My prehistoric Picasso
Tuesday 2nd June 2009
It was one of those days when I'd have given my right arm for five minutes peace and quiet. I'd only taken my eyes off Joshua, 8, and Olivia, 5, for a few seconds to read the paper and already, World War Three was kicking off. 'Joshua hit me,' Olivia wailed, fat tears streaming down her cheeks. 'It's her fault!' Joshua shouted back, hands on hips, lips pursed white with rage. 'She started it.' 'Olivia, don't wind your brother up,' I sighed. 'And Joshua, you should never hit anyone. Ever.' Still fuming, Joshua threw himself on to the floor, face beetroot, fists beating the ground in frustration. Truth is, I was pretty close to joining him. I know, I know, siblings always bicker. But there was another complication with my two…
I'd first noticed Joshua was different when he was 3. He never seemed interested in playing with other children and avoided eye contact. He flew into rages at the slightest thing, and hated change. He got obsessed with things, too. Whenever there were adults around, Joshua would want to talk to them about his favourite subjects, dinosaurs and wildlife, and nothing else. I had to admit his knowledge was pretty impressive. 'The Triceratops was a herbivorous ceratopsid dinosaur which lived in the Late Cretaceous Period,' he'd said one morning over breakfast. 'That's around 68million years ago.' 'How does he remember this stuff?' I'd asked my husband, Adrian, 38, Joshua's stepdad. Finally, in 2007, when he was 6 years old, we found out. He was diagnosed as having ADHD and Asperger's tendencies. It didn't come as a shock to me or Adrian. In fact, it was a relief to have a reason for Joshua's behaviour. Since then, his school had been brilliant, giving him a desk away from other children as he found them too loud and erratic.
But sometimes, like now, his condition could be exhausting. 'Shhh, try to calm down, love,' I said, kissing away his tears. I needed a distraction… I led Joshua to the kitchen table, where I put some paper and a biro in front of him. 'Why don't you have a go at drawing something?' I suggested. Then I flopped down onto the settee with Olivia. A whole minute passed in silence. Then another ticked by. 'What are you drawing?' I asked. 'A dinosaur,' he replied. A few minutes later, I went to see how he'd got on and gasped. 'Wow. That's really great,' I said, picking up his picture.
Over the next few weeks, Joshua continued drawing. He drew dinosaurs as well as an amazing picture of a saber-toothed tiger. 'I know I'm biased, but I think these are brilliant,' I told Adrian. I was so impressed, I scanned Joshua's pictures into the computer and put them up on my Facebook page. Suddenly, all my friends were messaging me. Who did the cool pictures? one friend asked. Joshua, I replied. You should show them to someone, she said. And it suddenly dawned on me that I should. The next day, I emailed our local paper, asking if they had any competitions Joshua could enter. They replied asking to do a feature on him. Before I knew what had happened, Joshua was all over the national papers and we were doing interviews with local TV and radio.
Who knows what the future holds, or where his talent will lead him. But for now, I know the perfect way to calm him down when he needs it. I just hand him a pen and ask: 'What does a Tyrannosaurus Rex look like again?'