On MineCraft & Mommihood

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” said no Mom before, ever, in regards to any sort of video game.

I’m about to change that.

A few days ago I saw the following interview on Jon Stewarts’ The Daily Show, in which Ron Suskind talks about his son, Owen, and his new book, Life Animated: (click here, if you haven’t seen this interview, you really should!)

It really, really made me think.

I started thinking about all the interventions we are doing with our son, Cassius. We are teaching him social skills, we are teaching him how to read non-verbal communication, we are teaching him using applied behavior analysis how to interact with the world a little more effectively.

We are, in essence, teaching him how to speak our language, without making much of an effort to learn his language. Why is that okay? Why is okay for me to demand that he bend 95%, while I complain about bending 5% of the way?

I started to think: I wonder if I could meet him halfway? I wonder if, while I’m teaching him my language, maybe he could teach me his?

Insert Minecraft [here].

Many Autists have something they focus their energy on and really deeply enjoy. In our little Autist’s life, that thing is Minecraft. He loves Minecraft for a multitude of reasons, but the truth is, he loves it so much that he has created a You-tube channel of Minecraft paradies which he blasts insanely loudly all the time. In fact, in my household there is a silent competition between my husband and I to see who can take the terrible parodies the longest (thus far, I am in the lead)*.

It was during my third round of “Where my Diamonds’ Hide” (a parody of Imagine Dragons’ Demons) when it hit me. That was it! It was right in front of my face all along (and loudly in my ears, too). How could I have missed it?

So with that being said, I downloaded Minecraft, and, thanks to my son’s love the game, I’m getting lessons in Minecraft (Minecrafting? Is that a word? ::Shrugs::). And I’ll use this gift of technology to bridge the gap in our language.

Lesson number 1 in Minecrafting: learning how to mine wood. In our Minecraft world, which is our own little world, we have our own house, and even adorable little bunkbeds. (But, separate bedrooms, because, as Cassius so deligiently pointed out “That’d be weird,” if we shared a bedroom. I agreed.)

I was definitely killed by a couple of zombies, but I genuinely enjoyed my very first Minecrafting lesson.

Hey if you can’t beat em’, join ’em.

As with anything else, I’ll let you know how this goes. 🙂 It should be, above all, very interesting. And involve a lot of TNT and Cake. And Pigs. And weird, weird laws of physics that make absolutely no sense*.

Wish me luck!

Don’t Mess with me. I’m a Minecrafter…. I can Minecraft… My Minecrafting skills are….
…terrible…

Sidenote: * denotes the use of sarcasm everywhere in this blog. And there is probably going to be a lot of it!