Safe Emergencies
Great Games Include Emotional Elements
When you watch children play with each other in a preschool classroom or on the playground, they tend to do scary things like swing high, jump off of tall places, and they pretend a lot of scary things. We are sometimes appalled at what scary things they play. It turns out that in order to learn new things, remember new things, even pay attention to new things, it is the brain needs an emotional element to learn rapidly. Children with autism tend to become emotionally overwhelmed more easily than other children, and it is challenging to find games for these children that have the right amount of emotions and not too much emotion. I call this kind of game a Safe Emergency.
A safe emergency can involve climbing up on something high where there is a possibility of falling off (the emergency) but where parents make sure this will not happen (thus safe). The game can involve parents being lost (emergency) but easily found (thus safe). Physically challenging activities engage children for long periods of time as they try to work out how to manage their own bodies in a world that can be dangerous. I notice that children with autism tend ot create a lot of safe emergencies of this kind spontaneously. Perhaps they need to because they are experiencing many sensory challenges that make it harder for them to learn how to manage safely in the physical world around them. Children with autism are less inclined to spontaneously challenge themselves with social safe emergencies but they catch on and are thrilled to play this way when presented with a good game. Above is my favorite Safe Emergency Game, Monster, Monster, learned at an RDI workshop.