16 Aug 2012, 5:10 pm
Hi, welcome to the forum! It sounds like you are totally clued up and are doing all the right things despite not having a formal diagnosis. I asked this question a while back and have come to the conclusion its ok to encourage the interests. I have to say I prefer firefighters to snails! 
My little girl loves all things most people hate, snails, slugs, worms, spiders, everything like that! Luckily Im not bothered by them but she will put snails right up in peoples faces whilst going on and on about how "cute" and "adorable" they are without noticing the other person almost vomiting lol! She also likes all things to do with death and decay aswell as police and jail. So I was concerned about letting her continue down this route as it really adds to people thinking shes "weird" and avoiding her. She has pet land snails which she loves to bits and really enjoys taking them into school or playgroups for show and tell. The police, jail and death fixation is more of an anxiety, she worries about me and her Dad going to jail for some reason or dying and what would happen to her if that happened, bless her! Shes always shouting at me in the car if she sees a red light for a different lane and I seem to be going through it lol!
I am in the UK and the fire brigade here have a kids club you can join and they send you stickers and colouring in newsletters in the post and invite you to look around the stations and I think they send a card on their birthday! My little girl has signed up for that but isnt that interested.
The interests often change too so if this one is thoroughly exhausted hopefully he will move on to something else soon! 
Good luck, sounds like you are doing a great job for your son x
