Oh! The Strange Ways Our Children Learn!
Mood:
a-ok
Topic: The Kids
The other day, out of the blue, Joshua decided to play a flag game with me. He would describe a state or country flag and I would guess where it was from. Joshua, for those of you don't know, is our 10 year old (third grade) asperger's child (on the autism spectrum).
At the beginning he was describing our state flag, the U.S flag, the Canadian flag...flags that he has been exposed to. Then, all of a sudden he described a flag that was white with a red circle - the Japanese flag...I thought, "Hmmm. That's interesting. I didn't know he knew that." Still, the Japanese flag is a fairly familiar flag.
Then, he asked me if I knew what country had a blue flag with a "little England flag" in the corner. I was stumped! First of all, I didn't know he knew what the Flag of England looked like, then, because I couldn't think of the flag he was talking about. I answered "Australia". "Nope". Then I thought "New Zealand?" No again. Both of those are blue with a "little England flag" in the corner but those weren't the one he was thinking of. Finally I gave up. He answered "The flag of Fiji!"
I asked "How in the world do you know what the flag of Fiji looks like?" He said that's where Jimmy Snuka is from. Jimmy Snuka is a professional wrestler. Asperger's kids can get fixated on things and learn all that they can about certain topics. Some folks call them "little professors" because they can be extra knowledgeable about topics that fascinate them. Joshua can tell you all about helicopters and, if he sees one, can tell you the type of helicopter it is, because that was a phase he went through. He's also gone through a football phase and, when he was young, a Thomas the Train phase. Ask him about one of those things and he can tell you all about them 
.
Anyway, lately it's been professional wrestling. I never thought I would allow my kids to watch professional wrestling until a little old lady started to come to the mission that we run. She faithfully watches professional wrestling and got my boys interested. So, in order for them to carry on a conversation with dear Miss Glenda, we allow them to watch under our supervision. Well, Joshua got hooked, and, yep, is going through a professional wrestling phase. For Christmas Grandma bought him a professional wrestling encyclopedia that he has devoured. It is literally in pieces. We need to buy him another one. In the encyclopedia they have the flag of the country that a wrestler is from. That's where he learned all of these flags. 
Have you ever heard of the phrase "strike while the iron is hot"? This fall we are going to be doing unit studies of the countries where the different wrestlers are from. Should be interesting! You never know where your kids are going to learn things!
The Flag of Fiji
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. If not, John Allen taped him giving a preview to the kids at day camp today. It's not great quality (we don't have a great video camera) but it's good enough. Enjoy - more may be coming later!
happy
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