I write a lot about my daughter and her hypersensitivity to lots of things. But I don't write as much about my son. Why? Well, because he has for the most part coped with our family life and not really required a lot of extra energy or knowledge to understand. He has been a typical little boy. He hasn't had developmental delays. His social skills are developing. He listens (most of the time) and makes eye contact well. He communicates very well. In fact, he's amazingly good at expressing himself and his feelings. He loves to play and go places. He is for the most part an awesome little kid.
But he's nearing 3 and he has some...let's call them "quirks"...that don't seem to be going away. Like what you might ask?
First and foremost, he grabs and touches EVERYTHING. Always has, ever since he started crawling. It doesn't matter if you tell him it's hot or dangerous, he still desperately wants to touch everything. I will tell him my coffee is hot, and he asks if he can put his finger in it and see. We tell him knives will cut him and give him a big boo and he asks if he can just hold them gently. Taking him into a store is a huge challenge, because even though he might try to contain his impulse to grab things, he doesn't do it terribly well. So the trip is a series of "Don't touch that. Stop grabbing. No, don't. You will break that. Do I have to put you back in the cart?"
Next on the quirk list is mealtime. Mealtime with our son sucks. He seems to be incredibly uninterested in eating. He doesn't want to sit still. He refuses to eat with utensils - only wants to eat with his hands. And when he does eat, he shoves so much in his mouth, he gags and spits it all back out. But interestingly, when he does choose to eat, he selects foods I wouldn't think kids would love. He loves chocolate including dark chocolate. He loves salami. He loves dates. He will happily put most things in his mouth. Now they may be immediately spit out, but he does try it first.
He has started having some serious tantrums. These are not like our daughter's angry rages where she clearly loses emotional control. These are clearly fits showing us his displeasure that he isn't getting what he wants. He's capable of stopping them, but yet he's so frustrated with us, he will continue to throw the tantrum for 30-45 minutes...frequently telling us he doesn't want to calm his body, because he's mad.
Other quirks that are curious but don't bother us include:
1. Loves to clean. He will gladly help me with household chores - cleaning tables, floors, vacuuming, etc.
2. Loves bubbles - like her LOVES bubbles.
3. He loves to be covered in blankets. He can rarely just sit on the couch without having a blanket on him. When he sleeps at night, he insists on being covered with 3 blankets even if it's 95 outside.
4. He is super affectionate. Loves hugs, loves to be held, and loves to sit in laps (all of the time).
5. He asks 60,000 questions about every new thing he encounters and he often asks the same questions over and over.
6. When he finds something he's interested in (i.e. construction equipment, planes, windmills), he will ask to see the thing over and over again. I mean as soon as he sees a backhoe, he says, "I want to see more backhoes."
7. He talks out loud to himself a lot. He will lay in his bed at night and talk about what happened in his day. He will give himself pep talks. He will talk to his buddies. But it's always completely out loud, not at all in a quiet voice.
8. He loves jumping, running, being thrown around, spinning in chairs, riding fast rides, etc.
9. He gets boo boos regularly that he has no idea how they occurred. These are boo boos that I would hear about for days from our daughter, but our son is surprised to see they exist.
10. It takes him 45 minutes each night to settle and finally go to sleep. He kicks, squirms, sits up, talks, etc. until he finally passes out. I actually bought him a weighted blanket to help soothe him, and he loves it! The moment I gave it to him, he covered himself completely with it and just laid down on the tile floor and said he was going to sleep.
11. He LOVES swinging. I mean loves it. He will play with other things on the playground, but once he gets on the swing, that's it. You must endure a tantrum to get him off the swing. He would probably swing for 5 hours straight if someone would push him for that long.
12. If there is music playing that he likes, we cannot make the volume loud enough for him. He just wants it louder.
13. He runs into things and seems oblivious to things right in front of him. We will say, "Parker eat your avocado." Parker says, "Where?" "Right there." "Where?" Yes, he's far-sighted and wears glasses, but I don't think that accounts for this.
So as I typically do, I began to research. And what I found is that our son appears to have the polar opposite issue that his sister experiences. He isn't hypersensitive. He's hyposensitive. What does that mean? Some kids, like our daughter, are very easily stimulated by noises, lights, tastes, and textures. A fire truck can send them into a crazy frenzy. But hyposensitive kids need louder noises, brighter lights, stronger, tastes, and bolder textures to register with their senses. Otherwise, they are just kind of bored or underwhelmed with their environments.
Just like hypersensitive kids, hyposensitive kids may only be hyposensitive with certain senses. With our son, I think he has auditory, tactile, taste, and vestibular (balance) hyposensitivies. It's possible he has others, but he's just not old enough yet to recognize the visual and olfactory hyposensitivities. Here's a link to a site that provides more information on each hyposensitivity.
This explains so much to me. It helps me realize that he isn't just disobedient and messy. He needs to touch things to experience the world around him and get enough information to understand everything. He doesn't really taste a lot of the foods we give him, because they aren't spicy or flavorful enough, so he's completely disinterested in mealtime. He has a hard time sitting still, because he's searching for something more stimulating to calm him down. He shoves tons of food in his mouth at once to better experience and taste the food. Little bites don't do anything for him. He loves lots of blankets, because the heaviness of the blankets feels more soothing and calming to him. He needs fast moving experiences to stimulate his vestibular system and better develop his sense of balance.
So right now I don't really know what this means for him. Does he need occupational therapy to better develop his senses? Can we do more at home to help him? We'll find out at his 3 year well check when I talk to his doctor. But what I do know is now I have a much better understanding of why he's doing these things. We can look for better solutions that will help him and us be less frustrated.
And as a parent, I've learned a lot about how much our senses determine who we are as people. Our brains are wired to experience the world around us in a particular way. And every child is wired a little bit differently. They can be peculiar little creatures, but there is logic behind the madness if we can just better understand how each child is experiencing the world around them.
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