Objectives:
TsukiMoon to play with others and enjoy the process.
Theory:
Warhammer 40K follows an interest of our son, TsukiMoon's We help facilitate the interest by bringing him to tournaments, conventions, blogging, all so that he as a way to interact with people. To play the game trains his interpersonal abilities, self-regulation, and creates camaraderie with others.
On The Ground:
This is not an easy process for TsukiMoon to do or us to facilitate. The joke we say to each other we are teaching TsukiMoon how to interact peacefully with others by playing war games. The fact is that a trip to the game store for an afternoon of battles is tough. In the beginning this process was way out of our comfort zone. Once we got past that, we now help TsukiMoon through the ups and downs come with any game. If TsukiMoon plays happily, along with everyone else that is a real accomplishment.
Games are "life-lite." Games, any game, can be tough. There is the frustration in losing, you should be supportive of your opponent even if you aren't doing well or at least civil, and when an opponent delivers the killing blow, to shake their hand and say, "good game," can be really hard. The nice thing is games at their core are about having fun. In the grand scheme the outcome of a game doesn't matter, how you get along with people does. How TsukiMoon treats people in a game has direct correlation to how to treat people in life.
That is not how it started though. We were slow to come to this method of therapy as a solution. In 1st grade the school (private) said that his handwriting was so bad that if he wanted to progress to 3rd grade we would have put him into occupational therapy (OT). I was ticked. 3rd grade was a year and half away. How could they say that? So I had TsukiMoon tested 6-ways-to-Sunday. When you look under the hood you find something.
We learned that TsukiMoon had autism spectrum disease (ASD). They told us he was high-functioning. Whatever he was, we didn't care. We, his parents, quickly adapted to "new reality" and went into overdrive to do anything and everything to help him. My concern was two fold; he needed to have a better understanding of language-- his score was 97% for decoding words (ie. large vocabulary) 4% for understanding content and that he needed to be able to communicate in a way that was more empathetic and less dismissive, mono-focused, harsh.
We worked hard over a year with the speech and language pathologist, which I will write about in another post.
Instinctually we felt games would be a good place to start in his therapy because he had such a hard time playing them in a way anyone, including us, would ever want to play with him but he clearly enjoyed them. My husband, Mr. TsukiMoon played many types of role-playing games when he was younger and thought that they would be good for TsukiMoon
One weekend when I was camping with a friend and her children, I came back and found all these boxes. "What's this?" I asked. I was annoyed that one night away helping a friend gave Mr. Boo and excuse to buy lots of stuff.
"Well. . . It wasn't my intention to get this game. I went to a game store that had "Champions (a role-playing game) and TsukiMoon got talking with the guy behind the counter." (Notice the word: talking.) "He got in such a long conversation with the guy that I felt like I had to honor it," he answered.
"How much did all this stuff cost?" I asked.
"Less then OT."
So there it was.
When he was tested one of the people who tested him was an OT who, confirmed that he had dysgraphia, basically it was hard for him to use his hands. Warhammer is first about using your hands. The little, tiny, and teeny-tiny pieces first need to be glued together before they are even useful. Boo threw himself into it.
After the creatures are created they are then painted, again with tiny brushes which have about 15-20 bristles. He did, may be not perfectly but everything is a process.
TsukiMoon's inclination was to; build Warhammer models, paint them, but never use them in battle, because it was too much to meet with others. To get around this we started by first taking him to gaming conventions this summer. People would bring their armies and you can tell which people were interested in talking about them.
For the past several weeks we have been going to a local game store on Sundays so Mr. TsukiMoon and TsukiMoon can play Warhammer 40K. The first time that we went was torturous. TsukiMoon simply didn't want to go. Tears, screaming, refusal, lots of fear. We cajoled, counted to 3 as in, "I will count to 3 and then we need to leave." It took about 45 minutes but we managed to leave the house.
