How much do you push an anxious child?

[longnightmoon]

I'm hoping I can get some advice from those of you parenting children with anxiety. My dd is 6 and is on the spectrum and struggles with high anxiety. I'm constantly at a loss at how much I should push her to try new things, especially socially. We have one year of official homeschooling under our belt and it was good academically but pretty isolating and I worry that she's not getting enough social practice. She is in a social skills group, OT, and a weekly club at our church but I struggle knowing if this is enough. I've tried activities like park days but my dd just keeps to herself, walking around and telling stories. I also tried some classes through the homeschool resource center in our school district but it created so much anxiety for her that we quit after a month. We chose to homeschool largely in part because her anxiety and sensory challenges make a classroom environment pretty unbearable. But I constantly worry about whether the limited social involvement is doing more harm than good in the long run.

 

For those of you with children that struggle with anxiety, how much do you push?

 

Grateful in advance for any feedback or advice.

 

Edie

 

DD 4/07

DD 7/09

DD 2/13

[PhotoGal]

Does she like sports at all? We joined a homeschool P.E. class and that has been great for the kids (social without being an academic class).

 

Is she more comfortable one-on-one? Maybe arrange a playdate with one of the kids from her activities?

[Violet Crown]

Mine is a similar age, though not on the autism spectrum.

 

I've found the key to be these steps:

 

1. Let her observe the activity I think she would enjoy or ought to try. Have her see kids close to her age involved. Best of all is a child she knows or even a friend if possible. See if she expresses interest, or gently suggest that she would be able to do that activity if she liked.

2. Talk to her a little about the activity beforehand: not about whether she will manage to participate or not, but about where and when it will be, who will be there, etc. Tell her I (or someone else in the family who she considers acceptable) will stay with her until she tells me to go away.

3. Assure her that she can choose just to watch and not participate, without giving any hint that I might be disappointed if she can't manage. It's so much easier not to be anxious if she knows she can bail at any time and it will be all right.

4. Be really, really patient. Sometimes she just can't do it. Sometimes she can, and then later she can't. It's all okay.

[MamaSheep]

I'm raising a child with ASD and anxiety (current anxiety diagnosis is GAD). Social situations are his biggest challenge, but he's gotten a lot better at managing his anxiety over the years since we started homeschooling. Violet's steps above are really good advice for how to manage social situations. Knowing what to expect, what to do if something unexpected happens, and a safe place to run to in case of a panic attack (so he doesn't just take off in some random direction) have been important for our son. Something else that has helped was to teach him to rate his anxiety level on a scale from one to ten so that he could communicate to us how he was feeling before it got to be a crisis situation. For a child as young as yours a 1-5 scale might be more appropriate. (Are you familiar with "The Incredible 5-Point Scale"? ) 

 

The issue of how much social interaction is appropriate has been a hard one. When we first pulled ds out of school at the end of 3rd grade, one professional assured me that homeschooling him was the worst possible thing to do to a child with social anxiety on his level and I was going to cause him to become seriously agoraphobic. He was already having panic attacks every time we left the house, his one-on-one technician and I had to peel him off me every morning when I took him to school, and he ran away from school regularly. I don't know how Ms. Professional thought he was going to get any MORE agoraphobic than he already was, but I guess this way it was going to be my fault for homeschooling him, and not something he had developed already during his years at school. Pish. Anyway, another professional who worked with him at school was super supportive and told me she thought homeschooling was a great idea for him. The point being, I think it's something you kind of have to judge based on your own observations of your child. I don't think there's a standardized answer to this. Especially for kids whose nervous systems are not standard-issue (whatever that is). The trick is not to find the "right" amount of social interaction for "Girls on the Spectrum with Anxiety who are Six", the trick is to find the right amount for Your Child, who is an individual, not a category.

What has worked best for us for judging the amount of social interaction to insist on has been to judge based on criteria like the following: 

1) What are his general anxiety levels when he is NOT in a social situation? If he is generally stressed, tired, and irritable, we may be pushing him into too much social time. If he is generally bored and attention-seeking, he might need a bit more social time. The sweet spot we aim for is for him to be generally alert and cheerful, but not stressed out. A nice, even baseline from which to work. 

 

2) Is he making actual, measurable progress in managing his anxiety and coping in social situations? If he is making progress, then we've got the right level of social interaction. If he has too little social time, or only socializes in situations that don't challenge his current skill level, he stops making progress. If he has too much, he shuts down because he feels overwhelmed and stops making progress. 

 

And then we kind of play it by ear. When we think he's ready for another level of challenge, we think about a specific skill or situation that he might be ready for now that he wasn't before. For example, we started out going to museums (or the aquarium, or whatever) in the morning on school days because there would be almost nobody else there. When he was comfortable just BEING there, we let him practice asking me a question, which I could then pass on to the museum docent. Then we let him practice talking to docents himself. He is now very comfortable asking questions about museum exhibits. Then we started going at times of day when there would be more people. We still have to avoid weekend afternoons when it's mobbed, but if there are only a few people in front of each display and they are not being loud or running around, he is not only comfortable there, but if he hears other people wondering about the display he will strike up a conversation with them to share what he knows. (We're still working on knowing when to stop talking.)

Another example is restaurants. He likes to eat out, but used to have problems if the restaurant was crowded. He will now not only eat in a crowded restaurant, he will make small-talk with the waiter and order his own food, including substitutions and special requests. At a fast food restaurant he will go to the counter by himself, stand in line, order food, pay for it, and bring it back to the table. At a bank, he can chat with the teller, make deposits and withdrawals, etc. But all of these things have been learned step-by-step, first watching someone else do it, then trying it with back-up, and then doing it himself. But he would never EVER have learned this kind of thing in school. Anyway, he does well interacting in the community--post office, store, whatever. But when he goes into a school building he turns white and starts shaking. School and school-like situations have been his biggest challenge. But last year he took one class a day down at our local high school (which is a very friendly and accepting place, as high schools go) and survived the whole school year, so he's even making progress there. One class, however, was genuinely all he could take. I could see that it was upping that general base-line stress by quite a bit. I had thought we might try two classes a day this year, but I think now that would be pushing too hard. If I push too hard he shuts down and we won't make any progress in anything--social OR academic.

 

Anyway, we play it by ear, and we find the best balance we can for OUR CHILD. I don't know your child, but if it were my son, a social skills class, OT, a weekly church club, a field trip once or twice a month, and Sunday church services would really be all he could manage when we first started out homeschooling. We tried park days our first year too, and I couldn't see that they accomplished a darn thing other than stressing him out so much we got nothing else done at least that day and the next. 

