More Zumba

The Zumba Wii game that Kai got for Christmas has been a great source of entertainment in our house – well, at least for me and Kai.

Kai is now very motivated to do Zumba several times a week. He thinks of it as fun, not as exercise.

A big reason why he loves it so much is because he loves music and dancing. But he is also motivated by anything that has scores and levels. And this Zumba game is perfect in that regard because it rates your performance after every dance. You work your way up to different levels while unlocking prizes along the way.

Of course, Kai would not like it nearly as much if he fared poorly on the ratings. But he is doing very well.

And that is where the entertainment factor comes in for me.

Kai outscores my wife on every single dance. Every. Single. Dance.

Usually it is not even close.

On one dance the other night, he got four stars, which, according to the program, made him a “Rocker,” while on the very same dance, my wife got zero stars. The program deemed her a “Beginner.”

This irritates my wife to no end. And of course the scoring makes no sense as my wife used to be an aerobics instructor and she has plenty of rhythm and good moves.

But I like to play it up.

I tell her that she just needs to practice more. After all, not everyone can be as good a dancer as Kai. And then Kai joins in.

“Don’t worry, Mom. You have to keep trying. Maybe you’ll be as good as me one day.”

Here’s a short clip of he and I doing one routine together.




Not bad, huh?

Zumba Master

Who knew that my son was a Zumba master?

Kai received a new Wii game for Christmas. It is a Zumba game.

My wife used to be an aerobics instructor so she expected to do well. And so it frustrates her to no end that Kai has scored higher than her every time so far.

I’m not taking sides, but I’ve got to say that my son has great moves.

What do you think?

Preview of Kai’s Wedding?

In addition to books and dvds, on our weekly trips to the public library, Kai and I pick out a Wii game. This week’s selection was Hasbro Family Game Night 3, a collection of classic board games that have been turned into Wii games.

The set includes Mouse Trap, Twister, Yahtzee Hands Down, and Clue. We haven’t played all them yet – and some were disappointing – but we had fun was playing The Game of Life.

Although The Game of Life has been around forever, I had never played it before this weekend. A few months ago, one of Kai’s therapists had suggested that the board game might be a fun way to teach him about life events. So we looked forward to trying the Wii version.

For anyone else who is not familiar, at the beginning of the game, each player decides whether or not to go to college, and then chooses a job and embarks on life. As the game plays out, players may get married, have kids, earn money, lose money, and have a variety of life experiences as they head toward retirement.

Kai loved keeping track of the money, and was happy when he got big sums and angry when he lost money. And he was thrilled when he was the winner at the end.

Now we do realize that this game is not a serious way to teach about life events. (Ha, I’d like to see The Game of Life: Autism Style for that, but that is for another post.) But it was fun to play.

My wife and I’s favorite part was when Kai got married. His wife actually bore a strong resemblance to my wife, which pleased her. (I, on the other hand, took pleasure when my wife was disappointed with the choice of her husband in the game, who did not look anything like me.)

It is hard to imagine that Kai will ever grow up. And it is tough to think about whether he will be capable enough by then to live independently and be able to take on the responsibilities of being married and having a family.

But for one afternoon, we had a fun diversion.

Here is a preview of what we hope to see in about twenty years or so – Kai and his new bride dancing at their wedding reception:

Another Kai

A woman emailed me a couple of weeks ago. She had just discovered my Patch articles. She said that she and her family had recently moved to my town. She has twin boys, about a year older than my son. And one of her boys is named Kai. And her Kai also has autism.

Now that is what I call a remarkable coincidence. And you can’t just let coincidences like that pass.

And so, my wife and I met the woman and her husband for coffee one morning. It turns out that Atsuko is, like my wife, a native of Japan. And her husband Mike is, like me, originally from the Chicago area. It was as if we were meant to be together.

Yesterday, we had them over for dinner. It was the first time our boys would meet. Two Kai’s in the same house. What would that be like?

