As a parent of an autistic kid: How would you cultivate that? Our son is autistic, he is 8 years old. He started to hate school. All he cares for is Minecraft and Magic: The Gathering. It's a bit sad to see that he seemingly drowns his curiosity by immersing himself mentally only in these two topics. I wonder if there's a way to guide him to develop interest in other topics. Any recommendations?
Use that as a stepping stone to increase his interest in architecture, computer science, mechanical engineering, chemistry or aerospace.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jYSfDcbY0w0&pp=ygULbm9taWZhY3R...
Forcing him to do things he doesn’t want to will be next to impossible. RSD is real and irrational. You can trick him into wanting to do things though.
And by trick I don’t mean deceive but just to make him thinks he wants it. Give him a choice and let him choose, but make both options good. Don’t force him to do things your way or the correct way as you see it.
Autistic people like to build and use our own systems, so that’s probably what he likes out of Minecraft, a world he can shape to his liking. He rejects the real world because it forces him to be something he doesn’t want to be.
Sure, I had rough childhood, but looking back, I wouldn't want to be someone else. The way my brain focuses and optimises for certain ideas actually benefits society if the environment is correct. There's only limited amount of processing power anyone can have. I just have less points for social and more for other areas that others don't have. Yet society expects us to normalize or consider it a disease. I'm now very successful and extremely proud where I have reached in life.
In my childhood I used to question why people didn't like me, if I had myself from now to guide myself, and create an environment for myself, I'm sure I would have had 100% happy childhood. And I know what and how to do if I ever had someone like myself as a kid, and it's not a disease.
The reason my childhood was terrible was EXACTLY because of expectation that everyone should behave like X, and that was just not me. So everyone tells me I have disease that needs to be fixed. It's disgusting.
I didn't finish high school because of all the issues I had, and spent years in depression, but as I happened to finally land in an environment that appreciated my differing thinking I was able to do exactly what my brain is suited for and make 8x+ average income in my area. I had passion as a kid, interest in weird things, but school and the social environment killed every little bit of it.