 

It seems kind of counter-intuitive, but at least for our child my experience has been that when it comes to social interaction less is often more. A smaller amount of targeted social practice has worked a LOT better for us than throwing him into a lot of social time and hoping something sticks. Quality rather than quantity. And he needs his alone time to recharge (which is something that I, as an introvert, can really relate to). His balance of social to alone time might not be what some professionals would consider "healthy" for someone his age, but he has been a lot--A LOT--more mentally stable since we cut way back on his social time. (Seriously, it's like he's a completely different kid--a cheerful, responsible kid instead of a neurotic wild animal). So I figure if he's healthier that way, and making better progress, then it's the "healthy" balance for HIM, regardless of what specialists say is "healthy" for a "typical" child his age. 

 

I don't know if that helps...

 

 

 

 

[scrapbabe]

My son is 13 and has OCD/anxiety issues. He's never been terribly social. My number one rule for him is: do what you are comfortable with. If he's so anxious that he's crying I never push. I always encourage he go to activities. I explain what it will most likely be like. He asks questions when he has concerns. I prep him for days on big events. Sometimes he's willing to go try. Other times he isn't. I leave it up to him. He's even allowed to call in the middle of it and come home if he wants to. When he asks for a friend to come, which isn't often, we set up a play date. This is who he is. I let him choose his comfort level whenever possible. At six, I wouldn't worry to much about her being social or not. Maybe she's an introvert and doesn't need people around. I would still encourage and try but I'd ultimately let her decide. I try to just let my kids be who they are without pushing my fears onto them. I say gently nudge, and if she doesn't want to go then let that be okay. If its a huge crippling problem then I'd probably seek professional help.

[longnightmoon]

I've been gone all day and just got home to these wonderful responses. Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond. I'll try and multi quote and respond to each of you.

 

Does she like sports at all? We joined a homeschool P.E. class and that has been great for the kids (social without being an academic class).Is she more comfortable one-on-one? Maybe arrange a playdate with one of the kids from her activities?

 

 

I appreciate your questions. We are going to try ballet in the fall at her suggestion. I'm hopeful she will enjoy it. We've had her do swimming in the past and it does offer a little social practice but not a lot. I do try and arrange play dates but unfortunately she ends up telling stories by herself. I've tried to support her and play games with play dates but her anxiety has gotten the best of her in the past and she ends up having a meltdown. But it's definitely worth it to keep trying.

 

 

Mine is a similar age, though not on the autism spectrum.

I've found the key to be these steps:

1. Let her observe the activity I think she would enjoy or ought to try. Have her see kids close to her age involved. Best of all is a child she knows or even a friend if possible. See if she expresses interest, or gently suggest that she would be able to do that activity if she liked.

2. Talk to her a little about the activity beforehand: not about whether she will manage to participate or not, but about where and when it will be, who will be there, etc. Tell her I (or someone else in the family who she considers acceptable) will stay with her until she tells me to go away.

3. Assure her that she can choose just to watch and not participate, without giving any hint that I might be disappointed if she can't manage. It's so much easier not to be anxious if she knows she can bail at any time and it will be all right.

4. Be really, really patient. Sometimes she just can't do it. Sometimes she can, and then later she can't. It's all okay.

Thank you so much for these steps. It's very helpful. It's so good for me to hear someone say that sometimes she will be able to and sometimes she won't and it's okay, I think I'm wanting this to be a progression constantly forward and thats not reality - she's going to take steps forward and regress and go forward again. That is really good for me to hear. And I appreciate the reminder to be patient and not disappointed if she can't do it. Great reminders for me.

[longnightmoon]

 

 

I'm raising a child with ASD and anxiety (current anxiety diagnosis is GAD). Social situations are his biggest challenge, but he's gotten a lot better at managing his anxiety over the years since we started homeschooling. Violet's steps above are really good advice for how to manage social situations. Knowing what to expect, what to do if something unexpected happens, and a safe place to run to in case of a panic attack (so he doesn't just take off in some random direction) have been important for our son. Something else that has helped was to teach him to rate his anxiety level on a scale from one to ten so that he could communicate to us how he was feeling before it got to be a crisis situation. For a child as young as yours a 1-5 scale might be more appropriate. (Are you familiar with "The Incredible 5-Point Scale"? ) 

Thank you for reminding me about the 5 point scale. Her therapist mentioned it a while back.
 
The issue of how much social interaction is appropriate has been a hard one. When we first pulled ds out of school at the end of 3rd grade, one professional assured me that homeschooling him was the worst possible thing to do to a child with social anxiety on his level and I was going to cause him to become seriously agoraphobic. He was already having panic attacks every time we left the house, his one-on-one technician and I had to peel him off me every morning when I took him to school, and he ran away from school regularly. I don't know how Ms. Professional thought he was going to get any MORE agoraphobic than he already was, but I guess this way it was going to be my fault for homeschooling him, and not something he had developed already during his years at school. Pish. Anyway, another professional who worked with him at school was super supportive and told me she thought homeschooling was a great idea for him. The point being, I think it's something you kind of have to judge based on your own observations of your child. I don't think there's a standardized answer to this. Especially for kids whose nervous systems are not standard-issue (whatever that is). The trick is not to find the "right" amount of social interaction for "Girls on the Spectrum with Anxiety who are Six", the trick is to find the right amount for Your Child, who is an individual, not a category.

Yes, the leader of her social skills group thinks homeschooling isn't a good idea. She thinks she will get behind other kids having the classroom experience and she won't know how to relate. Her leader is very kind and well-intentioned but I always leave our meetings not trusting my gut and wondering if school would be a good place for her to get social experience. On the other hand, her OT think homeschooling is great because you can't learn much in a state of anxiety, academically or socially. I really appreciate your advice that I know her best. Why is trusting my gut so difficult on this? Grrr. I frustrate myself. : )

What has worked best for us for judging the amount of social interaction to insist on has been to judge based on criteria like the following: 
1) What are his general anxiety levels when he is NOT in a social situation? If he is generally stressed, tired, and irritable, we may be pushing him into too much social time. If he is generally bored and attention-seeking, he might need a bit more social time. The sweet spot we aim for is for him to be generally alert and cheerful, but not stressed out. A nice, even baseline from which to work. 
 
2) Is he making actual, measurable progress in managing his anxiety and coping in social situations? If he is making progress, then we've got the right level of social interaction. If he has too little social time, or only socializes in situations that don't challenge his current skill level, he stops making progress. If he has too much, he shuts down because he feels overwhelmed and stops making progress. 

These tips are great. And knowing her baseline is so true. If we head into an activity when she's already rigid, we are bound to fail. Sometimes I feel this need to set the example of following through, even when she's in that state, knowing that things will end badly. Such good words for me. Thank you.
 
