My eldest son has been showing interest whenever we watch movie at home. Of course being an autistic person, he can’t grab the basic idea on why the person is crying when the other character dies, things like that. At first we were frustrated and even sad that he couldn’t understand crucial expression like that, but then it’s not his fault, his brain is wired that way.
So I try to be patient and explain it to him in the easy, possible way that his mind could understand.
It is said that autistic person lives in a world of their own, yes, that’s true. And they don’t empathize and sympathize.
Do you know what the word sympathize means?
intransitive verb sym·pa·thize \?sim-p?-?th?z\
to feel sorry for someone who is in a bad situation : to feel sympathy for someone because you understand that person’s problems
How can you feel sympathy when you can’t even understand what’s going on, let alone to realize that the other person is having problem.
The normal neurotypical people have the social skills and the ability to read between the lines, interpret the facial expressions or understand the tones of the voice (angry, grumpy, happy, funny) but for autistic person, they just don’t have that kind of abilities unless it was taught to them.
So our movie night is more like another session of behaviour therapy..heh! But despite the pause, explain, play during the movie, we did manage to complete the whole saga of Star Wars, thanks to a friend who gave him Star Wars Lego for his last birthday and sparked his interest.
Oh, this movie? I didn’t pause, explain and play. But I love most of the quotes. Gotta find the book and read it some time this year.
