When Strangers Are Kind
It is rare to find an average person, and a stranger at that, who actually understands your child. Kindness goes a long way so I want to do a shout-out to the bloke who owns Refreshing Memories in Adelaide.
Refreshing Memories is a small, independent shop on Main North Road where the owner is, as far as I’ve seen, the sole person who’s ever working. It’s jam-packed with educational stuff, lego (including his own impossible-to-buy models hanging from the ceiling where you can drool but not touch), sensory items, games, dinosaurs, rocks and fossils, and random toys. It’s kid-heaven and very autism friendly. My children and I go in there from time to time on our way home from things. ‘We’re just popping in for a few minutes’, I say, and walk out an hour later with arms full. It’s a dangerous game that I play and I lose every single time. The kids love this routine and so do I. Why is it called ‘Refreshing Memories’? I have no idea. Perhaps I’ll ask the bloke one day. Speaking of which, the owner is SUPER friendly. He loves to chat and engage the kids. He helps with purchases (being unhelpfully helpful sometimes, because it means I buy more) and chats about the products. Which brings me to the point of this blog post.
The other day my son and I were ‘just popping in’ on the way home from therapy and as usual there he was, the owner, and as usual my will-power against buying anything mysteriously disappears before I barely walk in the door. Funny how that happens. We head to the section where my son finds his wooden engineering models that he’s building (UGears has an excellent range if you’re interested). After browsing and choosing I notice that the owner has successfully crept into our space and inserted himself into our conversation. That sounds a bit creepy but it really wasn’t – he’s just a friendly bloke who is people-oriented and was happy to discuss getting more of the models in. We then switched focus to the giant Traffic Jam game by Think Fun he has available for everyone to play, and it was then that I realised something: this man is really kind and he ‘gets’ neurodiversity. As I was chatting about how I recently purchased some logic games (Smart Games) and how my son is working through the spatial-awareness puzzles really quickly, the bloke asked whether my son was dyslexic. I was surprised by his intuition and responded in the affirmative. He then proceeded to tell me, in front of my son, that dyslexics excel at spatial-awareness and are the most creative people, and the world is better because of them, though they have to sacrifice a lot to be this way.
Wow. I mean, just wow. He was honest, perceptive, didn’t hide the struggles but most definitely highlighted the strengths. This is kindness.
He then proceeded to convince me not to buy a particular game (what, a shop owner convincing me not to buy something in his shop????) because it’s time-based, and time-based games (think games like ‘snap’) promote quick processing and rote learning. Does quick processing make you more intelligent? No! A slow processor can be the better thinker but they just take longer to come to the answer, and in our world ‘speed = intelligence’. Not sure how that happened but it has and that sucks for kids like my son and high proportion of other neurodivergents out there who are naturally slow processors yet highly creative and intelligent. People don’t have time to give them a chance. The bloke then tells me that he refused to buy some new time-based games to sell, even though they were great games and no doubt he could’ve made some money off them. He just didn’t want to do that to kids who are already being told they’re stupid for not being able to ‘keep up’.
After spending an hour in the shop and parting with a fair amount of cash (surprise!!!) we left, and when we got home my son went straight to the logic games and loudly declared every time he finished another puzzle. Though his self-confidence isn’t lacking by any means because we are very open about his strengths and challenges and spend a lot of energy building him up, I could tell that he was buzzing from this encounter. ‘That man who owns that amazing shop said that I was amazing too!’
Nice.
So if you’re in Adelaide South Australia, and you happen to drive past that dinosaur sign, stop for a browse and a chat. Here is a man who will understand you and your children. Being a small business the products are a tad more expensive than what you can order online from China, but this shop is a gem and I for one am willing to buy from there if only to keep his kindness flowing.
And if you’re not in Adelaide, you can order on-line from https://www.refreshingmemories.com.au/. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’m not receiving anything from this business for writing this. I’m just returning the kindness.