And then we kind of play it by ear. When we think he's ready for another level of challenge, we think about a specific skill or situation that he might be ready for now that he wasn't before. For example, we started out going to museums (or the aquarium, or whatever) in the morning on school days because there would be almost nobody else there. When he was comfortable just BEING there, we let him practice asking me a question, which I could then pass on to the museum docent. Then we let him practice talking to docents himself. He is now very comfortable asking questions about museum exhibits. Then we started going at times of day when there would be more people. We still have to avoid weekend afternoons when it's mobbed, but if there are only a few people in front of each display and they are not being loud or running around, he is not only comfortable there, but if he hears other people wondering about the display he will strike up a conversation with them to share what he knows. (We're still working on knowing when to stop talking.)

This is SO helpful. Thanks for writing this out. I think your ds and my dd are incredibly similar in this regard.

Another example is restaurants. He likes to eat out, but used to have problems if the restaurant was crowded. He will now not only eat in a crowded restaurant, he will make small-talk with the waiter and order his own food, including substitutions and special requests. At a fast food restaurant he will go to the counter by himself, stand in line, order food, pay for it, and bring it back to the table. At a bank, he can chat with the teller, make deposits and withdrawals, etc. But all of these things have been learned step-by-step, first watching someone else do it, then trying it with back-up, and then doing it himself. But he would never EVER have learned this kind of thing in school. Anyway, he does well interacting in the community--post office, store, whatever. But when he goes into a school building he turns white and starts shaking. School and school-like situations have been his biggest challenge. But last year he took one class a day down at our local high school (which is a very friendly and accepting place, as high schools go) and survived the whole school year, so he's even making progress there. One class, however, was genuinely all he could take. I could see that it was upping that general base-line stress by quite a bit. I had thought we might try two classes a day this year, but I think now that would be pushing too hard. If I push too hard he shuts down and we won't make any progress in anything--social OR academic.
 
Anyway, we play it by ear, and we find the best balance we can for OUR CHILD. I don't know your child, but if it were my son, a social skills class, OT, a weekly church club, a field trip once or twice a month, and Sunday church services would really be all he could manage when we first started out homeschooling. We tried park days our first year too, and I couldn't see that they accomplished a darn thing other than stressing him out so much we got nothing else done at least that day and the next. 
 
It seems kind of counter-intuitive, but at least for our child my experience has been that when it comes to social interaction less is often more. A smaller amount of targeted social practice has worked a LOT better for us than throwing him into a lot of social time and hoping something sticks. Quality rather than quantity. And he needs his alone time to recharge (which is something that I, as an introvert, can really relate to). His balance of social to alone time might not be what some professionals would consider "healthy" for someone his age, but he has been a lot--A LOT--more mentally stable since we cut way back on his social time. (Seriously, it's like he's a completely different kid--a cheerful, responsible kid instead of a neurotic wild animal). So I figure if he's healthier that way, and making better progress, then it's the "healthy" balance for HIM, regardless of what specialists say is "healthy" for a "typical" child his age. ..

 

I can't tell you how helpful this is to me. I struggle with so much self-doubt sometimes because our Mr. Expert prescribed twenty hours of social practice per week. Twenty hours would make my dd an anxious mess. So I've been trusting my instinct that less is more, all the while harboring self-doubts that I'm not doing enough. It's such a comfort to me to read someone else who has found that less IS more. And it's so refreshing to read someone who has found that there dc is more mentally stable without social time. I think I just need some more confidence. Thank you so much for responding. This has been immensely helpful to me. I really appreciate your time!



[lquote name=scrapbabe" post="5077445" timestamp="1373935494]My son is 13 and has OCD/anxiety issues. He's never been terribly social. My number one rule for him is: do what you are comfortable with. If he's so anxious that he's crying I never push. I always encourage he go to activities. I explain what it will most likely be like. He asks questions when he has concerns. I prep him for days on big events. Sometimes he's willing to go try. Other times he isn't. I leave it up to him. He's even allowed to call in the middle of it and come home if he wants to. When he asks for a friend to come, which isn't often, we set up a play date. This is who he is. I let him choose his comfort level whenever possible. At six, I wouldn't worry to much about her being social or not. Maybe she's an introvert and doesn't need people around. I would still encourage and try but I'd ultimately let her decide. I try to just let my kids be who they are without pushing my fears onto them. I say gently nudge, and if she doesn't want to go then let that be okay. If its a huge crippling problem then I'd probably seek professional help.

Thank you for your response. It is a good reminder for me not to push my fears onto her. Of course, I don't think I am but I'm probably blind to it. ; ) Very good for me to read. We are seeking some help with her anxiety issues but I do need to make sure I'm not pushing her into something she's not built for. It's funny, I'm a total introvert so I get not wanting to be around people for long periods of time. Gently nudging is a great descriptor for what she needs. Thank you.

 

And I apologize if this is hard to read! 

[MinivanMom]

I've been gone all day and just got home to these wonderful responses. Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond. I'll try and multi quote and respond to each of you.

 

 

 

I appreciate your questions. We are going to try ballet in the fall at her suggestion. I'm hopeful she will enjoy it. We've had her do swimming in the past and it does offer a little social practice but not a lot. I do try and arrange play dates but unfortunately she ends up telling stories by herself. I've tried to support her and play games with play dates but her anxiety has gotten the best of her in the past and she ends up having a meltdown. But it's definitely worth it to keep trying.

 

 

Thank you so much for these steps. It's very helpful. It's so good for me to hear someone say that sometimes she will be able to and sometimes she won't and it's okay, I think I'm wanting this to be a progression constantly forward and thats not reality - she's going to take steps forward and regress and go forward again. That is really good for me to hear. And I appreciate the reminder to be patient and not disappointed if she can't do it. Great reminders for me.

 

The advice you have gotten is wonderful.  I don't have anything to add as my anxious child is only 5, so we are just starting down this road.  I just wanted to say that ballet has been wonderful for my dd.  It's something about the highly structured environment, but there is nowhere she feels as safe and comfortable as ballet class.  We take her to a smaller ballet school  and she spent a lot of time there prior to starting class herself (older sister dances there as well).  I don't know that it gives her lots of social practice since she only socializes with the other girls before or after class (no talking in class), but it's an environment where she feels very safe and it has really helped build her confidence.  By the end of the year she would greet the other girls by name when we arrived and even join the other girls when they were playing and talking before class, which is huge for her.  The positive of a small school is that she will be in class with the same girls from year to year which I think is a real plus in terms of stability and building relationships over time. 

[longnightmoon]

The advice you have gotten is wonderful. I don't have anything to add as my anxious child is only 5, so we are just starting down this road. I just wanted to say that ballet has been wonderful for my dd. It's something about the highly structured environment, but there is nowhere she feels as safe and comfortable as ballet class. We take her to a smaller ballet school and she spent a lot of time there prior to starting class herself (older sister dances there as well). I don't know that it gives her lots of social practice since she only socializes with the other girls before or after class (no talking in class), but it's an environment where she feels very safe and it has really helped build her confidence. By the end of the year she would greet the other girls by name when we arrived and even join the other girls when they were playing and talking before class, which is huge for her. The positive of a small school is that she will be in class with the same girls from year to year which I think is a real plus in terms of stability and building relationships over time.

