What are your childrens special interest?

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I was thinking back to my childhood and I remember being so into Pokemon I printed pictures and tapped them to a notebook thing and when asked what I'd want on a deserted island I said my Pokemon stuff (cards,games etc.) The teacher goes "what's Pokemon?" I was shocked LOL! One student said it was this stupid game etc. then the teacher said oh pick something else. I was also into Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles. (and to think those 3 things are still around today LOL!

When my son was younger, he was into dinosaurs, the Titanic and Pokemon. He's 19 now and for the past several years, has been collecting fire sprinklers and fire alarms.

My 21 month daughter spends hours every day watching ballroom dance videos. Sometimes she'll try to emulate one of the moves after watching it. As far as I can tell she's neurotypical, though.

My son's first special interest was makes and models of cars, especially Volkswagon's. I guess it started because his dad drives a Jetta. Anyway, he started drawing the VW logo when he was about 2. He is almost 5 and can name a car without even looking at the logo. He names cars even when I don't know what they are!! !! He is also very interested in what kind of car people drive. Thank goodness he hasn't really been asking people too much "What kind of car do you drive?"

His other interest is churches. I noticed that when he was about 18 months old, he would get so excited when we passed this one church that had a stain-glassed window of Jesus. Now he knows the names of all of the churches around town. We live in a metro area, so there are quite a few. Then he started drawing churches. They started out pretty simple, but now they are getting more elaborate. He talks about church at school quite a bit, and for awhile he was reciting prayers at school. I thought oh this will go over real well in a public school!! ! For awhile, he was really stuck on the rosary beads and crucifixes in our house too.

Right after he got potty trained, he was really interested in bathrooms. I really hoped that was not developing into a special interest, and thank goodness that one has seemed to diminish.

Hockey. Hockey. Hockey. Everything revolves around hockey. Everythng.

His first obsession was washing machines. Totally obsessed. He knew every make and model. We used to go to the electrical store for a treat, he would pace up and down looking at all the machines.

Now it is Super Mario. He would play for hours on the wii and ds. He also draws the most amazing pictures from memory of the different levels/worlds from Super Mario Bros. He talks about it to anyone he meets.

How much time do you think your kids spend fixating on their special interest? I think Mario is in his thoughts most of the time.

Gaming. Inventing games, playing games. RPG's in particular. Cards, boards, or computers.

He's had several over the years....animals is one that never goes away, others that have come and gone or lost their intensity over the years are: videos about big machines, chess, different video games, LOTR, certain books, monster trucks/cars, the alphabet, states/maps, etc. So many to even remember or count. Right now, it's hugging and talking of hugs and video/computer games are his main ones. I'd say pretty much 95% of his day he's thinking of his fixations in one way or another. At least 95%, probably more!!

Right now the entire animal kingdom. She told her uncle that she is collecting the entire animal kingdom.
Previously, in order of age
about 1 year to present PENGUINS
18 months through to present expanded from penguins to all polar creatures.
2 years expanded from polar creatures to include midnight zone marine life (such as hatchet fish)
3 years old we started to introduce Disney to her because other kids would walk away when she started talking about hatchet fish and megamouth sharks.
Now, at 4 years old All of the above and Dinosaurs!! ! We are having some success with Tinkerbell.
Will she keep all this wonderful knowledge she is collecting I wonder? She can name more animals than most people I know, identify their tracks, and where to find them on the map. At 3 years old she was able to track a bear!! !

For Billy, my soon-to-be-wife's 10 year old Aspie, it is Dinosaurs, bees, the colors yellow and black, his nasty drool, crust, and snot covered stuffed dinosaur (sorry, OCD, and that really bothers me), video games, understanding comedy, and computers.

Fortunately, as a computer professional myself, he now looks up to me as a role model and wants to be a computer programmer when he grows up. I eventually want to start my own consulting company, and if I do, I will guarantee him a job for life.

Oh, and the Washington DC Metro. We went on a vacation down there to visit last summer. Thinking of planning another trip this year, he loved it so much.

My daughter: Art and music. The kid would spend all day listening to music and drawing or making things. He first major project was painting the bathroom with toothpaste. OMG! Toothpaste is NOT easy to clean off the walls. But the bathroom did smell minty fresh for weeks.... She's still very artistic. Some of her art has been chosen to hang in the local galleries. She's quite the musician too. Plays violin and guitar. She has absolutely NO rythm and can't dance - but she can play.

My son: Lego and Bionicles. He wants to be a Lego 'inventor'. He can sit and build stuff for hours. Amazes me because he's such a spaz (ADHD) there are times I think the only time he's quiet and not moving 100MPH is when he's sleeping.

I loved snakes, dogs, and Egyptology.

It used to be Barbie, which is probably why girls are harder to diagnose as all her peers were also into Barbie. Of course they didn't have dozens and dozens that they spent hours lining up just right and didn't scream blue murder if anyone touched them.

Barbie has now been deposed by Japan and all things Japanese, which she spends hours lining up just right and kicks off big time if anyone touches any of her stuff.

The most enduring one though is Anne Frank and the holocaust. The earache I got when we had to drive through Holland last year. Next time I will make a recording of me saying "No, we are not going to visit the annex. No, not even for 5 minutes" and just put it on repeat on the car's cd player.

Hey, that is a great idea to make a recording of yourself to answer questions that are being asked over and over again!! !