Neverland
Up until now, I feel like we’ve been negotiating this puberty thing okay. J’s obsessed with hygiene and cleanliness. He would take showers three times a day if we let him. Flossing has to be followed up by mouthwash. We even introduced deodorant before the start of the school year. I let him choose out the scent, and we lucked out on the first try on the application type (it’s a click kind that dispenses a cool wet deodorant—something I thought he’d never go for sensory wise). We practice using it a couple of times a week because he really isn’t a smelly kid yet, but with autism, the more practice and exposure the better the success. We’re doing pretty good right? I mean he’s okay with deodorant! I had even bought a great book with really simple social stories to help kids with autism muddle through puberty (They even have great social stories for autistic girls learning to negotiate their periods).
But we haven’t hit any of the real bumps yet and he’s already grown out of that book.
The other day as J was putting on his deodorant—the deodorant that I felt so proud of successfully transitioned to–I reminded him that one day he’ll have hair under his armpits.
“No,” he said shaking his head. “I just want hair on my head.”
“Well you’re getting older, and so you’re going to be growing hair in other places of your body.” (Which we had already talked about) before. But this time I think it clicked because J looked at me horrified, almost betrayed, almost teary eyed that his body would do something he absolutely wanted no part of.
“But it’s not going to be that way forever, right?”
“Well, honey, yeah, it kind of is.”
Puberty is a strange, strange thing. It has the inevitable way of making you feel like there’s something wrong with you. When I went through it, I felt the exact same way too. I was a late bloomer. By the end of grade seven I was the only girl in the change room still in a cami while the rest of the girls had graduated to wearing bras. I was desperate for a bra—not because I wanted one, but I felt there was something wrong with me because I didn’t have one. I finally convinced my mom to get me a training bra, even though that was probably pushing it too. My period went the same way. I was 14, at the end of grade 9 when that happened. I felt like I was the only girl on the planet who hadn’t had their period yet and that there was something totally wrong with my body because it didn’t seem to be doing the same things at the same time as my friends.
It’s hard trying to prepare your kids for this transition. It’s hard to know when things are going to kick into gear. You kind of have an idea on the order of how things will happen. But you don’t know when that will be. Months of steady successive changes? A sudden change and then we’re stalled for the next six-nine months waiting for the next thing to happen?
J’s not the only one who’s feeling horrifyingly betrayed. W has no desire to enter this territory whatsoever. She’s a staunch rebel to all things, “girly” (in her mind giggling over boys, celebrities, caring about hair and clothes–although she has started to take a little more interest in clothes). We watched Pirates of the Caribbean with the kids on Friday and at the end of the movie she announces: “Ugh! Close your eyes everyone. There’s going to be a kiss pretty soon. You can just tell by the music.”
This girl isn’t interested in kissing any boys soon.
It’s hard enough negotiating the onset of puberty with W. But I can talk to her about the emotional things. She understands what’s going on with the changes in her body—even if she doesn’t like it.
It’s hard figuring out puberty and autism. I’ll be really honest. I’m glad that we’re dealing with boy+autism+puberty. My hats off to you are who are raising girls+autism+puberty. So much harder to negotiate in so many ways. In some ways I think it’s really cruel that these kids who aren’t emotionally ready (let’s be honest, who is anyway?) have to deal with a changing body that they don’t even understand fully in the first place because of their sensory processing issues.
A few weeks ago, the school sent home a packet of literature and worksheets that J’s health class would be discussing and what we’d like them to go over with him. After thinking about it for a while, I eventually decided that he should know about everything that pertains to his own body. We’ll hold off on the girls and sex for now.
The strange thing is I’m not so much worried about the sex and girls with him as I am with him learning about those things in a classroom where he can read the awkward embarrassment from the boys and the girls. The mini eruptions of snickers and giggles. With a 5 second giggle from anyone in the class, J will interpret that sex and development is truly funny—not awkward—and therefore we run the risk of J saying something “human developmentally inappropriate to someone” later down the road.
The other problem is, that we also run the risk of him being socially inappropriate because he doesn’t know how to talk about the things he’s trying to figure out—like trying to make a comment on a girl’s development like he would their freckles or haircut. Or just saying something because he’s curious. Boys his age can sneak around these urges to “say something” because they know how or when to say it and get away with it—when teachers aren’t listening, or in some coded sexual euphemisms. I’m not saying this is right at all—I hated when boys would make sexually ambiguous comments at me or my friends.
Ugh. I know I have said this many times in our autism experience, but sometimes raising a child with autism is so much more complicated. Poor J. Social rules are hard enough to figure out. Sexuality is even harder. Half the time our society can’t even get it right.
It’s a conversation we’ll be having many times over in the next few years. As things change with him or when changes happen to W. He’ll learn it all eventually, and probably not in perfect timing (because when exactly is that anyways?). I guess the one thing we have going for us as parents is that these life changing events don’t happen all in one night. I guess the universe has granted us some mercy there.
But right now, if my kids could negotiate with the universe and have it their way, I’m sure they’d stay in Neverland forever.
