The World of My Young Nephew

A child who showed, autistic, tendencies, but with a ton of love and support from his family, he’s still, going to, thrive!  Translated…

I kept recalling how my nephew when he was a little over a year old, stood outside my home, waving goodbye to me.

He was my older brother’s firstborn.  Because of his birth, our father retired from his work of fifty years, and he’d even, gotten certified as a nanny, all of my young nephew’s sake.

When I had the time I’d gone home to visit, I’d see my father playing happily with my young nephew, enjoying their time together.  From before, my father always wore that straight face, he surely, melted all right, into this, interesting elderly now; my father carried the belief of “a gentleman never goes into the kitchen to cook” from before his retirement, and yet, he’d become, very able-bodied, a jack of all trades for my young nephew—whether it be the temperature for the formula, how many scoops of formula for that bottle, what the baby’s cries were, cleaning up the tiny buttocks that is covered up in messy fecal matter, burping, putting him to bed, playing that match-the-card game with him, the blocks, or as the weather allowed, accompanying him to the parks for the slides and the swings, or go off farther to the fields, to chase the butterflies, and capture that high-speed rail system that ran right by them, singing those, nursery rhymes…………everything, my father’s life became more colorful, because of the birth of my young nephew.

And later, my eldest brother and sister-in-law had another daughter, and my young nephew became, an older brother, as he was, two years old, and my eldest brother sent him to the preschools for him to learn to socialize with other children.  Originally, everything was natural, but, the preschool instructor notified my eldest brother and sister-in-law, how my young nephew couldn’t, adapt to getting along with other children in a group, to the point of suggesting that he get taken to the hospitals for an evaluation, then, everything turned upside down.

illustration from UDN.com

The doctor told that my young nephew was developmentally delayed, and said that he’d shown signs of autism too.  Because of the assessments, we’d, started, connecting his behaviors, why he’d cried like he was being abused at bath time, or why he’d loved that game of spinning around in circles endlessly, and how as he got older, he never, stares those who are interacting with him straight in the eyes, and how he’d, talked to himself, and an assortments of behaviors that are different from other children.

My eldest brother and sister-in-law started taking two days off every week to take my young nephew to therapy, hoping he could become, as agile as kids his age; the whole family also started learning how to interact with him, to get him honed up on his interpersonal relationship skills.  Sometimes it’d pained me, seeing my young nephew in his tantrum, and my eldest brother and sister-in-law at wit’s end, not knowing what to do.

My father and my mother, they’d not understood my young nephew’s conditions, they just felt, that he was different than others, and needed a different sort of company from them.  My mother even asked me privately, if it was because my eldest brother was too tough on my nephew, that’s, made him this way?  And sometimes, as she saw him making the progresses, she’d told me, that he’s, a “late bloomer”.

interactions with a young infant with autistic spectrum disorder, photo from online

Gladly, with all of our company and support, my young nephew can interact with all of us, more naturally.  Even though, there would be the onsets of, “hey, the younger sister is so passionate, while her older brother is so aloof!”, that came from people who didn’t know; but I believe, that my little nephew who’d, said, “bye-bye” to me at the door, will be comfortable being him in his own world, as well as, be well-adapted to cope in this world too.

And so, because this child is different, as the parents, you would need special trainings to learn how to interact with him, and raising a special needs child is nothing easy, but, with the love and support, and understanding, I’m sure, he’ll still, grow up well adjusted, and happy!