixed. It could just be the person they are. Autism is not them, it is just a part of them. And even if it is autism, it could still be something the child needs. Tuhina needs body pressure and hugs people tightly. Not many typical children would be giving such a beautiful hug to their moms and I immensely love it. So what i need to teach her is who all can be hugged but I need not stop her from hugging.
We as typical people may laugh at jokes or satires which our kids with autism do not understand but they can enjoy a simple thing as a shadow in the sun. What magical value it holds for them, we may not know. If they are not able to understand the world around, even we do not understand the world they face. So is the loss just theirs or more of ours that we do not understand the world as seen by them and on many occasions fail to take autistic out of the 'autistic child' and let just the child be.