As a mother, little acts of kindness to our children count more than most non-mothers realize. This is especially true for mothers of children with autism. Leslie Carpenter’s 5-year-old son Asher, a kindergartener at Glenwood Heights Primary School in Vancouver, Washington, is on the spectrum. He is one of one of millions that suffer from the rapidly growing developmental disorder, and like many other children with his condition, he has yet to be formally diagnosed. He is still undergoing testing, and so his school is not legally allowed to place him in special education classes. For his mother, this is disheartening and frustrating.
For kids like Asher, simple tasks like tying shoelaces are difficult. In fact, it’s Asher’s shoelaces that had Carpenter in constant frustration. In the morning, she’d send her son to school with freshly tied laces; in the afternoon, he’d come running up to her with the laces undone.
According to a post on Leslie’s Facebook page, Asher suffers from ticks that compel him to untie his laces. However, he cannot figure out how to re-tie them once he has them undone. “I felt at a loss..not sure what to do, and felt heart broken every time I would see him get off the bus with his laces dangling. He even felt bad about it and would hang his head in shame knowing his shoes were to be tied, and as a Mother I felt helpless…”
For Leslie, it wasn’t the laces being untied that upset her–it was the fact that nobody at the school seemed to want to help her son. Until one day, when Asher came home not with his laces untied, but with special no-tie laces.
Leslie was touched that someone had finally taken notice of Asher and did something to help him. Other than a note and instructions left in Asher’s backpack on how to use the laces, there was no trace of who gave her son the laces. So, she did what others before her have done: she took to Facebook and shared Asher’s story. She thanked the person who helped her son and left it at that. Or so she thought.
Like all things on social media, the story quickly went viral. It was soon uncovered that Asher’s occupational therapist, Carolyn Torricelli, was the generous heart. Though Carolyn didn’t think much of her own kind actions, it quickly became apparent that her kind gesture had a huge impact on Asher and his mom. For Leslie, Torricelli’s kindness was bigger than just the laces–it was finally seeing someone at her son’s school take notice of Asher and going above and beyond to help him.
“[Asher’s] so proud of his new laces and has not touched his shoes out of habit once,” Carpenter wrote. “His smile, and to see him confident about his shoes means everything. Thank you Glenwood Heights Primary school for your amazing staff and those around our children. You’ve sincerely touched my heart and your kindness to my Son and his special needs when you didn’t have to, and this day in age it is very easy to just treat a child as “another head” in a classroom.”
Every child is different and, on the spectrum or not, each and every child deserves to be treated with the same type of individualized attention that Asher received from Torricelli.
Carpenter is touched by the amount of attention that her post received and encourages you all to continue sharing it. Hopefully, as Asher’s story spreads, so will the kindness.
(h/t) USA Today
