This touched my heart in a big way!

I am a skating instructor and in my line of work, I have met very many children of varying ages who I happen to train. I must admit that skating has opened up opportunities for me to learn and advance my skills and knowledge not only in actual skating, but also in my interactions with kids from different backgrounds.

This has made me learn how to handle kids differently according to their interest and behavior. This has been a mind-opening experience for the past 7+ years I’ve been in this industry and I’m thankful for every opportunity I get to teach and at the same time, learn.

I happen to instruct in a local school around my neighborhood in Ongata Rongai called Fanaka Junior School. It’s a well established school with lots of extra curricular activities including skating. I’ve been handling the skating docket for a little over two year now. I’m all my skating sessions, I have never encountered a special needs ls child (probably because parents fear that such training may injure their kids). So, you can imagine the attitude I had when for the first time, I was presented with a child who has autism.

I asked myself so many questions and I tried to reason like the parent but really could understand what kind of a parent could expose an autistic child to a sport like skating. I was very surprised and when the teacher presented the child to me, I was full of excuses the major one being that I need to also train the other children and couldn’t handle the autistic child by myself at the same time!

The child( I’ll just call him Sam since I don’t have consent to reveal his identity) was so determined to get on with skating inspite of never having worn skates before. I reluctantly helped him gear up with all the necessities which he had with him and as soon as I finished, he was ready to start. That session was hectic. I had to follow him and hold him almost all the time since he didn’t have balance and neither did he have any basics. I was informed by the teacher before she left that his concentration span was very limited so when trying to teach him something, he would shift his attention to the others who were skating and just start following them! This was going to be a major challenge.

In the second session, I requested the teacher to help me and luckily, she accepted. Much as I saw her struggling with the child, I could see some very major progress from the child’s side. He could cover more distance independently and was always in high spirits as he struggled to maintain balance. I realized that he didn’t need any motivation and was on his feet the whole 1hour+ session. As other normal children got tired and lost focus, he would slowly but steadily breeze past them to either end of the skating rink. It was amazing to watch.

The whole time I had interacted with Sam I never heard a word he said and my assumption was that autistic persons just speak randomly and generally don’t make sense. So, on the third session, while I was trying his shoes, I heard a strange voice that asked me, “Coach, what is your name?”. At first, I thought I was hearing extracts of sounds from my imagination. When I looked at at Sam’s face, he asked me the same question again. For the first time, I looked at him directly In the eyes and he smiled back at me. I told him my name and since I was still very surprised, I couldn’t say anything else. After I finished tying his shoes and fixing his helmet, he said “Thanks you Coach Tonny”. Wow! What was happening!? I asked myself clearly surprised at this turn of events. I had so many assumptions about autism that I really felt bad about my ignorance. His teacher was on standby, of course, to assist. On this third session, Sam just cruised past the others gracefully with a sort of permanent grin on his face. It was pleasant to watch. Many of us couldn’t believe what was happening. A special needs child, whom we all assumed would be a very needy case just breezing skillfully past everyone else way a joy to watch. Of course he still fell on several instances but the transformation from day one, was marvelous. This fascinated me a lot.

I immediately started thinking about his parents. The very brave parents who have maintained belief in their child that in spite of his lackings, he could still live a wholesome and a explore his potential like any other child. Lots of respect to the parents considering I’ve delt with parents who immediately discontinued their children even after a small bruise on their body because they feel they need to protect their children denying them an opportunity to explore a talent and be able to take up challenges. I must admit That if I had an autistic child, I would be the last person to allow him/her to attempt skating but this would be largely due to ignorance on my side. Once again, lots of respect to Sam’s parents. Your open-mindedness has challenged me. I realized I needed to do some research concerning this condition. Here are some basic misconceptions regarding autism. Let’s kick out the ignorance.