Kids Collecting: Andy and His Keys

Andy is a young man who started collecting keys when he was just three years old. His story is a little different than many kids who collect, but it just proves that there is no right or wrong way to collect and that many times collecting opens up new doors that might not have been otherwise discovered.

Andy, what made you start collecting keys?
After I saw my dad's keys I started to collect keys too. I like how they go to a lot of things. I've been collecting them for a few years.

What kind of keys do you like to collect?
I like car keys the best. Sometimes car dealerships will give them to me. Other people give keys to me too, I never buy them. I have over 100 keys.

What are your most treasured ones?
The car keys that are special to me are my parent's car keys. My mom and dad let me keep a key to the car. I also have my aunt and uncle's keys. I also like to collect cars.

From Andy's Mom
We adopted Andy from a Russian orphanage in 1994, when he was 21 months old. He didn't walk or talk, and seemed autistic, although it was all developmental delays due to fetal alcohol effects. Getting him to talk was hard, because there wasn't much that interested him enough to ask about it. That changed when he discovered keys. For a while he was content just to shake them and feel their weight and hear them jingle and watch how they moved. But pretty soon, he wanted to know what each one went to. And for that, he had to talk. He hasn't stopped since.

Over the years, I've been told by so-called professionals that the keys were dangerous to him, and perseverative, a useless obsession. One preschool teacher even said they were "death to him," and I should make him give them up. But I've seen how much they motivate him to engage with other people. They're an instant conversation starter, and more and more he's recognized around our community as the boy who loves keys. He has an amazing memory and can generally tell people what kind of car they have just by looking at their key. That leads to a discussion of where they bought the car, and when, and how many miles it has. People are often very generous in giving him copies of their keys or spare keys they have. Far from "death," I think keys have been life to him in a lot of meaningful ways.

I've tried to get him to organize his collection more, move it from an obsession into a collection, but he resists. I think he has his own way of organizing things that I just don't get. It's his collection, anyway!

Terri Mauro is the About Parenting Special Needs Guide.