Curious incident Seminar

Question: The parenting question: who is best suited to take care for Chris?

Visual: So I want to start off by showing you my visual and I want you all to keep in mind the
three aspects I am about to mention about my visual.

I personally think that these are three aspects that are crucial to learning and becoming a better
parent for Chris.

Opinion: In my opinion I think that there were three individuals in particular that would be best
suited to take care of Chris. These three people are Ed Boone also known as Chris’s father, Judy
Boone, Chris’s mother and Chris himself.

Now you all may be wondering why I mentioned Chris and the reason why is because Chris
knows himself the best out of the three. However, he is not old enough to learn to take care of
himself, especially since he has autism or this what I think he has.

Chris is 15, but he is still too young to take care of himself. This cancels him out of the list of
who should take care of him. This leaves us with his mother and his father. Now let’s talk about
decision making. When we were young, the hardest decision that we probably made was
between ice cream or popsicles. But as we grow older, decision making becomes more difficult.
I’m assuming that you all know the game

Would You Rather:

1. Would you rather live forever but have an uneventful life, or die young but have an
exciting life?
2. Would you rather be extremely wealthy with no friends, or totally broke with many
friends?

In real life, we may come across multiple, difficult decisions. Sometimes we have to choose
between two terrible choices, but sometimes we have to choose between two equally
favourable decisions. So I hope you guys realize how difficult it is to make these sorts of
decisions. When Mrs. Boone left Christopher, she knew that it was for the best, but it was most
likely hard for her to let go. This brings me to my thesis.

Thesis:

Christopher’s mother is best suited to take care of him. Although his mother left him, she is
learning and trying to become a better parent.

Arguments:
1. Chris’s mother loves him no matter what
We learn that Christopher finds out that his mom isn’t really dead, and that she had run
away with their neighbour, Mr. Shears. He also finds a bunch of letters from his mom. We
learn that she had written Chris letters every week for two years. These letters are a sign
that Mrs. Boone never stopped loving Chris.
My first quote is:
“If you ever do that again, I swear to God Christopher, I love you, but… I don’t know what I’ll
do.” (Haddon 204)
In this quote, Chris couldn’t sleep and decides to go out to the street and take a walk. Mrs.
Boone comes out of the apartment shouting his name, scared that he has run away. She
finds him and makes him promise never to leave on his own again. We see through this
quote, how worried Mrs. Boone was when she thought Chris had run away. This comes to
show that Mrs. Boone loves him.
My second quote is:
“And another good thing was that I helped Mother paint her room White with a Hint of
Wheat, except I got paint in my hair and she wanted to wash it out by rubbing shampoo on
my head when I was in the bath, but I wouldn’t let her, so there was paint in my hair for 5
days and then I cut it out with a pair of scissors.” (Haddon 217)
In this quote, Mrs. Boone tries to help Chris wash paint out of his hair. We also see that he
does not want his mother to wash it out. When Chris’s mother tried to rub the paint out of
Chris’s hair with shampoo, it was a sign of love, even though Chris did not accept this sign of
love. All in all, Mrs. Boone never stopped loving him.

2. She admits her faults to Chris.

 When we do something wrong, the right thing to do is admit that you were wrong and to
say sorry. Then from there, you would have to admit your problems, if you want to fix them.
When Mrs. Boone wrote those letters to Christopher, she had mentioned her faults and had
admitted that she was a bad mother. We then see that when she takes care of Chris, she
tries to become a better parent.
My first quote is:
“I was not a very good mother; Christopher.” (Haddon 106)
In this quote, Christopher is reading a letter that his mother wrote to him. In this letter, she
had admitted that she was not as patient as Mr. Boone, and she knew that she was a bad
mother. Therefore confessing that she knew that what she did was wrong.
My second quote is:
“Christopher; I never meant to hurt you. I thought that what I was doing was best for all of
us.” (Haddon 109)
 In this quote, Christopher is reading a letter that his mom wrote to him. In it, she explains
why she left him. She also tells Chris that what she did was for the best, and that she never
meant to hurt Christopher. This shows that Mrs. Boone knows that what she did was wrong,
and she is apologizing.

3. Although Chris’s mother left him, she learns to take care of him
Being a good parent is difficult. Especially if the person you are taking care of has a disorder.
Through Mrs. Boone, we get a glimpse how challenging it is to care for someone with a
social disorder, like when Christopher starts smashing things in a store, or refuses to step
onto a bus and insists that they walk miles home. However, she does learn to become a
better parent near the end of the book.
My first quote is:
“And that night, just after I got home, Father came back to the house and I screamed but
Mother said she wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me and I went into the garden and lay
down and looked at the stars in the sky and made myself negligible.” (Haddon 213)
 In this quote, it shows how Mrs. Boone, won’t let anything happen to Christopher, no
matter what. We also see that she understands that he is frightened of his father. This
shows that Mrs. Boone is starting to understand Chris, and has started to become a better
parent.
My second quote is:
“And Mother was standing behind him so I didn’t scream.” (Haddon, 215)
 Like the quote before, this quote demonstrates that Chris feels safer around his mom. This
is because she has learned to become a better parent. All in all, Mrs. Boone is best suited to
take care of Christopher.