My son
Year ago, i spent a few weeks working in Brighton. My son stayed with my parents, and when back home - I would try to explain to what was then a 3yr old, where I had been. So I brought back a few of the pebbles from the beach and some shells, so he could smell the seaside and feel the stones from the beach.

This must have triggered something in his little brain that (any) rocks were significant. For weeks and months afterwards I remember regularly walking past peoples houses and seing him putting stones he thought were pretty or significant into his pockets (pebble driveways were a nightmare) Each time we would get home we would have more stones in his pockets, none of them particularly pretty or interesting.

5 years later and Im cleaning out my car. I was jamming the hoover attachment down the side of his seat. I could count say 10 or 11 medium pebbles sucking up the tube into the hoover... then i went to open the boot and found several more as well as two branches, and a large block of flint.

I doubt he remembers he even picked them up.... But this isnt the hoarding bit...

Ive kept them all..

Because one of them may be significant to him.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 8 May 2012, 14:59, 16 replies)

I carry a small pebble with me that a friend gave me (just being stupid) a few years ago. I didn't really know I had it until I found it in the side pocket of my bag months after and it has stayed there ever since.
(superfly78, Tue 8 May 2012, 15:15, closed)

This is lovely...

Please have a click
(Mr Twisty Cheeky The worst kept secret in B3ta..., Tue 8 May 2012, 15:21, closed)

sounds like your son might be autistic
that kind of repetitive behaviour and compulsion is a sign of a problem there somewhere.
get him checked
(Quintno EXPERIMENT RUINED CANCELLED, LEFT 4EVER, Tue 8 May 2012, 15:34, closed)

or...
pretty normal? I'm sure I did the same with shells when i was a kid - but they stunk and my Dad chucked them as the garage honked
(TheManofScience, Tue 8 May 2012, 15:44, closed)

i'm not a doctor, i'm just trying to help

(Quintno EXPERIMENT RUINED CANCELLED, LEFT 4EVER, Tue 8 May 2012, 15:47, closed)

We all did
....apart from God Quiten (narrows eyes and turns head towards God Quinten)
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 8 May 2012, 16:04, closed)

hehe he certainly isnt Autistic.
He just got in the habit of collecting stones, regardless of what they look like.

He is nearly 9 now, and is turning out to be quite a clever lad. I think a career as a Geologist wouldnt be a stretch for him.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 8 May 2012, 15:55, closed)

does he flinch if you try to touch him?

(Quintno EXPERIMENT RUINED CANCELLED, LEFT 4EVER, Tue 8 May 2012, 16:00, closed)

No, but he does bang his head on the walls when it gets loud
... surely all kids do that though....
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 8 May 2012, 16:03, closed)

STOP TRYING TO TOUCH YOUR SON, YOU PERVERT

(Quintno EXPERIMENT RUINED CANCELLED, LEFT 4EVER, Tue 8 May 2012, 16:08, closed)

you insenstive sod
my dad was a pervert!!
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 8 May 2012, 16:54, closed)

i know he was
:(
(Quintno EXPERIMENT RUINED CANCELLED, LEFT 4EVER, Tue 8 May 2012, 17:01, closed)

In which case damn near every child in my class is autistic.
Most of them come back from breaktime with a load of stones.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Tue 8 May 2012, 22:12, closed)

they probably weren't autistic BEFORE you started teaching them

(Quintno EXPERIMENT RUINED CANCELLED, LEFT 4EVER, Tue 8 May 2012, 22:34, closed)

I've collected rocks from all over the southwest: lava, obsidian, petrified wood, turquoise, geodes, quartz, and all sorts of funky things
When my kids want to bring rocks home from mountain rocks, etc., I just place them somewhere in the landscaping. Makes them feel like I care and they'll pull weeds if I say their rocks are hard to see.

(the stupid, lame ones get thrown away at night).

Oh, and *click*
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Tue 8 May 2012, 18:02, closed)

I have a small rock collection, said rocks being semi-precious cut and uncut gemstones.
I call it my desk jewelry, and a new guy was looking at the collection with some disdain, and as a lark picked a rock out of his shoe and and added it with a flourish.

Weeks later, and he continued to annoy me and play with the rocks. One day, he knocked over the lot, and everything went flying to the far corners of my office. He went ashen and scrambled to pick up as many as he could, asking me if I was missing any, and panicking when I said yes, one.

Which one, what did it look like? How big was it? I told him it was a basaltic stone, yea big, dark in colour. Was it rare? valuable? I said it was given to me specially, and the only one of its kind in my collection. He searched frantically until I told him to go look in the car park for another, as the missing one was the rock he'd picked out of his shoe.
( kila is reading clocks upside-down as usual, Wed 9 May 2012, 13:24, closed)