It’ll be no surprise that I spent much of November and December enjoying festive films from the comfort of this bed. That enjoyment was amplified when our 6-year-old daughter was sat here with me engrossed by them too.
Now, as a kid with ASD, her ability to get bored and distracted is undeniable and constant. She’ll ask to do one thing and within 5 minutes she’s moving on to something else. If you try and talk to her, her eyes will be darting around looking for any distraction around her. It’s a battle to manage, but obviously something she can’t currently control. So, when we watch movies, I always expect some boredom within half an hour. Even Disney, with it’s century of power to create happiness and calm, rarely works for her.
Christmas seemed to be the antidote.
When she realised that films existed with Rudolph, penguins, santa, presents, magic and puppies, she was sold. We started our successful journey with the usual suspects. The Snowman, The Gruffalo, Stick Man and so on. Gradually the films got longer, and her arse stayed put. Finally I found her attention span existed, and we had fun testing it.
Don’t get me wrong, the distracted mosquito in her head was still buzzing away, but I’d simply pause the film, talk to her about the current distraction, then ask her if she wanted to stop watching. Throughout the festive season, the answer was usually ‘No’, and she’d get comfy again.
After we finished the 2018 Universal Pictures version of ‘The Grinch’ (a family movie we all loved), we were running low on Christmas themed ideas. Animation was essential – anything with real people in it was instantly labelled ‘BORING!’ as she walked away.
So I started looking for other popular animations that might fit. Animals (especially horses and farmyard animals), positivity, magic, farting and other bodily noises would all work for her. We watched Madagascar and she LOVED it, declaring Gloria the Hippo her favourite – sassy and sharp, just like me 🤣. Netflix then started suggesting movies I’d like, and amongst the guff I found ‘Sing’, and as she’s started to adore her own voice, I thought it was worth a try.
She sat through this movie without even turning her head and, although she struggles to follow a plot in full, she knew about the show they were practicing for, and she quickly learned the songs that featured. Some of the animals danced, some of them were angry, some of them were afraid, in all cases there was something to resonate with, and I think that’s what caught her eye.
My perspective was different though. I loved the story, and I loved the sub-plots surrounding each character – there were many layers to digest and this made it a movie that adults could enjoy just as much. But comparing it with other animations we’d watched recently, the quality didn’t feel the same. It was released in 2016, so there’s no reason for the computer generated images not to be perfection, but they just weren’t. It felt rushed or unpolished, which was a real shame.
But as I started to form these negative opinions about the film, I looked at our daughter and realised I was totally missing the point. She was fully invested in the television, which has always been a difficult thing to achieve. She wasn’t interested in the cars outside or the phone pinging – she just wanted to know if the talent show would happen and who would be in it.
I felt ashamed. I was judging something on it’s appearance when I’m not even qualified to do so, and giving it a negative review internally when it deserved a positive one. It achieved EXACTLY what it was supposed to for our daughter, and that’s all that matters.
I’m no expert at parenting, in fact, most of the time I feel my efforts fall far below par. But I think any parent who claims this is an easy job is either lying or incredibly lucky. For me, the best way to find adolescent solutions is trial and error. Sometimes she responds well to our strategies, sometimes they fail miserably and toys get thrown out of her pram. Either way, as a Mum I will have learned something new, something that I should try again or chuck on the scrapheap, and as a result of the lesson, the ease of management of our daughters ASD fluctuates instead of being a constant war with something we can’t see.
I find myself negotiating constantly, looking for routes around her challenges that are pain-free, low-cost and holistc. We’ve done bribery and whether it’s food, horse riding, time spent or toys, we simply don’t have the cash she thinks we should. Paying to make our child conform never worked, never will and I’m ashamed it’s what I’d started resorting to. It was a desperate measure that ultimately failed and, in my eyes, i was promoting low-level greed, and I don’t want that for her.
Instead, I now have the option of special programming, including movies, to bribe her with. I need to let my own judgement of the film be silenced. She’s a great judge of fun without my input, even if she can’t communicate it in the usual way, you can still see joy in her eyes, and for that I’d watch (and enjoy) ‘Sing’ a million times over.
The picture
This time I had to draw something (or someone) from the film in question.
Ash is an anxious Porcupine who turns to singing to fix her heartbreak and finds her true creative passion and abilities along the way.
I loved her look, her edge and her vulnerability, but I hated her spikes, which took an age to draw!
Thanks for reading. 💜💜
Creative Steph 