We were at the game store for 4-5 hours. Mr. TsukiMoon played two games with TsukiMoon engaged at times. TsukiMoon had a great time. In true ASD fashion, when we left, all TsukiMoon wanted to talk about was the two games that were played. He was so excited that he proceeded to talk about it for the next 3 days. Then came the next Sunday.
The next week when it was time to leave it was the same complaints all over again. This time it was only 20 minutes of complaints and no tears before we drove away. Progress.
Mostly it has gone pretty well. TsukiMoon is talking to the people at the game store more. It is never perfect but he seems to be progressing. He talks to other people he might meet to educate them on what Warhammer 40K is.
What we have learned about TsukiMoon whether it is Warhammer, school work, or the requirements asked of him by his speech and language pathologist, if he doesn't feel prepared, watch out. Mr. TsukiMoon and TsukiMoon were in an escalation or also called a progressive tournament. That means each week the armies get larger in points; first 500 points, second week 1000, third week 1500, and so on. Fine if you have armies that can fill that many points. We didn't. During the week we bought a new creature to fill in the number of points needed for the next skirmish. The creatures are complicated. They come in several pieces. You must clip the parts out of a framework, glued together, primed, then painted. The details are small on these models so speed up the paint process we have learned how to air brush. Most often by Sunday the models are put together but the painting wasn't been finished. Queue meltdown.
The freakout was as awful as it can get; lots of violent tears, yelling, even a kick and a hit aimed at Mr. TsukiMoon. I empathized with TsukiMoon confirmed that going with a half-painted army was not what he had in mind. I told him that I was proud that he had image in his head of a goal he wanted to meet, that he had an over-all plan. I followed this by saying that to meet our goals sometimes it takes longer then we want. It is important to stick to that original idea and let it pull us forward but to understand that something we have to be patient with it.
TsukiMoon stopped crying for a moment, state change a good first start, and looked at me taking in this new information. He was angry though and wanted us, especially Mr. TsukiMoon to pay the price of not completing his vision (which of course is not our responsibility). He stomped around and cried: a little tyrant.
To get TsukiMoon into the car I then said, "if you are not in the car in 5 seconds the dog has to come with us." TsukiMoon dislikes it when the dog might get more attention then him. Knowing that I follow through, he was in the car in 5 seconds.
The amount of work it took to get him in the car should have been a sign that we were in for a "fun" time at game store. Days like these we realize how unique our situation is to parents with "normal" kids. We have some repair work to do with the other gamers or folks won't want to play with us anymore. Up until now everyone has been really friendly, but that might be starting to wear thin.
Loss is tough on TsukiMoon and the people who are his opponents. He truly sees them as an adversary instead of just another person who wants to have fun. He uses scathing language for their armies and attacks. He is not fun to be around.
On top of that he throws fits with Mr. TsukiMoon's maneuvers, that then need to be negotiated after first calming TsukiMoon down. Good thing we are dedicated because it helps us through the mortification. Good thing next week is the last week, everyone needs a break.
What we will do next week to help it be successful is to make small illustrated books showing TsukiMoon playing with the other people with speech and thought bubbles over the other players. The thought bubbles will give TsukiMoon insight into what the other players are thinking when he acts that way. Then create another book showing TsukiMoon doing everything right and what the players think then.
Also we need to be more prepared. The armies need to be in the car the night before. No working the day of to rush the creation. Rushing is tough on TsukiMoon We must leave earlier in the day have a relaxing lunch somewhere around the game store so that everyone is properly fed, another issue today.
Update:
I was going through old writings of things I hadn't posted. This wasn't article wasn't finished because it was just too painful to think about some of the days we endure. It was written about 5-6 months ago. It is interesting to read now because TsukiMoon has come so far since then. He is much better at sportsmanship. He is also more patient with his parents. He still gets frustrated and acts out against us but the frequency has lessened. He is much easier on his parents.
All the interventions must be working.
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