This is how a child ought to be treated, austic or not

"Life, Animated” was my first choice of a series of documentaries offered for the month of July. It is about the long struggle of a boy named Owen to survive the long period of darkness in which he was trapped by autism.

Owen was diagnosed to be autistic at the age of three. The years that followed saw his parents struggling with the specialists to help him recover his lost speech and to come out of hiding. There was little success at first. When he was six, however, Owen made his first attempt to utter a word. To his parents’ surprise, he was found to be making use of Disney animated movies to make sense of the world he was living in, the ordinary world. His parents then started talking with him in Disney dialogues. He thus gradually learned to speak and navigate the social world.

Owen spent hours immersed in animation in another way too; he produced his own cartoon stories. There was one in which he portrayed himself as the protector of sidekicks. That was the time when he was troubled by school bullying. His drawing thus relieved him of negative emotions, giving him comfort and security.

The movie is honest about Owen’s struggles as well as his family’s. Disney movies had not made life a bed of roses for Owen. He could not easily tackle the challenges on his path to independence. He chose to watch “Bambi” on the first night when he was on his own, showing his anxiety in the absence of his mother … just like the little Bambi. And when he had fallen in love with a girl, his brother worried about his lack of knowledge about lovers’ intimacy. But before this problem was solved, something happened which gave them a still harder nut to crack. The girl soon broke up with him and he felt as though it was the end of the world. Finally, he managed to make sense of his heartache by drawing and navigate his way through the rough reality.

It was with joint effort that Owen’s family had succeeded in setting Owen up in life. They had jumped into his language, and into his world rather than bringing him out to where they were. They had shown with their experience how the autistic child’s affinity … his love for Disney movies … could be explored to provide a pathway for his social and personal growth.

“Life, Animated” is a story of love and resilience. It inspires us with the message that to help an autistic child, there is no professional, no fixed way. What needs to be done is to recognize the joy in the child and respect the child for what he is instead of the person they wish he could be.

Isn’t this the right way a child ought to be treated, autistic or not?