Who do you think is moving my legs?

As I’m sure you are aware by now my son thinks differently to me. The way in which he thinks is absolutely fascinating!! For a 5 year old his grasp on things is second to none and he is so in tune with his body that it does cause him problems. He feels things to an extreme. He thinks things to an extreme. He acts to the extreme. It reminds me of being a superhero, and my job is to make sure he can control it and is aware of his superpowers and can use them appropriately. If we look at superheroes and their powers, some of the more common powers are….

Supersonic Hearing

Superman for example could hear people who needed help and would then go help them. My son can get overwhelmed with too much noise but what if it’s because his superpower is supersonic hearing. He can hear everything. Literally everything. How annoying would that actually be?!?

X-Ray Vision

Some superheores have x ray vision – Superman certainly did. He could see through walls. My son hates anyone looking at him, if you catch his eye he can get quite angry. Is that because he can see right into you and he doesnt like it?!?! He also hates the light, we ate our breakfast the other morning in the dark, is or because it irritates his supersonic vision.

Excellent Memory

Superheroes tend to have a specific ability. My son certainly has an ability for remembering numbers. He brings everything back to numbers. He knows how old everyone is, what house number they live at, the shirt number of lots of footballers, the league table positions of his favourite football teams. It’s actually scary how much he can remember in relation to numbers.

Disguise

Most superheroes have a disguise and keep their real selves hidden. My son definitely does this. He reveals his true self to the people he feels safest with, to everyone else he’s either really quiet or plays a role. A bit like Clark Kent.

What if rather than labelling this as some sort of sensory processing disorder it is actually superpowers and he is a superhero…..the evidence is stacking up….

Not only does my son have all the above abilities but he is very intune with his body, more so than anyone I’ve ever met. He stood up and walked at 9 and a half months and has ran everywhere ever since. He literally runs everywhere. I honestly couldnt tell you if he is right or left handed as he uses both his left and right hand interchangeably. He is absolutely brilliant at most sports, can catch a ball like nobody else I’ve ever met, dribble a ball with the greatest control, swim like a fish. He has so many bodily strengths it’s almost unbelievable yet the thing that he struggles with is the mental strength. He’s so so good at swimming, and when he is in the water he loves it but getting him to the water is a mammoth task. The noise, the people, the teacher/student relationship are all things he really really struggles with. His body is willing, able and very very capable but his mind not so much. Which is interesting because the human body is a complex and fascinating piece of machinery. And as neurotypical humans we accept how complex the body is, or we certainly did at 5 years old. My son doesn’t. He needs to know more and more about the human body with every day that passes. He likes to know how his brain works, he likes to know how he can see, he likes to know where his food goes and how it comes out, he wants to know where all his organs in his body are. It’s a big thing for him and one we have lots of conversations about. Your mind and body go hand in hand yet we don’t have many questions or conversations about his mind. It’s not something he can grasp on to whereas his body is. It’s there, it’s tangible, he can touch it, he can see it. But his mind…I feel like this is more difficult for him and this was shown by the question he asked me at the weekend……

“Who do you think is moving my legs?”

We had gone on a train journey to have a wander round the Christmas markets in a local city not too far from us. With hindsight this was probably a bad activity for him. The train was ridiculously busy, the city was ridiculously busy and I knew if we got out of there with our minds and bodies intact it would be nothing short of a miracle. Thankfully we did, but I didn’t enjoy it at all. I spent the whole time in a heightened state of anxiety awaiting my fate for picking a ridiculous activity and forcing my son into a situation we know he struggles with. To make matters worse the train home was delayed so we waited an extra half hour in the train station. We were sat in the waiting room and he was dealing with it well. He was swinging his legs, fairly rapidly when he asked me

“Who do you think is moving my legs?”

I understood the question but I didn’t quite understand who else could be moving his legs other than him. In my world the only possible explanation was that he was moving his legs. Who else could it be?!?! So that is what I said…

“Well it’s you, who else could it be?”

“It’s not me, its not my mind…..it’s my body. “

Did he believe that his mind was separate from his body? What 5 year old in the history of 5 year olds had ever said something so profound. Was I the one that was wrong to think his mind had decided to move his legs and his body had obeyed that command?

When we got on the train home it was very quiet and all the kids relaxed so I had time to look out the window and contemplate what he had asked and what he actually meant. I did a bit of research. There is a wealth of information debating this very subject. And it starts off with Rene Descartes, a philosopher from 1600s who put forward the mind-body dualism theory that my son had just implied to me. This theory hypothesised that the mind and body were two separate entities. Once again my son’s resonation with philosophers never ceased to amaze me. Further evidence that the mind and body are separate came from The Libet experiment in the 1980s. This is a famous experiment that seemed to show that the brain (the body) “registers” the decision to make movements before a person (the mind) consciously decides to move. This is known as the ‘readiness potential’ and suggests that it is in fact the body that makes the decision, not the mind and that you don’t have free will over your body’s movements. Did my 5 year old son know this before me, his 40 year old parent. Given his superpowers is this another example of this…..is he so in tune with his body that he can feel that his mind and body are separate and it was his body that made the decision to move his legs and not himself, his mind. Whether it was his mind that moved his legs, or his body that moved his legs, or both, my son’s question only confirms my suspicion that my son is indeed a superhero. He knows a lot more than me. He can feel a lot more than me. And in the words of Superman….

“With great power, comes great responsibility”

And that phrase couldn’t be more true.