This is really encouraging! Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I hadn't thought about how good the structured environment of a ballet class could potentially be for her. I also appreciate you adding that finding a small school with consistency of students has been beneficial. We were thinking of joining a class at our local community center but now I will rethink that and look at other dance schools. Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. Your response really encouraged me. All the best to you on your journey with your daughter, too.

[MamaSheep]

I think that your OT is very correct. Ds started kindergarten reading at a 5th grade level (after having just figured out how reading works on his own), knowing all the addition and subtraction facts as well as some of the multiplication tables (and had a fascination with negative numbers), all the requisite, shapes, colors, etc. and able to write his name (his writing skills have always lagged WAY behind his reading skills). When we took him out of school at the end of third grade and started homeschooling for fourth grade, he was at almost that same academic level. It was heartbreaking. And we spent years overcoming the resistance to learning he developed at school. For the first couple of years he would have a panic attack every time I got out the math book. His fight or flight response would kick in, and he'd hide under the table and try to stab me with his pencil if I got too close. If I managed to keep him from fleeing, he would "fight" by shredding his paper or scribbling all over it (very fast!) so as to make it unusable, and I had to make sure I had several photocopies of the page so we could just calmly get out another one and proceed after "we" had calmed down. I really can't see that he learned much of anything academic at school while he was at those high, high levels of anxiety, and socially the only thing he learned was to fear other people, especially children. So what school did for him was turn a socially awkward but academically advanced child with a love of learning (he memorized the names of all the bones in the human skeleton just for fun when he was four) into an academically delayed child who loathed learning, feared and despised other children, and was so burnt out on stress that he had weird OCD issues, pica, bizarre toileting problems, and was starting to talk about suicide. When he was eight. All of those things tapered off and went away after we took him out of school. (Except the GAD, and a little bit of what I'm told resembles PTSD related to school settings. Lovely, huh.)

But I think that your social skills group leader also has a point. If you homeschool your child she will not have the same experience of a classroom dynamic that her peers are having, and she will not be able to relate seamlessly with them and immitate/integrate into their social dynamic. It will be harder in some ways for peers to want to befriend her because she will not respond to them in the same patterns of behavior that they have learned at school, and she will seem foreign to them and they won't quite know what to do with her. I saw this happen with dd. We homeschooled her for second and third grade because she was having some struggles academically in K and 1st that we felt weren't being taken seriously by the school. She made much better academic progress at home with the one-on-one instruction at her own pace, and we were able to better establish what was going on with her (ADHD and a LD) and find approaches that helped. But unlike ds, dd NEEDS a lot of social time, or she goes a little bit crazy in her own way. We decided to try putting dd back in school and see how it went. Fourth grade was hard academically because she still had some catching up to do, but she had more appropriate academic supports this time. Socially she kind of struggled that first year back. There's a difference between the dynamic of a 1st grade classroom, which is what she had experienced, and a 4th grade classroom, and she had a hard time fitting in sometimes. But because she is such a social little person, she has mostly worked it out and this past year (5th grade) she was feeling pretty comfortable there again. I think that the longer a child is out of the classroom dynamic, the steeper the learning curve is to get back "in" again. 

So it's not that I think this Mr. Expert is wrong about this. BUT--and I think that needs to be an extra big BUT-- that's not all there is to the story. Especially for spectrum kids. The thing is, it seems like the primary question being asked and answered by this perspective is, "will the child who is not having a classroom experience be able to easily relate to and interact with kids who are accustomed to classroom dynamics". And the answer is "no".  (And I know saying so will probably get me in trouble with a lot of homeschoolers, but if I am honest with myself, this has been my experience with both of my own kids, and my observation of other homeschoolers interacting with classroom-schooled kids--they just have different expectations for interaction). But I think there are other questions that need to be examined in this regard. For example: 

1- Will this specific child be able to adequately learn the classroom interaction dynamic if placed in a classroom setting on a regular basis (For my son, the answer to this is an obvious and resounding NO, and I wish I had realized this sooner. He simply does not learn social interaction merely by being exposed to it. He learns it in a very academic way that is not actually taught in classrooms. Social interaction in a classroom is overwhelming, confusing, and frightening for him, but it does not teach him anything. For my daughter, the answer is yes, she can learn it in that context.)

 

2- Will interacting with other children in a classroom dynamic affect this specific child's self-confidence, self-image, and conception of other people in a positive way, or a negative way. (For my son, the answer is that a classroom dynamic is destructive in a number of ways to his image of himself, and he learned there that other people are dangerous and cannot be trusted. For my daughter, a classroom setting is supportive, stimulating, and validating, and I think it is giving her a mostly positive outlook regarding other people--except the "popular" ones...lol.)

3- Will learning to function well in a classroom setting contribute to, or detract from this particular child's ability to function well in society as an adult. Ultimately, the goal is NOT to produce people who are able to function well in a second, or third, or fourth grade classroom. The ultimate goal is to produce people who are able to function well in adult interactions. (One thing I discovered with my son was that every classroom every year had different rules, and none of them were the same rules that people live by as adults. Every year he had to adjust to a different set of seemingly arbitrary expectations, none of which really prepared him for adult life. For him, it has worked better to remove him from classroom expectations and teach him the grown-up way of functioning the FIRST time, and then expect him to behave well. If you need to use the bathroom as an adult, you don't have to raise your hand, announce your intention to the entire office, get a pass from your boss, and make sure you get back before the next person who needs to go hates your guts because you took too long and made them wet their pants because only one is allowed to go at a time. As an adult, when you need to use the bathroom you just quietly get up and go. In real, adult life, people do not line up with the girls in one line and the boys in another, and you don't get to go first if you're the helper of the day or if you performed well in your work. The line at the bank, or the checkout counter, or the ticket booth, or the drinking fountain is first-come, first-served. And the guy behind you in line is unlikely to taunt or shove you, but if he does everyone else will be appalled too, they won't just say "oh kids will be kids" and look the other way. He gave up on learning classroom expectations because he didn't see the point since they were just going to change anyway and they didn't apply to real life, and he was a major behavior problem in the classroom. But he has been very good about learning appropriate adult behaviors (we get compliments on his behavior regularly now, even from people who didn't know him when he was out of control), and as his peers develop more adult behaviors themselves, he is better able to relate to them than he ever was in a classroom. He will be an adult for the rest of his life (legally he will be an adult in about a year and a half). Fourth grade classroom only lasts one year. If I have to give priority to teaching him one kind of expectations or the other, I'm going to opt for the one that will do him the most good for the longest time. But it's true that he will never be able to really relate to his peers' memories of classroom education, except for those really awful years at the beginning, and a couple of hopefully better years of taking one class at the high school (which socially makes much more sense to him, as it's closer to adult expectations). He has had different experiences that his peers will never be able to really relate to. But we all know people from different cultures whose backgrounds we don't relate to. Part of being a grown-up is getting along anyway. Hopefully his peers will learn this at some point in their classroom experience. For our daughter, the gradual changing of expectations from higher to lower levels of structure and independence in school classrooms has helped her to gradually develop more advanced academic and social skills, and to be flexible and confident in her interactions with other people. For her, the classroom dynamic has been one that helps her grow, practice relating to lots of people in lots of different ways, and become increasingly prepared for adult life.)

