Um....Not Quite.

Mariokart's Coconut Mall

Whoever invented YouTube is a genius.  Aiden has quite the pile of "Favorites" built up for himself.  Whatever his latest interest is, he is able to satisfy his need through the seemless endless topics available for his viewing pleasure.

One thing he loves to watch is videos of people playing Mariokart.  I think he'd rather watch people play the game on YouTube than play it himself!  But, through the power of YouTube, he has discovered videos of people who have hacked the games, who have found ways to explore parts of the race tracks that we aren't meant to access.  For Aiden, this is inexplicably exciting.

Now, not to make a generalization, but I've heard other parents say the same things about their children on the autism spectrum... like my boy, they prefer to explore the worlds of video games than to play them in their intended ways.  Aiden could care less about winning first place in a race on Mariokart, he just enjoys looking around, seeing where he can get, that kind of stuff.  He draws countless pictures of the worlds depicted there, with stunning detail, because that's how he enjoys the game.

So, he is quite interested in how these online hackers are able to get all of those cool places.  Neither hubby nor I could ever be confused for computer game enthusiasts, and certainly not experts.  We are both able to use techology in general to meet our needs, but the inner workings of it remain  both mysterious and magical.  You can imagine the dissapointment our lack of knowledge brings to our six year old.  He wants us to find a "computering person" to help him with his quest. 

Upon harrassment to help him explore the off-track locations in places like Toad's Factory and Coconut Mall, we patiently explained to him that you need to be able "to write code" to hack these games.

He went off on his own for a while... then returned proudly holding up a sheet of paper. 
"Mommy, Daddy, I wrote code! "



So you did baby, so you did.