HDB Hub

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVyxiuCCnys

Lately, Alex had been watching a lot of home renovation videos on YouTube. From this stemmed his recent hobby of wanting to pick a random HDB block, go up to a random floor, and walk along the corridor because that's exactly what many of those videos show before revealing the featured apartment.

Soon, he became curious about the interiors of the apartments themselves. Naturally, we didn't want to encourage him to peek into people's homes. One alternative would have been visiting friends' homes, but knowing Alex, he would probably march straight into their bedrooms without asking permission just so he could examine the lighting fixtures. The thought of him asking, "Ms. XXX, can I see your bedroom?" is both amusing and exhausting.

Really, I know it’s a good opportunity to teach him the social expectations in such situations. But given that both my husband and I have very limited social energy, we decided to take things slowly—for Alex’s sake and for our own.

So, we had to figure out the best way for him to see interior design safely.

The answer turned out to be HDB Hub.

And boy, was he excited.

He was so thrilled that he rolled his pants up to his shins and crab-walked through the showrooms. Ever since that visit, he has been asking to go back. We agreed that it could become an occasional outing.

We genuinely want to encourage this new interest. For many autistic children, interests can become incredibly intense, which is why it’s important to help them develop hobbies that are safe, healthy and enriching. One of the best ways to do this is by expanding on their existing interests.

For Alex, that starting point was vehicles, which remain his greatest passion. Through vehicles, he discovered bus hotels and train hotels. From there, he became interested in the interior design of those hotels, which eventually led him to apartment design as well.

Even so, safe interests can still create challenges.

Alex could still run into trouble by peeking into people’s homes. So we’ve been consciously making an effort to help him understand the boundaries. As a start, we let him explore the corridors of a couple of HDB floors while we accompanied him. He can observe how residents decorate their corridor spaces, but we repeatedly remind him that looking into people's homes is not acceptable. We explain that homeowners may feel upset or uncomfortable.

It’s difficult for me to write all this, but I want people to understand how an innocent interest of an autistic individual can cause a lot of misunderstanding without awareness. At the same time, I want to emphasize the role caregivers play in patiently teaching social expectations and helping autistic individuals navigate situations that may not come naturally to them.

With Alex, understanding doesn't always lead to immediate change. Sometimes he understands exactly what I'm saying but still needs time, reminders, and experience before the lesson truly sticks. He has a wonderfully curious and mischievous side that I adore, even though it occasionally worries me. But since I suspect his interest in interior design is just a phase and before long he'll have moved on to something else, I choose to relax.

Like many things in life, parenting isn't something I can completely control. All I can do is guide my kid, remind him as many times as necessary, help him when he makes mistakes, and keep showing up to do my best.

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