4- What is a realistic expectation for social skill development in THIS child? (We kept being told that it was important for our son to be in school because if he was not in school he would never learn to socialize normally. It finally dawned on us that this particular child is NEVER going to learn to socialize in a manner that others will consider "normally" regardless of his educational placement. His mind does not work like everyone else's--he doesn't think like everyone else's, his sensory experience of the world is not like everyone else's, his priorities are not those of everyone else--and it is ridiculous to expect him to just magically learn to behave like everyone else merely through association. What we're really shooting for, with him, is that he will learn to behave in ways that make sense to him, that give him a life that he can enjoy and in which he can feel fulfilled, while also learning to interface with other people in ways that do not make them feel unduly uncomfortable or afraid. And he was NOT learning that at school. And there was no time to teach it to him at home because he was always either at school, or so strung out from being at school that trying to teach him anything was useless. Learning step-by-step at home has produced much better results. 

In fact, speaking of results, we kept ds in a couple of therapies and a very small social skills group at the school for 4th and 5th grades. In 6th grade we were moved to another school due to a shift in school boundaries. At that school he attended a larger social skills class and did very well. At the end of that year I got a panic-stricken call from the school psychologist at that school, who was going through and organizing all the files of the 6th graders in preparation for shipping them over to the junior high. She was in a panic because she thought ds's records had been mixed in with those of another student with the same name. She had been unsuccessful in trying to tease apart which records belonged to which student, and she was hoping to be able to get me to help her out without unnecessarily breaching the confidentiality of either student. She knew me, and she knew I wouldn't get upset about it, but she didn't know the other student or his parents, so she thought she'd start with me and see if we could sort it out. So without giving specifics she began telling me little hints about things in the report to see if they sounded familiar. There was this thing involving a chair. Yep, that was my son. He threw it at another student in kindergarten. It was bad. The technician with a bloody nose? Yep, he head-butted her in the face. And yes, he bit the other technician. I was glad she didn't need stitches. And yes, that whole entire stack of incident reports about running away would be for my son. I didn't know how many there were because they only had to notify me on the times he actually made it off school property before they caught him, but I couldn't even tell you how many of THOSE there were. After a few minutes of this she said...you know...I don't think there are two records mixed up after all. I think it actually is just all your ds's records. It's just that I've only known him for a year and I could not imagine him EVER behaving like this. I've worked with him for a whole year and I never realized this is where he was coming from. (Which is another thing about school. Nobody ever actually reads the files, and so they have no idea what is going on unless you walk around to every teacher and explain it to them.) But that's how much his "classroom social skills" improved between third grade and 6th grade, and it wasn't because of being in a classroom all day or practicing classroom social skills 20 hours a week. Although....I would guess that we got in at LEAST 20 hours of social skill practice at home, it was just a different kind of skills and a different kind of practice. It was family and community social skills rather than classroom social skills. But a lot of family and community social skills translate well to the classroom. (The reverse is sometimes, but not always, also true.)


But yeah...I second guess myself all the time. All. The. Time. Every time ds says some weird thing to a neighbor or has a panic attack because there are "too many people", or has to leave an event because everyone keeps talking at once and "I can't TAKE IT MOM!" -- every time those things happen I wonder if we made the right choice and start wondering if he'd have gotten used to those kinds of things if I'd just insisted on him staying in school. And I have to think back to how things REALLY were when he was younger and how much better things REALLY are now, and yes there are gaping holes in his education, and there are massive problems with his social skills, but they really were much, much worse before than they are after. And I do see him making progress now in the right direction, rather than just getting worse and worse and worse, which is what REALLY happened when he was in school. But yes, the self-doubt for mom on this one is a killer. Toward the end of this school year ds and I were talking about a bill in our state's legislature that would have required insurance companies to cover treatment for autism. At one point in the conversation I asked him, if we could all go back to when he was little, what was one thing that we could have done to make things better for him. Now that he's sixteen and able to evaluate his life, and what is hard, and what is easy, and what he needs more help with, and what he cares about, and what he doesn't--what would have made his life better if we'd known earlier on and could have done for him then. Without any hesitation at all he said, "I wish you'd homeschooled me sooner. It would have been so much easier to get past the reaction I have to math, and I wouldn't have learned to dislike people so much, and I would have felt safer sooner if you had homeschooled me earlier. I know you didn't know any better at the time, and I'm not mad about it, but if we could go back and homeschool earlier I think it would have helped. Maybe you should tell that to some of the moms in your autism group." 

 

Now...I don't think that homeschooling is the answer for every child on the spectrum (in fact, I know some parents I think should really NOT homeschool their kids). I have a friend who has a son whose level of functioning is similar to that of ds' as far as autism goes, but who doesn't suffer from the same level of anxiety issues (some, but not at the same level). He has been in public school all the way through, and is at the top of his class going into his senior year of high school. She just told me he has had an eagle scout project approved and will be finishing that up this year. He is a high, high achiever in a classroom setting. He does struggle socially, and she has been down at his school every year educating the staff and advocating for his needs. But I look at them sometimes and think maybe that's what it would have been like if I had insisted on ds staying in school. Maybe he wouldn't be academically behind. Maybe he would be up there on stage with a fancy tassel on his cap and gown and everyone admiring his achievements. But realistically it isn't. This kid never lived in constant fight-or-flight mode at school like ds did. Realistically speaking, ds would probably have fallen apart more and more and wound up following through on his talk of suicide within the next couple of years. But there really are kids out there like my friend's who have spectrum issues and milder anxiety problems, and they really do survive school and perform well there. Social learning can happen in lots of ways, but school is legitimately one of them for most kids.

 

So I don't think it's so much a matter of whether one educational setting is the "right" answer and one is the "wrong" answer so much as it is a matter of which is a better academic/emotional/social placement right now (you can change your mind later) for this one child's overall development and the health of the family as a whole (if homeschooling is going to make mom a basket case to the point where the marriage breaks up and the other kids are neglected, that's not a good thing either). And if you decide to homeschool you do need to make sure it's not just a cop-out (and by you I really mean me, not specifically you), and you do need to challenge them socially at a level that's appropriate for them. You do need to sometimes insist that they reach outside their comfort zone and try things that make them uncomfortable. But you need to aim for "uncomfortable" things they can succeed at not "panic-stricken" things that will tank their self-confidence, and that can be a hard balance to find when you're dealing with anxiety disorders.

