About Stuart Duncan

My name is Stuart Duncan, creator of http://www.stuartduncan.name. My oldest son (Cameron) has Autism while my younger son (Tyler) does not. I am a work from home web developer with a background in radio. I do my very best to stay educated and do what ever is necessary to ensure my children have the tools they need to thrive. I share my stories and experiences in an effort to further grow and strengthen the online Autism community and to promote Autism Understanding and Acceptance.
Author Archive | Stuart Duncan

I can’t believe I’ve become the “When I was your age” guy

By on January 4, 2011 in General

This Christmas was pretty amazing.. we had virtually no money and yet our children ended up waking up to their own hand held video games and a new Xbox 360 Kinect, all of which had multiple games.

I, myself, got a WD Live Media Player… it is essentially a little box that sits next to my tv and plays blu-ray quality movies straight off my computer that is in my office. My computer, by the way, currently holds over 70 movies for us (parents) and 50 movies for the kids. So turning on this new media box and being able to flip through over 100 movies is kinda nice. Plus, it also does Youtube and stuff, right on the tv… high quality.

What does all this mean? It means that I found myself sitting in my chair thinking to myself… “When I was you age…. ”

Atari

Cutting edge techology

I mean, seriously… I’m 34. When I was 5, the newest game to hit the market was the Atari, which featured stick figure characters and a range of about 6 different synthesized sounds. This was the big step up from what I had when I was 4, which was a small coffee table sized unit with a knob on each end. That’s right, it had Pong on it.

Also, we were nearing the end of an epic movie media battle between VHS and Beta. Ahh… VHS. You had to press play, then hit fast forward for several minutes to skip all the previews, then press play again to watch the film. Then you had to rewind it when it was done so that you wouldn’t have to rewind it before watching it next time (or returning it to the store and being charged extra).

When a movie got to be old (like, a few months), the sound would start to get wonky and if you’re really lucky, the tape would get stuck in the machine and get chewed up.

Then they had new players… they called them “Hi-Fi”. We thought the picture was amazing!

You know what we did during car rides? We stared out the window.

Alright alright…  now fast forward to current times, where I have 2 children that have it a little different.

The video games today feature life like animations and features, stunning image quality, days of play time, real world environments, open ended style play and most amazingly… a space aged camera that makes your entire body the controller.

Not only that, but they can now play games in their hands that are far better quality than what I had when I was a teenager. How did hand held units get so much better than what the top systems had to offer on my television? So much for staring out the window on those long car rides.

VHS is all but non existent these days with DVD having replaced them but even that is almost out the door as Blu-Ray is quickly taking it’s place. Watching movies in Blu-Ray is truly an amazing experience all on it’s own but what I failed to mention earlier was how crappy our televisions were. I mean, when your tv has a knob that you must physically get up to walk to and crank to change the channels.. that’s crappy.

But today, my boys get to watch 1080P movies on a 46″ plasma television… pretty darn swanky!!

Plus they get to play those controllerless, life like detail games on that plasma tv too.

Oh, another nice little perk… is my cell phone. Yes, my phone. When we’re out at a restaurant and the boys are getting restless, I can pop on a game or video or even a full length movie right onto my phone and presto, they’re entertained. I mean, in the palm of their hand they have more than I had in my entire bedroom at their age.

So yes, I’ve become a “When I was your age” guy, rather envious of my boys for all that they have compared to what I had but at the same time, rather proud.

I mean, we really are your normal family, living paycheck to paycheck, not much to spare on much of anything really, but with a purchase here, a purchase there… over the course of a few years, my boys really don’t have it so bad!

By the end of my jealousy induced memory flash backs, I was actually quite proud of what I’ve been able to provide for my family. No, I didn’t invent this new technology for them, but I’ve been able to provide them with it.

All in all, that’s really not so bad. And one day, when they’re in their 30’s and thinking about how bad they had it as kids, hopefully they’ll appreciate the fact that despite it being so crappy in comparison, it still was the top of the line, and their parents had it for them.

I think I’ll call my mom tonight just to say thanks.

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My New Years Resolution

By on December 31, 2010 in Autism

Today is New Years Eve which means we all think back on the year, think ahead to the year to come and “resolve” to improve something somehow.. ourselves, our lives, the world…

The problem with New Years Resolutions is that most people only make them once a year. Really, we should be dedicating our lives to improving ourselves every single day. But that’s a whole other story.

Those of us with a child that’s been diagnosed with Autism know that we’ve been making resolutions with every therapy session, every IEP meeting… with every milestone that’s been missed.

Then New Years Eve rolls around and as we watch friends and family gather to ring in the new year, we’re “stuck” at home because there’s no one we’d trust with our children that aren’t old enough to be out partying for the big night.  The neighbourhood babysitter just isn’t going to cut it on these nights.

While we sit and wonder if everyone’s talking about how “stuffy” or “over protective” we are while they’re drinking it up, we are content with our decision… here’s why.

People celebrate the turning of the year over to a new one but really, is tomorrow really going to be different from yesterday? Not likely. You may write the wrong year on your rent check tomorrow. Otherwise, chances are you won’t feel any different.

When you have a child with Autism that’s missed so many milestones over those short few years between 2 and 5 years of age, you not only learn to really appreciate the little things but you learn what’s really important.

Pulling down the calendar off the wall to put up a new one is not cause for celebration.. your child saying “I love you” is. Your child using a toilet for the first time is. Your child looking you in the eye, giving you a hug… kissing you! Now that’s cause for celebration!

