Falling Into a Rabbit Hole With My Son at a Miniature Golf Course

My son and I are at Putting Edge, a glow-in-the-dark miniature golf course in a shopping mall that isn’t anything like the ones I grew up playing as a kid.

There are no wishing wells or castles, no split-second timing to avoid a windmill’s spinning blades, spitting your ball rolling back to the beginning of the green, and we wouldn’t even be here if I had a little bit more sense.

This is not the best place for an easily over-stimulated kid. The walls have black-lighted, fluorescent murals of dragons shooting orange flames which may wreak havoc on his senses, and you play in the dark with neon balls.

I invited my friend Richard, an Art teacher at my high school, and his son, Zeplin. This is my son’s first time riding in someone else’s car, and his conversation with Zeplin on the drive there was as wacky as the course.

I only wish that I had recorded their conversation. It was that fantastic.

My wife complimented me for setting up the outing, but she also said it was a “stupid” idea. I think what she meant is: He might have difficulty regulating his body on a mini-golf course. I didn’t say it was a glow-in-the-dark course.

That would have created a rift in our plans, and I didn’t consider the effect it might have on my son’s senses — or we probably wouldn’t have come here.

A sensory nightmare

But I realized in seconds of entering Putting Edge that it is the worst possible place to take my son. Everywhere my son looked created sensory overload from florescent flowers smiling faces, treasure chests overflowing with gold, or the funky DayGlo intricate patterns bursting like fireworks on the walls.

The walls and obstacles on the holes and rims on the holes also glow in the dark, and even your teeth and eyeballs illuminate from the black lighting.

As we surveyed the neon wonderland, my son’s body began to shake and I wondered how he will survive the onslaught on his senses we’re about to encounter that will be like a habanero chili pepper to his sensory system.

But, fortunately, he just needed to take a pee.

Once we begin playing, it’s obvious the environment is more than he can handle. When it isn’t his turn, he struggles with just standing still, his arms and legs visibly shaking. Now I consider myself to be a sensory sensitive dad, having learned how my son’s body requires sensory input to stay regulated.

But this is how sensitive I was to his body: Before hitting my ball on the second hole, I looked over where he was standing and saw his body resembled a Pablo Picasso abstract painting with his feet, arms, legs, nose, ears, and eyes in all the wrong places, but I ignored the warning signals his body gave off.

Instead, I whacked my ball, and when I looked at where my son had been standing, I saw him streaking across the next hole and heading towards darkness, his body like a coil-sprung loose.

In-Course adjustments

When I found him, my modus operandi for the day had changed. I operated with a soldier in a foxhole mentality: Hit my ball, move on.

No time for idle chit-chat. Keep my eyes constantly on my son.

I didn’t care about trying to score a par on each hole as I normally would, and we didn’t bother keeping score.

These concerns were rendered irrelevant, and after the fourth hole, it was evident that his body had reached the boundary of its sensory limits.

His body twerked and jerked, and it was clear he’d bolt any second if I didn’t give his body a much-needed sensory break.

However, I was more concerned with keeping the flow of the game than with the well-being of my son’s body.

“Those who don’t learn from history,” English philosopher George Santayana said, “are doomed to repeat it.”

And so when I hit my ball — in my peripheral vision — I saw my son dart off like a startled cat, a repeat from hole two, and I am embarrassed to admit it, but I cajoled my son to continue playing instead of giving his body a break.

This is how “sensitive” I was to his body and, no thanks to me, his senses finally adapted to the course — and I hope I learned from the experience.

My son adapted to the course

Somewhere, around the ninth hole, I realized we might make it through the entire course, and I took a deep breath and exhaled, my breathing returning to normal for the first time since we surveyed the course.

The final eight holes were anticlimactic. My son leaped off a treasure chest, tried pulling a sword out of the ground, climbed up the side of a ten-foot tower using the tiered edges as hand-and-foot grips, and I realized he was using the obstacles on the golf course to help him to self-regulate his body.

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”— Michael Jordan

I feel like this was my son’s attitude. He figured out a way how to not let the obstacles stop him by using them to help self-regulate his body.

Of course, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my friend, Richard. Without his extra eye on Dominic, he might have darted off more than just two times, and we would’ve never made it through the entire course, and I think he realized the reason — without me explaining it — for playing at a faster pace.

Afterward, in a video arcade, my son and I screamed as we went hurtling down whitewater rapids in a raft as we shot tarantulas and whacked orange and blue frogs with paddles, and we played with only our imaginations.

No quarters or tokens were necessary.

Sometimes, I think the best thing to happen to a father and son is to fall down a rabbit hole, and I learned to respect the sensory limits of my son’s body.

—

This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

***

You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project

You Said ‘Race’, but Are You Actually Talking About Race?

Understanding the Nonbinary: Are You Confusing Gender With Sex?

The Difference Between Compassion for Those With Disabilities & Ableism?

‘Masculinity’ Is Having an Identity Crisis

—

Photo credit: Shutterstock