Our Kai was happy to have company over. And both of the twins seemed happy to be here.

Our Kai immediately took charge. He wanted the boys to play the Mario Kart game he had received for Hanukkah. The game had sat idle for much of the past month since we received it, but Kai suddenly took an interest in it this weekend. And he was thrilled to have some new players to watch.

Mind you, Kai did not want to play the game himself. He just wanted to watch the boys play.

New Kai is less verbal than our Kai. But he was able to communicate his wishes pretty well with his one or two word phrases. He wanted to be Luigi. His brother Aidan chose Mario.

Aidan is neurotypical, and you couldn’t find a better brother for a child with autism. Aidan is compassionate, patient, and understanding with his brother. And he showed those qualities with our Kai as well.

It was interesting watching the three of them interact. Our Kai was acting like the supervisor, telling the boys which course he wanted them to race. And the twins cooperated for the most part, and enjoyed the races our Kai had them do.

When Aidan wanted to play a different Wii game, I helped negotiate a compromise with our Kai. But for the most part, the boys played by themselves. And they played together longer than perhaps any play date we’ve ever set up for Kai.

It allowed us grownups to have a surprisingly relaxed time to get to know each other, a time that we enjoyed very much.

New friends + happy kids = a wonderful evening.

All thanks to our two Kai’s.

Wii Like This Game

Our public library has a pretty good selection of Wii games, and we try to get one each week.

I’m glad that we have this opportunity to try these games at no cost. We have found that a lot of games look good on the shelf, but are not that much fun to play. There are a lot of mediocre Wii games out there, and I’m glad we did not have to pay to find that out.

That makes it all the more enjoyable when we do find a good game that we all like to play. And this week’s selection is one of the most best we have found in a while.

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is a game that tests mental agility in five different categories: Visualize, Identify, Memorize, Compute, and Analyze. Players take tests, with scores based on speed and accuracy. The difficulty adjusts with the questions getting harder as the player does well, and easier if the player makes mistakes. At the end of each quiz, the player gets a score and can see their strengths and weaknesses.

My wife and I have found the game to be addictive, as we want to play it again and again to improve our scores and out-do each other. And Kai enjoys it, too.

After you complete the quiz, the game assigns an occupation that matches your skillset. Kai was deemed a mathematician. Hah, good match!

It’s no surprise that he does best in the Compute section. But I like that he gets practice in the other areas, too.

I don’t know how much this game will truly improve my son’s skillset in these areas, but it seems like a way to sharpen his brain. And that is better than a lot of other video games.

I think there was something else I wanted to write, but I’ve forgotten. You see, my weakest area is Memorize.

#%*$@# Super Mario

Our son doesn’t play a lot of video games like many kids do. Most of his free time these days is spent on elements. But lately, Kai has been into the Super Mario Bros. game for our Wii. No, he doesn’t play it much. Rather, he either wants to watch us play or he watches YouTube videos of other people playing.

He’s been so into the game this week that he’s even eaten his breakfast quickly every day just so he could watch Mom play for a few minutes before he has to leave for school. Who knew that Luigi and company would be such motivators?

His favorite videos are of three players who are quite good at the game and who get much farther than we ever do. On screen you see the Mario characters, but the audio is of the people talking. The other day I watched these videos with him and I found out that the language these players use is not the kind I want Kai exposed to. There were a few f-bombs, and a lot of b-words.

At first I was hoping that Kai wouldn’t notice them. Language is hard for him and he doesn’t seem to repeat much of the things we say. But then I thought that I better turn the sound down. I don’t want him to start swearing. Once he does, I think it will be hard to get him to stop.

So, I turned down the sound, and, not surprisingly, he didn’t like that at all. He yelled and protested. I explained to him that the people were using some bad words that I did not want him to listen to. I said that he could watch the video, just not listen to the sound. But, that didn’t satisfy him. He actually cried, which is rare for him. Usually he just gets angry, but this indicated that he was sad.