There’s nothing wrong with resolving to make your life better in the coming year but don’t ever think that I’m missing out on any celebrating when I’m at home with my boys on New Years Eve.

I’ve made my resolutions already… many times. I’ve had my celebrations and they meant the world to me.

It’s because I’m not out partying that I’m not missing a single thing.

So what is my “New Years Resolution” then? The same as it is every day:

To strive to be the person that I would like my children to grow up to be.

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“I don’t like to lose!” – A tough lesson to learn

By on December 30, 2010 in Autism

While sitting here at my computer working, my son and his older cousin are in the living room playing Mario Party 8. Normally, this game is a wonderful tool for him to develop his motor skills, hand-eye co-ordination and even problem solving skills. However, as he gets better at it, he’s finding that he has a much harder lesson to learn… that he can’t win all the time.

I could hear it building until finally he stomped his feet off into the kitchen screaming “I don’t like to lose!” with tears streaming down his face.

At this point, I got up, went into the living room and looked at him. Again, he looked at me and screamed “I don’t like to lose!” so I said “well then, if you can’t lose at it, you can’t play it” and turned off his game.

At this point, I expected a much larger meltdown so I had to move quick while I had his attention.

Before he could even open his mouth, I said “do you want to play this game again?” and he yelled “YES!”

So I said “well, you’re not going to unless you can lose.”

I continued “do you like to play the new Donkey Kong game?” and he said “yes” and I said “well, you’re going to lose.”

I said “do you like to go bowling?” and he said “yes” and I said “well, you’re going to lose.”

At this point he came back in and sat on the couch… knees up under his chin.

I said “Let me ask you Cameron, if you win… who loses?” to which he replied “Emily” (his cousin).

I said “Do you think she likes to lose every single time?” and he said “no.” I said “well, if you win every single time, she loses every single time. I bet she doesn’t like losing either. It wouldn’t be much fun if she got mad and stormed off into the kitchen, would it?” and he said “no.”

I said “Do you think that Emily wins every single time when she goes bowling?” and he said “no.”

I explained to him that he has to lose sometimes, Emily has to lose sometimes… even I lose sometimes. But when you lose, you get better at it until eventually you will win.

He felt better about it, but there’s no quick fix for this. 10 minutes later, he was right back into the game and getting mad that he was losing. Some people never grow out of it. We all know people that get really mad about losing.

And trying to teach a 5 year old with Autism that you have to lose in order to learn how to win is quite a tricky task to be sure, but it’s one of the fun parts of parenting. I like to think that a little bit of what I said sunk in… and next time a little more.

For this talk, I lose. But I’ll keep at it until I win… because when I do, so will he.

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Wow, my boy is just full of great surprises!

By on December 29, 2010 in Autism

So the Christmas holidays are officially over, I couldn’t be happier with how well my boys handled all the late nights, long visits with family they don’t know and everything else.

What truly impressed me were the little moments in between.

We gave Cameron (my 5yr old with Autism) a Nintendo DS Lite and gave Tyler (3yr old without Autism) a Leapfrog, both are handheld video game systems… this way they have something to do when they do have long visits with family, or long drives.

What was truly amazing was when Tyler picked up his brother’s Ninentdo DS, which was clearly too complicated for him. At first, I expected Cameron to tell him to stop playing with it, to take it away from him but to my surprise, he instead showed Tyler how to turn it on and play with it!

The next day, I was doing dishes and asked Cameron and his older cousin to find all of the dishes around the house for me. Again, he did as asked and for his reward, he received a kinder egg (chocolate egg with a toy inside). His cousin, jokingly, said “where’s mine?” and without a moment of hesitation, Cameron split the egg in half and gave half of it to his cousin!

Granted, that’s only 2 wonderfully amazing things over the course of close to a full week, but I’ll gladly take 2 over none… and certainly take 2 over meltdowns.

You have to understand, I got some great Christmas presents myself but not much ranks as high as seeing my boy do so very well. By the way, his chocolate sharing didn’t go unrewarded. I made sure to share some of my Christmas chocolate with him as a reward for being such a good kid.

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The excitement is building and I’m not sure I can take it anymore!!

By on December 23, 2010 in Autism

I’m so conflicted.. I mean, on the one hand, it’s so wonderful and amazing that my boys actually “get it” this year. They’re genuinely excited for Christmas, for toys, for Santa, for opening presents… with 9 days left, I told Cameron that there were 9 “sleeps” left until Christmas and ever since then, I get wake up calls each and every morning reporting to me how many sleeps are left. This morning, it’s 2 sleeps left.

The problem is that the morning reports are coming earlier and earlier. It started at 7am. This morning was 4:45am!

Christmas CrazyIf that wasn’t bad enough (bad on Christmas??), their excitement level doesn’t taper off through out the day… and it certainly doesn’t fade or stay constant as we get closer to the big day either.

The boys seem to hurt themselves more, become more and more defiant and just all around wild with every passing day as we draw closer and closer to Christmas.

This morning Cameron climbed up on the rocking recliner that spins… long winded description but necessary, you see.. he stands on it. Something that rocks and spins is not something an unwieldy 5 year old should be standing on. He’s fallen several times and this morning was no exception. Now he has a nice purple line down his rib cage where he hit the coffee table.

Have no fear though, he’s fine… they’re quite resilient.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that when you want your kids to get excited, just remember that you asked for it.

It’s the 23rd today, and I may be jumping the gun on this one, but I’m fairly confident in saying that in less than 2 days, when the boys wake me up earlier than ever, excited about what they find under the tree…  it will have all been worth it.

Especially if I get to sleep in the next day.

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