Monday, February 4, 2013

My Little Bronys

My sons love My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.  They play with toy ponies, watch the show and love to make up pretend stories all about the ponies. I find it highly amusing. There is a whole subset of fans out there called "bronys" that are teen and young adult MEN who love the show. Yeah. A little weird but ok.... so my boys are bronys. :)

Some parents hate television and only let their kids watch a tiny little bit every day, if any. I am not one of those Moms. See, Braeden is autistic. One of the things that I noticed early on for him was that he did not play in a normal fashion and he did not directly respond to requests (verbally) unless I repeated the question again and again.

Television helped him. He finally started responding better. Why? Because of Dora the Explorer and Blue's Clues. When they asked questions he learned to respond. And because he could watch the episodes over and over he got practice. Simple questions, simple answers.

He also learned how to "pretend play" by watching things like Elmo, The Backyardigans and Yo Gabba Gabba. He started to interact more with the shows and as a result he started to interact more with us.

Braeden was never what they term "severe".  He was never 100% non verbal. But he was extremely challenged in the early days.

I credit TV and ABA therapy with many of the steps forward he has taken.

If he wants to watch MLP or Strawberry Shortcake, The Transformers or Dino Dan, the dreaded Max and Ruby or even the hated Fresh Beat Band then I am fine with that.

And actually, MLP:FIM Is a decent show! If you haven't watched any episodes with your kids then I suggest you check it out.


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