Teen Aspies and school schedules

[Night Elf]

Does your teen aspie have any sort of a schedule during the day for school work? Is there a certain amount of time he/she must work, then a certain time for breaks? Is it divided by the clock, or by subjects, like a break after math, a break after English, etc?

 

Does your teen aspie have trouble sleeping? Is he/she a night owl and prefer to sleep until 12noon or 1:00pm? How does this affect his/her school schedule?

 

I think we need some major changes in our days and I'm feeling quite frustrated and alone in handling these types of issues with my teen.

[Chris in VA]

Well, bearing in mind that this was several years ago for us, and

I first started homeschooling when he was in 9th grade. (He was older, too--15 turning 16 early in the year.)

 

I started by writing out the sequence of his day on the white board, with assignments by each subject. Along the bottom, he had chores to do (he called it the price of homeschooling...lol). I told him I wanted him to start by 9am, because we had to have discussions and "teaching times" during the day, and I also had his ds (in K that first year), who needed all mom, all the time. The first two years, I had times for him, too, but that went by the wayside quickly.

 

After a year or so, he earned the freedom to do things out of sequence. I also scheduled more things in a notebook for him (like an assignment book). We tried several things, really.

 

In the end, his senior year, he was mostly doing his work independently, due to family circumstances. He was exercising very faithfully, and this helped him a lot--

 

I do think some flexibility is in order, when the kid is a night owl, but I don't think it's healthy, really, to sleep in the day past, say, 9ish or so. I could see starting at 10. Experts say we get the best sleep before midnight, but the teen body is so weirdly wired.

 

Anyway, that's my 2cents.

 

(I will say that in college, he's been getting up much earlier and still does yoga faithfully every day--but his roommate stays up until 5am most nights. Guess who has better grades? ;)--you can still do great work by using his roommie's schedule, but...)

[Night Elf]

Thanks Chris. My son is a night owl and has managed to move his schedule to where he is sleeping from 2am or 3am to about 1pm. I really hate it. His psych. gave him a sleeping medication to get him into bed earlier but he kept pushing it back anyway. Last night, after DH got fussy about the situation, my son mentioned that one reason he hates going to bed is because it makes the next day come so quickly which means school work again. He used to be indifferent but now he feels negative emotions towards school. He's always compliant, but I'll admit that we don't always finish our school work during the week and we end up working on the weekend. It's affected both of us and we feel burned out. The 'year round schedule' thread was quite timely for us. I responded but without the realization just how much our schedule truly is NOT working. So I've got to make some changes.

 

A typical day for my son looks like this:

 

Start school around 2:00pm and work for 90 minutes.

Break from 3:30pm to 4:30pm.

Work for 1 hr.

Break from 5:30 to 7:00pm (dinner and what he calls relaxation from stressful school)

Work from about 7:00 to 8:30 or 9:00pm.

If we actually have work that doesn't get finished, it gets moved back a day, hence our weekend work. :(

 

It's killing me! I feel like I'm on call all day because he does not like to do his work unless I'm sitting next to him. He has become much more independent in the actual work. I just sit next to him and read a book, because he uses my laptop for school.

 

His doctor said insomnia is common in Aspies. My son feels like his courses are difficult and he expends so much mental energy to get through them which is why it takes him so long to do the work and why he needs the long break. The combination of these things has led us to our current horrendous schedule.

 

The course work is questionable. He is making very good grades. He understands the material. His writing has improved tremendously. But he does seem to struggle, especially with the amount of time it takes him to do something. DH says son has to do the work no matter how long it takes. I'm put in the middle and it's not always a pretty place. I've gotten advice from this board before that I should not be using an online program because it can't be modified, but DH is just adamant that our children earn an accredited diploma. I simply have no choice. The only compromise DH was willing to make was to allow our son to take 4 courses at a time rather than a traditional 5 or 6.

 

Ugh. I'm just really tired of this. I wish homeschooling could be like it was before high school.