 

I dunno. I don't have all the right answers. I wish I did. And I second guess myself and doubt my abilities (and sometimes my sanity) on a regular basis. But I have had a few years to think through this stuff from various angles, and I know sometimes it helps to have someone who has BTDT point out a few new questions to ask, even if they don't know the right answers. My solutions are probably not the perfect, ideal solutions. But neither are the alternatives. I'm not sure there is a perfect, ideal solution when you're talking about a less than perfect, ideal circumstance in the first place. You just do the best you can. 

 

One more thing I would like to add. You're a good mom. The fact that you're even thinking about this stuff shows what a good mom you are. This is genuinely frustrating, confusing, discouraging stuff you're dealing with here, so if you're feeling those ways, know that it's normal and it's not just you. You are almost certainly doing better at this thing than you realize, and you and your daughter are going to be okay.


 

[MinivanMom]

This is really encouraging! Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I hadn't thought about how good the structured environment of a ballet class could potentially be for her. I also appreciate you adding that finding a small school with consistency of students has been beneficial. We were thinking of joining a class at our local community center but now I will rethink that and look at other dance schools. Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. Your response really encouraged me. All the best to you on your journey with your daughter, too.

 

A community center class is going to have a lot more turnover.  We actually passed over the huge local dance studio (with its competitive dance teams) and instead we drive a little further to a small ballet school that has a very warm, supportive environment.  It's been a good choice for dd.

[longnightmoon]

I think that your OT is very correct. Ds started kindergarten reading at a 5th grade level (after having just figured out how reading works on his own), knowing all the addition and subtraction facts as well as some of the multiplication tables (and had a fascination with negative numbers), all the requisite, shapes, colors, etc. and able to write his name (his writing skills have always lagged WAY behind his reading skills). When we took him out of school at the end of third grade and started homeschooling for fourth grade, he was at almost that same academic level. It was heartbreaking. And we spent years overcoming the resistance to learning he developed at school. For the first couple of years he would have a panic attack every time I got out the math book. His fight or flight response would kick in, and he'd hide under the table and try to stab me with his pencil if I got too close. If I managed to keep him from fleeing, he would "fight" by shredding his paper or scribbling all over it (very fast!) so as to make it unusable, and I had to make sure I had several photocopies of the page so we could just calmly get out another one and proceed after "we" had calmed down. I really can't see that he learned much of anything academic at school while he was at those high, high levels of anxiety, and socially the only thing he learned was to fear other people, especially children. So what school did for him was turn a socially awkward but academically advanced child with a love of learning (he memorized the names of all the bones in the human skeleton just for fun when he was four) into an academically delayed child who loathed learning, feared and despised other children, and was so burnt out on stress that he had weird OCD issues, pica, bizarre toileting problems, and was starting to talk about suicide. When he was eight. All of those things tapered off and went away after we took him out of school. (Except the GAD, and a little bit of what I'm told resembles PTSD related to school settings. Lovely, huh.)

 

But I think that your social skills group leader also has a point. If you homeschool your child she will not have the same experience of a classroom dynamic that her peers are having, and she will not be able to relate seamlessly with them and immitate/integrate into their social dynamic. It will be harder in some ways for peers to want to befriend her because she will not respond to them in the same patterns of behavior that they have learned at school, and she will seem foreign to them and they won't quite know what to do with her. I saw this happen with dd. We homeschooled her for second and third grade because she was having some struggles academically in K and 1st that we felt weren't being taken seriously by the school. She made much better academic progress at home with the one-on-one instruction at her own pace, and we were able to better establish what was going on with her (ADHD and a LD) and find approaches that helped. But unlike ds, dd NEEDS a lot of social time, or she goes a little bit crazy in her own way. We decided to try putting dd back in school and see how it went. Fourth grade was hard academically because she still had some catching up to do, but she had more appropriate academic supports this time. Socially she kind of struggled that first year back. There's a difference between the dynamic of a 1st grade classroom, which is what she had experienced, and a 4th grade classroom, and she had a hard time fitting in sometimes. But because she is such a social little person, she has mostly worked it out and this past year (5th grade) she was feeling pretty comfortable there again. I think that the longer a child is out of the classroom dynamic, the steeper the learning curve is to get back "in" again.

 

So it's not that I think this Mr. Expert is wrong about this. BUT--and I think that needs to be an extra big BUT-- that's not all there is to the story. Especially for spectrum kids. The thing is, it seems like the primary question being asked and answered by this perspective is, "will the child who is not having a classroom experience be able to easily relate to and interact with kids who are accustomed to classroom dynamics". And the answer is "no". (And I know saying so will probably get me in trouble with a lot of homeschoolers, but if I am honest with myself, this has been my experience with both of my own kids, and my observation of other homeschoolers interacting with classroom-schooled kids--they just have different expectations for interaction). But I think there are other questions that need to be examined in this regard. For example:

 

1- Will this specific child be able to adequately learn the classroom interaction dynamic if placed in a classroom setting on a regular basis (For my son, the answer to this is an obvious and resounding NO, and I wish I had realized this sooner. He simply does not learn social interaction merely by being exposed to it. He learns it in a very academic way that is not actually taught in classrooms. Social interaction in a classroom is overwhelming, confusing, and frightening for him, but it does not teach him anything. For my daughter, the answer is yes, she can learn it in that context.)

 

2- Will interacting with other children in a classroom dynamic affect this specific child's self-confidence, self-image, and conception of other people in a positive way, or a negative way. (For my son, the answer is that a classroom dynamic is destructive in a number of ways to his image of himself, and he learned there that other people are dangerous and cannot be trusted. For my daughter, a classroom setting is supportive, stimulating, and validating, and I think it is giving her a mostly positive outlook regarding other people--except the "popular" ones...lol.)

