Amber please can I talk to you about spinning? and sparklers?

[lingle]

DS2 does spinning with his hand when stressed or sometimes when just wanting to zone out.

Sometimes, when relaxed, he spontaneously turns the spin into an air-drawing face saying "eyes", "nose" "eyebrows" "big smiley mouth! and tells me it's a "happy man" or "happy lady".
But often it's me that prompts him to do this. Because I find drawing more acceptable than spinning .

But today I suddenly had this memory of childhood and having a sparkler, and spinning it round and round and how exciting yet soothing it is to see it tracing the pattern that's nearly the same but different each time. Ithought (as I often do) of the points you make about children seemingly doing something meaningless when actually they are exploring in detail.

Do you think maybe DS2's spinning feels to him like holding a sparkler does to me? Really exciting yet soothing with lots of tiny variations to each circle?

Thanks for reading - if anyone else wants to reply please feel free.

It sounds like it could be Lingle doesn't it.

You've actually made me think about something that my ds2 does that's similar. Yes, it's probably very interesting and relaxing - and the tiny variations are very subtle.

Off to bed, I think. x

Lingle, in a word, yes.

I'm also sitting here with a big smile on my face, because your ds is converting the spin/stim into drawing outlines of people, and working out which parts of a face make someone appear happy, and which parts make them appear sad. Brilliant! When he's come to a conclusion, perhaps he'd share it with me because I'm still not sure I've got it

If you recorded and digitised what he's doing, you'd probably find there's a pattern of "plain repetition" which is relaxing/interesting, then "trying out new patterns with tiny variations" to see if he can work out a new part of the rules for people's appearance or some other characteristic.

This is often sophisticated work. Trouble is, most people's brains really can't see what we're doing - because they can't hold a hundred repetitions of something in their memory all at once to see what the variations were and see what needs fine-tuning. And they can't think in pictures or in 3-d shapes. They therefore perhaps think our spinnings or stims are all the same. Then they think it's a fault with us, rather than them .

Yes, we certainly can use stims/repetition to calm down and bring some order into our lives, or find out where we are in relation to the space around us (don't ask me why it sometimes works, but it does). But we also use them as a scientific test-ground. And he's doing brilliantly at that.

Nothing wrong with converting annoying stims into something more productive from time to time, so if he's willing to try new things with you, that's fine, I'd say.

Oh lovely that has made me smile too

forgot to say thank you.

my ds draws in the air too he draws shapes and faces and all sorts

he just randomly draws different things and then asks me what it is of course i have no idea lol

my ds also spins in circles with his eyes looking as if his trying to see behind himslef and he does this for ages until his wobbly

can be hard work when out as he will just randomly start spinning in circles bless him

i did find a glow stick kind of thing you push button and it lights up he loved spinning with this and staring at the light and drawing shapes with it

My 6 year old draws in the air aswell.
My eldest would make do this, and told me he was making angles, and that he could see them, he still does it now, but usually in private. He visualises them too.