Like she had me in a swimming class as an infant. There’s a picture of me as a baby with little water wings on, in her hands, in the water.
We didn’t know I was autistic, incidentally. I didn’t know until I was 30.
One of the things she liked to mention is how when I was four, they had me out on the beach in California, and were watching me from a distance. I was looking at the sand, crouched down facing away from the water, and a wave came in, and even though I was mentally absorbed in the sand, I stood up when the wave came by.
She always liked going on about natural wisdom and kids are amazing and all that. She was a type for sure.
But I guess what I’m saying is I have had a lifelong love affair with water and Mom encouraged that and as a result water doesn’t frighten or bother me in the least because Im a strong swimmer and I know how to handle it in various conditions: streams, rivers, pools, lakes, muddy streams, rocky streams, freezing cold water, thin ice, ocean, kayaks, life jackets, wet suits, canoes, motorboats, snorkels, collecting frogs and building little rock dams, it’s been a great part of my life and I’m way more competent to keep myself safe around water.
I’m not saying don’t get a lock. Definitely get a lock and control any unsupervised access to the river.
But also give him lots of supervised access. Like, hours and hours where you’re just hanging out and he’s nearby right there at the water’s edge doing whatever he feels like.
He’s drawn to the water because he wants to experiment and explore it. You can reduce the danger of that drive by allowing it to operate. Autistic minds love to learn really deeply, and unlike the world of culture the physical world is something that can be studied ever deeper without any loss of appropriateness for anything learned. Physics doesn’t change, and nature operates in a learnable fashion. I’m so glad I was in nature all the time as a boy, and often on my own, exploring however I and my little friends saw fit.