My six year old daughter is autistic. She's highly intelligent and communicates well but this is her world and we just live in it. She just doesn't have much concern for the world beyond what she feels is interesting and if she wants to do something she could care less about what you think of it.
For example, she started kindergarten this year. If she gets bored or nervous she will run out the door and take off. And since she considers kindergarten work baby stuff, she gets bored a lot.
They learned how to stop her so she told them if they didn't let her go she was going to pull the fire alarm.
Silly child,They thought. The fire alarm is too high and takes too much strength to pull. A kindergartener could never pull it.
The next day she approached the door, the teacher blocked her. She ran to the fire alarm, jumped up, grabbed it with both hands, and hung off the handle to pull it.
Five minutes to pickup with a full line of parents waiting outside. They had to get all the kids out to the playground, count them, wait for the fire department to turn off the alarm and verify nothing was burning, bring the kids back inside, and start the normal release procedures.
Momma was livid.
She warned them, they learned to start listening to her.
So they give her library time when she's well behaved and they put her in a gifted program with the 2nd graders because there aren't any other k or 1st grade kids functioning at a gifted level.
She taught herself to play chess and we move the pieces around at least.
She's started approaching me about "ninja lessons". I'm constantly stretching and doing taijiquan throughout the day and I guess she rationalized that as I'm a ninja.
If she's interested in something she'll get engrossed in it and really apply herself and do an amazing job. Since she's expressing interest in the martial arts I can't let the opportunity slip past.
So far I've told her that for a warrior to win in battle they must master their opponent, and to master their opponent they must master themselves. I made her promise to only use what she learns to grow stronger and better in order to help protect herself and people that are weaker.
We've worked on basic standing and breathing. Feel the gravity, follow the breath, relax. Bones go up and meat goes down. She followed instructions very well and is excited for more lessons.
Have you taught children? Is there anything you can recommend as I approach this endeavor? Anything I should avoid?
She's asked about a belt but I told her we didn't have those.