Perspectives

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-Perspective by HG  

Q: How do you spend your free time? 

A: Mostly playing video games, tv shows, and doing sports. 

Q: What helps you focus when you're working on something difficult?

A: Taking my time and thinking it through. Doing something for 20 minutes, taking a 5 or 10 minute break and doing it again. 

Q: Do people understand what FASD means? How do you explain it to friends?

A: Most people don’t understand it as well as people who have FASD people in their lives. I would say “when I was little, my mom drank alcohol when I was in her stomach, but didn’t realize it”.

Q: Is there anything you wish people understood better about you?

A: I want people to like me for who I am. 

Q: What do you want to do when you're older?

A: I want to be a mechanic. 

Q: What do you think is important for people to know about FASD?

A: We are still people, but our brains work differently. FASD kids, including myself, have a difficult time with emotions, patience, sarcasm, body language, and so on. Another thing, FASD kids do not always think before they speak!

Q: What do you find helpful? 

A: To explain what we're doing with a lot less words than usual. Also helpful to other kids and me is showing us what we’re doing wrong and how to do it right. 

One thing about my teacher at my school, my favorite teacher, is that he explains a lot of stuff and doesn't yell a lot. He describes it in very detailed ways.

One thing that is helpful is that my mom lets me think about what I've done and gives me time to think instead of punishing me straight away.  It's very helpful because sometimes I do need more time to think, and I need some time to catch up. One thing my mom does that's very annoying to me is not talking when she's mad. I need that reassurance with 100% honesty that she is okay and we are okay.  I'm pretty sure that many kids out there want that too.

Q: Tell me about your friends. 

A: One thing I like about my friends is that they give me a lot of patience, and they make jokes with me, but not jokes towards me. One thing that bothers me about my friends is that sometimes, when they're mad, they don't think about what they will say next (like me). 

Q: Tell me about yourself. 

A: I am a very hard worker, and people tell me that I'm pretty funny, but that takes a lot of effort to maintain, more than other kids usually have to give. So when that happens, sometimes I like to just lie in my bed and sleep with my dog. And I really recommend giving your kids a pet to cope with and talk to, because if they say anything mean to the pets, they won't care.

I'm really good at soccer, football, basketball, and video games, but that also takes up a lot of energy, so after all of that stuff, I like to take a break every now and then.

I have ADHD, which makes me fidgety, but that's not the only reason.  FASD makes kids and me fidgety at all times. We will never sit still, even when we sleep. So we need something to keep our hands busy.

Sometimes I say things when I'm mad that I never mean. I just want reactions; that's how it makes me feel powerful, but at the end, I never want to feel like that again.

Something about me is that when I work too hard, my head starts to hurt, and I just need to take a 5-minute break. That way, it helps my brain say, “Okay, I can do this”.