My daughter is autistic and a teenager. She’s finally getting old enough to grasp the concepts of holidays and be interested in participating. She loves SpongeBob, so of course picked out this design. She hated cleaning out the insides, mainly the smell. She tried for about 10 seconds then went and threw up, so I took care of that. Once I showed her how to do the outlines by poking through the paper, she did most of the rest. I helped cut some of the finer details out, but she did about 90% of the cutting. She was super proud of it and really enjoyed putting it out on the front porch.
It’s really nice to see her progressing and enjoying kid things.
Thanks for the tip. She’s gotten much better about smells making her gag over the years, so I was a bit surprised at how much of a reaction this got. I think it may have been because she stuck around and tried to power through, rather than stepping away like she can do with other stuff.
Could it also have been the texture of the insides of the pumpkin? Was she wearing thick gloves? I know a couple of people who would find that specific texture awful. That said, knowing she can step away is good, being reminded at the first sign of trouble can help, but ultimately she will have to learn her own limits and learn how to assert them. This is a great situation to learn from and practice that skill.
Yeah, she had dishwashing gloves and a scooper.
Fantastic, the dishwashing gloves are an absolute winner. If she finds something they aren’t good enough for consider a second set of gloves inside them, such as cotton gloves or disposable latex gloves. This further reduces sensation through the gloves and enhances the protection.