His name was Eli.
Seven years old. Bright eyes that never quite landed on yours. He'd walk into a room and immediately find the corner with the least amount of noise — and he'd stay there, back slightly turned, rotating a small red toy car between his fingers.
Over and over.
The same motion. The same car. Every single session.
I'd been facilitating for a few years when I first met Eli. I thought I knew what I was doing.
I came in with strategies. With structure. With a carefully planned sequence of activities designed to gradually build engagement, eye contact, reciprocal interaction.
Textbook stuff.
Eli wanted nothing to do with any of it.
He didn't tantrum. He didn't fight me. He just... moved away. Quietly. Calmly. Like a cat that has decided you're not worth its time.
The car kept spinning.
Week three, I sat in my car after the session and asked myself a hard question.
Am I actually helping this child? Or am I helping myself feel useful?
Because here's what nobody tells you when you start working with children on the spectrum:
Your agenda is the problem.
Every strategy, every technique, every carefully timed intervention — it carries a message. And the message is: the way you are right now is not enough. Let me show you a better way.
Children feel that.
Eli felt it.
He didn't need another adult arriving with a plan to change him.
Week four, I left everything at the door.
No clipboard. No activity cards. No "we're going to try something today."
I walked in. Found my spot on the floor about two metres from Eli's corner. And I picked up one of the toy cars sitting in the basket nearby.
I didn't look at him.
I just started rolling it. Quietly. Back and forth along the carpet.
Nothing. Five minutes of nothing.
Then —
The red car stopped spinning.
I felt it before I saw it. A shift in the air. The specific quality of silence that means someone is paying attention.
I kept rolling my car. Didn't turn my head. Didn't speak.
Eli's car began moving across the floor toward mine.
Not fast. Not direct. Diagonal, then sideways, then a long arc that ended about thirty centimetres away.
He looked up.
Just for a second.
Our eyes met.
And he smiled.
It wasn't a breakthrough in the Hollywood sense. He didn't suddenly speak. He didn't run over and hug me.
But something had shifted.
I had finally stopped asking him to come into my world. And so he showed me the door into his.
Over the next few weeks, that thirty-centimetre gap closed. The car sessions became longer. He started narrating — first just sounds, then single words. Fast. Crash. Again.
His teacher noticed. His mum noticed.
By the end of term, Eli was initiating contact. Not with everyone. Not every day. But consistently. Genuinely.
On his terms.
I think about Eli a lot when I talk to parents who are exhausted.
Parents who have tried every intervention, every therapy, every YouTube strategy at midnight on a Tuesday.
Parents who love their child so completely and so desperately that they've accidentally turned every interaction into a lesson.
I understand that impulse. It comes from love.
But sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is put down your plan.
Get on the floor.
Pick up the car.
And wait.
For parents: You don't need a strategy to connect with your child. You need presence. Find what they love — not what you want them to love — and show up inside it. Even five minutes of genuine, led-by-them play can do more for your relationship than an hour of structured activity.
At Blooming & Beyond, every facilitation journey starts with one question: what does this child already love? Everything else builds from there. If you'd like to talk about what that could look like for your child, reach out to us — we'd love to listen.