 

3- Will learning to function well in a classroom setting contribute to, or detract from this particular child's ability to function well in society as an adult. Ultimately, the goal is NOT to produce people who are able to function well in a second, or third, or fourth grade classroom. The ultimate goal is to produce people who are able to function well in adult interactions. (One thing I discovered with my son was that every classroom every year had different rules, and none of them were the same rules that people live by as adults. Every year he had to adjust to a different set of seemingly arbitrary expectations, none of which really prepared him for adult life. For him, it has worked better to remove him from classroom expectations and teach him the grown-up way of functioning the FIRST time, and then expect him to behave well. If you need to use the bathroom as an adult, you don't have to raise your hand, announce your intention to the entire office, get a pass from your boss, and make sure you get back before the next person who needs to go hates your guts because you took too long and made them wet their pants because only one is allowed to go at a time. As an adult, when you need to use the bathroom you just quietly get up and go. In real, adult life, people do not line up with the girls in one line and the boys in another, and you don't get to go first if you're the helper of the day or if you performed well in your work. The line at the bank, or the checkout counter, or the ticket booth, or the drinking fountain is first-come, first-served. And the guy behind you in line is unlikely to taunt or shove you, but if he does everyone else will be appalled too, they won't just say "oh kids will be kids" and look the other way. He gave up on learning classroom expectations because he didn't see the point since they were just going to change anyway and they didn't apply to real life, and he was a major behavior problem in the classroom. But he has been very good about learning appropriate adult behaviors (we get compliments on his behavior regularly now, even from people who didn't know him when he was out of control), and as his peers develop more adult behaviors themselves, he is better able to relate to them than he ever was in a classroom. He will be an adult for the rest of his life (legally he will be an adult in about a year and a half). Fourth grade classroom only lasts one year. If I have to give priority to teaching him one kind of expectations or the other, I'm going to opt for the one that will do him the most good for the longest time. But it's true that he will never be able to really relate to his peers' memories of classroom education, except for those really awful years at the beginning, and a couple of hopefully better years of taking one class at the high school (which socially makes much more sense to him, as it's closer to adult expectations). He has had different experiences that his peers will never be able to really relate to. But we all know people from different cultures whose backgrounds we don't relate to. Part of being a grown-up is getting along anyway. Hopefully his peers will learn this at some point in their classroom experience. For our daughter, the gradual changing of expectations from higher to lower levels of structure and independence in school classrooms has helped her to gradually develop more advanced academic and social skills, and to be flexible and confident in her interactions with other people. For her, the classroom dynamic has been one that helps her grow, practice relating to lots of people in lots of different ways, and become increasingly prepared for adult life.)

4- What is a realistic expectation for social skill development in THIS child? (We kept being told that it was important for our son to be in school because if he was not in school he would never learn to socialize normally. It finally dawned on us that this particular child is NEVER going to learn to socialize in a manner that others will consider "normally" regardless of his educational placement. His mind does not work like everyone else's--he doesn't think like everyone else's, his sensory experience of the world is not like everyone else's, his priorities are not those of everyone else--and it is ridiculous to expect him to just magically learn to behave like everyone else merely through association. What we're really shooting for, with him, is that he will learn to behave in ways that make sense to him, that give him a life that he can enjoy and in which he can feel fulfilled, while also learning to interface with other people in ways that do not make them feel unduly uncomfortable or afraid. And he was NOT learning that at school. And there was no time to teach it to him at home because he was always either at school, or so strung out from being at school that trying to teach him anything was useless. Learning step-by-step at home has produced much better results.

 

In fact, speaking of results, we kept ds in a couple of therapies and a very small social skills group at the school for 4th and 5th grades. In 6th grade we were moved to another school due to a shift in school boundaries. At that school he attended a larger social skills class and did very well. At the end of that year I got a panic-stricken call from the school psychologist at that school, who was going through and organizing all the files of the 6th graders in preparation for shipping them over to the junior high. She was in a panic because she thought ds's records had been mixed in with those of another student with the same name. She had been unsuccessful in trying to tease apart which records belonged to which student, and she was hoping to be able to get me to help her out without unnecessarily breaching the confidentiality of either student. She knew me, and she knew I wouldn't get upset about it, but she didn't know the other student or his parents, so she thought she'd start with me and see if we could sort it out. So without giving specifics she began telling me little hints about things in the report to see if they sounded familiar. There was this thing involving a chair. Yep, that was my son. He threw it at another student in kindergarten. It was bad. The technician with a bloody nose? Yep, he head-butted her in the face. And yes, he bit the other technician. I was glad she didn't need stitches. And yes, that whole entire stack of incident reports about running away would be for my son. I didn't know how many there were because they only had to notify me on the times he actually made it off school property before they caught him, but I couldn't even tell you how many of THOSE there were. After a few minutes of this she said...you know...I don't think there are two records mixed up after all. I think it actually is just all your ds's records. It's just that I've only known him for a year and I could not imagine him EVER behaving like this. I've worked with him for a whole year and I never realized this is where he was coming from. (Which is another thing about school. Nobody ever actually reads the files, and so they have no idea what is going on unless you walk around to every teacher and explain it to them.) But that's how much his "classroom social skills" improved between third grade and 6th grade, and it wasn't because of being in a classroom all day or practicing classroom social skills 20 hours a week. Although....I would guess that we got in at LEAST 20 hours of social skill practice at home, it was just a different kind of skills and a different kind of practice. It was family and community social skills rather than classroom social skills. But a lot of family and community social skills translate well to the classroom. (The reverse is sometimes, but not always, also true.)

 

 

But yeah...I second guess myself all the time. All. The. Time. Every time ds says some weird thing to a neighbor or has a panic attack because there are "too many people", or has to leave an event because everyone keeps talking at once and "I can't TAKE IT MOM!" -- every time those things happen I wonder if we made the right choice and start wondering if he'd have gotten used to those kinds of things if I'd just insisted on him staying in school. And I have to think back to how things REALLY were when he was younger and how much better things REALLY are now, and yes there are gaping holes in his education, and there are massive problems with his social skills, but they really were much, much worse before than they are after. And I do see him making progress now in the right direction, rather than just getting worse and worse and worse, which is what REALLY happened when he was in school. But yes, the self-doubt for mom on this one is a killer. Toward the end of this school year ds and I were talking about a bill in our state's legislature that would have required insurance companies to cover treatment for autism. At one point in the conversation I asked him, if we could all go back to when he was little, what was one thing that we could have done to make things better for him. Now that he's sixteen and able to evaluate his life, and what is hard, and what is easy, and what he needs more help with, and what he cares about, and what he doesn't--what would have made his life better if we'd known earlier on and could have done for him then. Without any hesitation at all he said, "I wish you'd homeschooled me sooner. It would have been so much easier to get past the reaction I have to math, and I wouldn't have learned to dislike people so much, and I would have felt safer sooner if you had homeschooled me earlier. I know you didn't know any better at the time, and I'm not mad about it, but if we could go back and homeschool earlier I think it would have helped. Maybe you should tell that to some of the moms in your autism group."

