Life Is A Game Show

TOWARDS the end of the day when I’m cooking for the family, my guilty pleasure is game shows. I start off with a little bit of Deal or No Deal and I finish with Pointless, by the end of which the rice is  usually cooked. That’s not a metaphor by the way, my rice is genuinely cooked by then.

What I particularly like about watching these two game shows is their utter contrast. Whilst Deal or No Deal is largely luck (the only real decision here is how quick you bail out), Pointless requires some genuine knowledge. Whereas there’s life-changing money to be had in Deal, the jackpot in Pointless is only generally large enough to buy a decent holiday. What Noel Edmonds describes as 'Smile money' in Deal is the sort of cash that's worthy of a gallop round the Pointless studio.

Tim, AuKids' distributor, plays Pointless with me by text as we're watching the show, as he usually wins the jackpot from his sofa. If ever there was a game for the autistic mind, this is it, comprising  lots of tiny detail that seems irrelevant and suddenly becomes vital.

Tim’s brain is full of such information and his advantage is that his memory is so good that he can readily recall it.

Since I’m the sort of person who tends to respond to a Pointless question with ‘Arrrgh, I know it I know it, it’s on the tip of my tongue, what was his name again….?!’ I would be better suited to Deal. Also if I ladled it on thick enough, they would find my back story tragic and endearing and I could win lots of money for AuKids. There’s the slight problem of getting a babysitter for two weeks but maybe Bobby could come with me. He’d have to arrange the boxes in order, though.

Anyway, that’s not the point here.

What has really struck me when watching these shows is the contestants’ reaction to winning money.  I watched Deal or No Deal recently and there was a guy virtually weeping because he’d won £16,000. Yep, you read that correctly. He was holding back floods of tears because he could have won £250,000. He dealt too soon.

By contrast, £16,000 is a massive jackpot for Pointless. The upshot is, the Pointless contestants work harder for the same money. Yet they leave the show delighted, not in floods of tears.

This has many parallels with being the parent of an autistic child.

How is it that some parents can have a child who's talented and unique, quirky and bright, and still feel more anxious, disappointed and despairing than another parent whose low functioning child causes them endless joy?

If you’re focusing on what you could have had – and here the £250,000 equates to a child who does everything they’re supposed to (I’ve yet to meet them), you could be failing to see that your own child equates to someone else’s idea of the jackpot.

In stark contrast, the people in Pointless are happy because the jackpot of, say £16,000, was all that was ever on offer. Because their expectations are so different, the reaction on receiving that money is also massively different.

Expectation, perspective in autism is everything. You have the power to make yourself happy or unhappy at any given moment simply from the perspective you take.


In Bobby’s case, I am still constantly amazed every single day at the progress that he has made with social skills and language. In Alec’s case I am also totally amazed that he is beginning to learn so many independence skills. My expectations of them both are very different, even though they’re the same age, but it’s when they exceed those expectations and make their very individual progress that I’m delighted - and nothing else matters.

So if £16,000 is enough to cause you joy, don't mourn for the £250,000 you could have won - it's not real money, but a figment of your imagination.