For the past few months my son has been obsessed with Fire Alarms, Fire Drills, and Fire Extinguishers. This same kid, is the same one that during school fire alarms used to require ear muffs and plugs because of the noise. No more.
When we are out and about shopping and in the community he points out all of the fire alarms and extinguishers. He is obsessed with Fire Safety and gets especially excited about the "strobe light fire alarms". I now know where every extinguisher in my grocery store is located lest the shopping cart burst into flames in between the produce and meat departments.
His teacher told me the other day at a conference how he goes around school pointing out and counting all the fire safety items. I pray, that he doesn't try to PULL the handle on one and set it off - I can see where this would be incredibly tempting.
7 comments:
Yes--we went through something similar. We didn't want to count them but we were fearful that if we got close enough to them we would not have enough self-control to prevent ourselves from pulling the alarm. We had the same issue with the alarm buttons in elevators. Now we are fine but exert our concern in the direction of our sister who has absolutely no interest in either item!
That's amazing that Alex can now handle the sound of the alarms. Nigel still has trouble with it, although now that he's homeschooled, it's no longer an issue.
Hey, my dad used to be fireman!
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Bisous from La Mom in Paris
You should get some tips from therapist on how to make this more purposeful or functional.
I remember in floortime training they talked about different stims, etc some kids had and how the parents turned it around and into games, etc.
I think one was where a kid was into the shoes and they did some organizing or color sorting with them. The site my precious kid might have some resource to help guide you. Like Temple Grandin says to use an interest and expand on it.
Nick did not want to take Spanish but I told him if he wanted to work at the Zoo chances are people would speak Spanish and how would he communicate with them.
That is so-Raven. I mean, so-Aspie or ASP! My girl hasn't started to fixate on fire alarms - yet at least. She is though fixated on bugs.
Something about being terrified and stressed about bugs also makes her intensely interested and aware. Must be some sort of fight-or-flight mechanism in their nervous systems I think.
Bonnie had a great idea, try to use this 'obsession' to teach him about other things. Like, fire hydrants and how the water is stored at your local water plant, etc.
BTW, my 2 yo is also intensely 'terrorized' by noises especially fire and ambulance alarms. She recently started showing me the fire hydrants around town. We might be in the same boat with you later down the road!
So glad we have all met one another and can share and support our issues and laughs! Good therapy for me for sure! I am a renewed mom since I have met you and the austism bloggin moms!
One more thing. I have often day dreamed about pulling down one of those alarms. I confess. I know better and would never ever do it, so no need to report me or anything, I am just sort of well, attracted the bright red shiny rectangle, its white letters and the playful pully-down thing. . . what would Freudian say I wonder!
:)
At least he is into safety :) I remember going to visit Cuddlebug's school when he was 3 and he took me on a little tour to see all the smoke alarms... they all had little numbers on them and he knew them by number (I never would have even noticed the alarms, much less the numbers, if he hadn't pointed them out). I thought it was cute/funny that of all the things he could have shown me at his school, he wanted to make sure I saw the numbered smoke alarms :).
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