Honesty

Does anyone remember the awesome song by Billy Joel about honesty...and how it's so hard to find...and yet so needed by people? Well, let me tell you, you don't have to worry about that in our house.

One of the great selling points of autism is that autistic kids aren't mean, they don't generally manipulate people or situations, and they don't lie. They are so black and white that there's just no room for anything but the truth in their lives.

And so it is with FrogBoy.

Since he was a baby (well, after he outgrew the ethopian baby look), we've told him how precious and cute he is. Just like all parents do with their kids. Only with Froggie, when we say, "You are so sweet," we are answered with, "I know." No matter how many times we try to explain that's not the most polite answer, it doesn't really matter...he's just answering the statement truthfully.

Another example. Last week Froggie had a substitute. Before she came to his class, his teacher made the mistake of asking everyone if they knew which sub she was. Of course, they couldn't place her...so the teacher informed everyone that she's the one who wears too much lipstick. Thankfully, FrogBoy mentioned this to us several days out, which gave us time to deprogram him before her visit.

The first day she was there, FrogBoy didn't want to go to school. He'd heard rumors around the school that she was mean. He got in the car that afternoon and told me, "You know, she wasn't so bad after all." That's Froggie for you.

If I want to know how I look, I make sure I can take the cold, hard, honest truth before I ask FrogBoy. He's not going to play the "Oh, Mommy, you look beautiful" game, and he's not going to mince words. If I look like a giant eggplant on steriods, he's going to tell me.

Even when he SAYS he's lying, he really means he's joking. We've spent a lot of time working with him on the semantics there, because we don't want him getting in trouble at school for "lying" when he was really just kidding around...but so far he still confuses the 2 words. He HAS gotten in trouble at school, but it's because he WOULDN'T lie, not because he did. He did something wrong, his entire class lied and said he didn't do it (they are VERY protective of him), and he would have gotten away with it, but he 'fessed up. And got detention.

One caveat: Whenever Froggie tastes a new food, he feels compelled to gulp it down, and then say, "YUM." This is regardless of whether he likes it or not. You can only tell by how he answers your next question: "Do you want more?" Usually his very honest response: "No thanks." That means it was disgusting, but for some reason he thinks he's supposed to say "YUM" after tasting things.

So there you have it. You won't always hear what you want to hear from him, but you will always hear the truth.