So, he doesn’t seem sad when talking about death, but not getting to listen to the sound of a YouTube video of a Super Mario Bros. game really gets the waterworks going.

To cheer him up, we told him that perhaps his older cousins who live in Virginia might be good at the game. We will see them in August so he can play with them at that time.

Well, two and a half months might as well be an eternity for a child. Kai demanded that we invite them over right now. Right, I’m sure they would drop everything to fly here so they can show Kai how to play Super Mario.

So, for now, he is stuck watching Mom and Dad ineptly play the game.

Now, can anyone give me a few tips before I start swearing?

Ping-Pong Versus the Periodic Table

It was an epic battle. Strength against strength. Body versus mind. Mom versus son. Ping-pong takes on the periodic table.

We were playing the table tennis return challenge on the Wii the other day. The game involves returning serves for as long as you can. If you return the ball successfully, you score one point, the next ball is served, and you keep going. But, one miss and your turn is over.

I was up first. I missed the very first ball. My score was zero.

Kai was next. He did better than me, which of course is not saying anything. But, at least he got his score into the teens.

Then it was Mom’s turn. Now, compared with teens, gamers, or anyone with a modest amount of coordination, none of us are really all that great at any of the Wii games. But my wife does pretty well at table tennis, at least by our meager standards.

My numbers-loving son gets excited when it’s Mom’s turn to do the return challenge as he knows he may see the score get pretty high. Sometimes, he counts along. And, that’s what he did this time.

Except that he didn’t count with numbers. He counted with elements.

Instead of one, two, three, he said, “hydrogen, helium, lithium” which, by atomic number, are the first three elements in the periodic table.

As my wife’s score got into the 20s, Kai got more excited. “Calcium, scandium, titanium!”

As the streak went on, Kai got progressively louder. “GALLIUM, GERMANIUM, ARSENIC!”

My wife started to get annoyed. “Kai, stop counting! You’re distracting me!”

I, however, was very amused. I was pretty sure that my son had not yet learned all 118 elements. Would my wife be able to keep her streak going until she got to the point where he would no longer be able to give the name of the element?

My wife’s score went past 50. “TIN, ANTIMONY, TELLURIUM, IODINE, XENON…”

I could see the tension on my wife’s face. The elements were getting to her.

“CAESSIUM, BARIUM, LANTHANUM…”

At 69, she missed. Kai didn’t. “THULIUM!”

Elements had defeated ping-pong.

My son remains the undisputed lightweight champion of the periodic table.

Are Wii Wrong to Let Our Son “Box?”

My wife and I were just discussing whether we should let our son play the boxing game that is part of the sports package on the new Wii video game system he just got for Hanukkah. He is already inclined to hit, bite, kick, scratch and otherwise resort to violent acts when he is upset, and we were discussing whether this game would encourage him to act even more violently. My wife reports that a friend of hers does not let her boys play this same boxing game.

And so, when I read the article “Christmas presents you should not buy for children with autism,” my attention was captured when the author advised against letting kids with autism watch violent movies or play violent games.

The article was written by a special education teacher. She states that most children with autism cannot easily turn off what they see, and that they are unable to separate fantasy from reality. Instead, she prefers educational DVDs and computer CDs, and gives examples of each. She also speaks positively about the iPad.

I’m certainly not going to knock educational DVDs as I’m always looking for those on our weekly Dad-and-son visits to the library. And, the author makes a lot of great points about curtailing the violence our kids consume.

But, I’m not convinced that our son’s boxing game can be considered violent. I see it more as innocent, silly fun. There is absolutely no blood or gore, and it seems more like exercise than anything else. Besides, in the week that we’ve had it, we’ve had a lot more real social interaction with our son while playing with it than with most other activities.

Still, I’m going to monitor our son’s behavior over the next few weeks. And, if we see an increase in violence, I will reconsider my viewpoint.

What do you think?