FROM GABY: One of my players wrote this piece about Tybalt for our whole Son-Rise Program team. It's a bit long but certainly worth reading enjoy!
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Dear players,
I have without exaggeration had the most impressive and awesome play session I have ever had with Tybalt. I have already told some of you the story but I want to share it with everyone. It gives us a bit of an insight into what goes on in Tybalt’s head. Here was my session:
Emma phoned me to tell me they where outside with Tybalt. They were close to the shopping mall and she asked me if I would come there as my play session was starting. I met them at the supermarket and Emma and I suggested to Tybalt that we go back home to have a nice cool drink and to play in the room. Tybalt didn’t react and wandered in the direction of the Blokker (another store) where he stood still. Emma and I tried some nice tricks to get him along but Tybalt had his own plans and went into the store to look at the toys and therefor so did we.
Emma told me that earlier on she had had to stop Tybalt when he had run across the train platform while there came a train. Emma and Ellis (the other player who was with them) had been shocked because of this. Tybalt had seemed a bit dazed after the incident. In the store we tried to convince him that he didn’t have his savings money with him and therefor couldn’t buy anything but that we would love to play with him at home. He answered each suggestion with, “Now I will tell you that I don’t have to go away” and variations of such. He sat on the ground looking at the stacks of DVDs and I tried to talk to him why he didn’t want to go go. After a while he said: “I don’t want to go home with you I want to stay alone and I don’t want to go outside”.
"Why not Tybalt?"
"I don’t like it that people laugh about me."
"Who is laughing about you?"
"The people laugh about me because I am crazy," he said (or something like that I don’t remember the exact words).
Emma, who had to leave, left and Tybalt repeated once more that he wanted to be alone and not leave. I asked him if it was okay if I stayed and that was fine with him. So we walked for a while around the store together while he was talking. I noticed that even though it looked as if he was stimming, he was doing his best trying to explain something to me. So I listened very closely to what he said and celebrated each answer he gave me. After a while he said: “Freek, I had a dream.”
"What was the dream about I asked?"
"That I was just as big as you."
"Oh! And how did you like that?"
"Nice?"
It’s really fantastic because the other week I also had had a dream about Tybalt (and I rarely remember my dreams). In my dream he had been as old as I am now. In my dream he still had his physical Tybalt movements with his shoulders and body posture but he was holding a normal conversation without problems. I had found it a beautiful dream. Isn’t it extraordinary that he too had had a dream about the same thing!
Anyway, because he was that talkative while he walked around with a Thomas the Tank Engine train in his hands, I said I would give him the train as a present if he agreed to go home. I don’t realy like doing this, but the store lady was becoming impatient with us. “That’s good,” he said. So then we went home with the train.
Once home we went into the playroom and had the most wonderful interactive session for an hour - even more fantastic as it was the end of the day and he had had an emotional experience! After half an hour we sat next to each other in an imaginary cactus hollow when I noticed he was pondering upon something. "What happened today” I asked him
"Tybalt was playing and wanted to go to the train. Emma and Ellis were angry and Tybalt had a fight."
"Do you still like Emma and Ellis?"
"No, Tybalt had fight."
"But if I understand it right, you were close to the train and trains are dangerous because they move so fast. So I think that Emma and Ellis were scared that something would happen to you because they love you so much!"
All the time while we had the conversation Tybalt looked at me and I’m sure that he understood what I told him. He stayed quiet so I sat quite next to him for about a minute. Then I said, "Tybalt, may I ask you a last question?"
"Yes will you say."
"If I say that Emma and Ellis were scared and that they love you very much do you understand what I mean and do you believe me?"
"Yes."
I found it so beautiful.
Love to you all, Freek
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In the evening when I brought Tybalt to bed I talked to him about what had happened and he pretty much told the story as I had hear it from Freek. He told me that Emma and Ellis had been scared. I told him that people sometimes react angry when they are scared and he said he understood that. The next day out of the blue he told me that he loved Emma and Ellis. The experience has made all of us look at Tybalt with a new awe. And I am doing dialogues with myself because as a mom I’m seeing him running across the platform and being overprotective as I am I have to let go a bit. However, I have forbidden the players to go anywhere near the trains!
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