 

Now...I don't think that homeschooling is the answer for every child on the spectrum (in fact, I know some parents I think should really NOT homeschool their kids). I have a friend who has a son whose level of functioning is similar to that of ds' as far as autism goes, but who doesn't suffer from the same level of anxiety issues (some, but not at the same level). He has been in public school all the way through, and is at the top of his class going into his senior year of high school. She just told me he has had an eagle scout project approved and will be finishing that up this year. He is a high, high achiever in a classroom setting. He does struggle socially, and she has been down at his school every year educating the staff and advocating for his needs. But I look at them sometimes and think maybe that's what it would have been like if I had insisted on ds staying in school. Maybe he wouldn't be academically behind. Maybe he would be up there on stage with a fancy tassel on his cap and gown and everyone admiring his achievements. But realistically it isn't. This kid never lived in constant fight-or-flight mode at school like ds did. Realistically speaking, ds would probably have fallen apart more and more and wound up following through on his talk of suicide within the next couple of years. But there really are kids out there like my friend's who have spectrum issues and milder anxiety problems, and they really do survive school and perform well there. Social learning can happen in lots of ways, but school is legitimately one of them for most kids.

 

So I don't think it's so much a matter of whether one educational setting is the "right" answer and one is the "wrong" answer so much as it is a matter of which is a better academic/emotional/social placement right now (you can change your mind later) for this one child's overall development and the health of the family as a whole (if homeschooling is going to make mom a basket case to the point where the marriage breaks up and the other kids are neglected, that's not a good thing either). And if you decide to homeschool you do need to make sure it's not just a cop-out (and by you I really mean me, not specifically you), and you do need to challenge them socially at a level that's appropriate for them. You do need to sometimes insist that they reach outside their comfort zone and try things that make them uncomfortable. But you need to aim for "uncomfortable" things they can succeed at not "panic-stricken" things that will tank their self-confidence, and that can be a hard balance to find when you're dealing with anxiety disorders.

 

I dunno. I don't have all the right answers. I wish I did. And I second guess myself and doubt my abilities (and sometimes my sanity) on a regular basis. But I have had a few years to think through this stuff from various angles, and I know sometimes it helps to have someone who has BTDT point out a few new questions to ask, even if they don't know the right answers. My solutions are probably not the perfect, ideal solutions. But neither are the alternatives. I'm not sure there is a perfect, ideal solution when you're talking about a less than perfect, ideal circumstance in the first place. You just do the best you can.

 

One more thing I would like to add. You're a good mom. The fact that you're even thinking about this stuff shows what a good mom you are. This is genuinely frustrating, confusing, discouraging stuff you're dealing with here, so if you're feeling those ways, know that it's normal and it's not just you. You are almost certainly doing better at this thing than you realize, and you and your daughter are going to be okay.

 

 

 

Amy, there is so much wisdom and experience in this post that I don't even now where to start other than with a huge thank you. Reading about the experience with your son is so helpful for me. I really appreciate your willingness to see the big picture and that there really aren't right or wrong answers. I think I really want there to be - I want to do the "right" things so my dd will be okay - but I know it's not that easy or clear-cut. The gray of it all just kills me sometimes. Like you said in your previous post, as much as I'd like there to be there isn't a perfect prescription for a six-year old girl with ASD and anxiety.

 

You mentioned fight of flight with your son a lot. Those years in school must have been so hard for all of you. My dd's OT has talked about fight of flight a lot in how my dd responds to new or uncomfortable situations. We tried a few small classes at our homeschool resource center last year and my dd was in a fight or flight state. She was rigid and would be panic-stricken the entire class. I couldn't leave without her having a meltdown. One class was an art class and all she would do was obsessively cut paper into tiny pieces with scissors the whole class. She regressed a lot at home and wouldn't sleep. We pulled her out after about three weeks of classes and it took a long time to get her back to a calm state. When she's in that fearful state schooling is almost impossible because she's so rigid. She can't hear new stories, try new books, can't try anything new without breaking down. We are registered to try it again in the fall but I'm having second thoughts (my worry about trying the classes again in the fall is what got me starting this thread in the first place). She's in such a calm state right now and so open to learning I feel very reluctant to rock the boat. But there's that voice that says I need to push her a bit, I need to give it another try, give her that classroom experience, etc. I guess I wish the trying didn't always have such a long backlash.

 

The points you breakdown about the benefits of a classroom are so helpful. It really calls into question for me how important the classroom experience is for her, at least right now. I'm sure there is value in that experience but I'm not sure if it's going to do her any favors, I mean, she just relates to her peers differently, classroom or no classroom. And she would answer those questions right in line with your son's answers. It's very difficult for her to learn in that setting. And when she was in the classes last year, I could see her begin to see herself differently. She's a very quirky kid but she's always been pretty unaware of her own quirkiness and I love that. But in the classroom, I could see that start to change. So if I'm being honest, there is fear that keeps me from the classroom. Fear that her self-esteem will plummet and fear that she will fall apart every day at home. And I know that no homeschooler should homeschool out of fear, right? : ) Easier said than done. But I love this line in point number 4 with your hopes for your son: "What we're really shooting for, with him, is that he will learn to behave in ways that make sense to him, that give him a life that he can enjoy and in which he can feel fulfilled, while also learning to interface with other people in ways that do not make them feel unduly uncomfortable or afraid." I love that vision and how it takes into account the individuality of your son and his needs. It sounds silly but we haven't really has a vision for her in this regard, other than wanting her to learn skills that will enable her to play and develop relationships with peers that are healthy and fulfilling. It's a decent goal but you cause me to want to think more deeply about our aims with her social learning.

 

I can't thank you enough for your time. You have given me a lot to think about and process. I feel more confident that homeschooling is the way to go given my dd's anxiety for now. But I appreciate the acknowledgement that there aren't ideal answers, it's about knowing my child and her individual needs. Learning to trust my instincts even if some of the experts are telling me I'm wrong isn't my cup of tea, but I probably need to just get used to it. But it sounds like the self-doubt is always there (and i can so identify with your ds saying something odd to a neighbor and second guessing everything - BTDT!) but hopefully I can gain a bit more confidence over time. Here's hoping, anyway.

 

Thanks again, Amy. You have a lot of wisdom and insight to offer - I'm so grateful you would share it with me.

 

All the best,

[longnightmoon]

Now...I don't think that homeschooling is the answer for every child on the spectrum (in fact, I know some parents I think should really NOT homeschool their kids). I have a friend who has a son whose level of functioning is similar to that of ds' as far as autism goes, but who doesn't suffer from the same level of anxiety issues (some, but not at the same level). He has been in public school all the way through, and is at the top of his class going into his senior year of high school. She just told me he has had an eagle scout project approved and will be finishing that up this year. He is a high, high achiever in a classroom setting. He does struggle socially, and she has been down at his school every year educating the staff and advocating for his needs. But I look at them sometimes and think maybe that's what it would have been like if I had insisted on ds staying in school. Maybe he wouldn't be academically behind. Maybe he would be up there on stage with a fancy tassel on his cap and gown and everyone admiring his achievements. But realistically it isn't. This kid never lived in constant fight-or-flight mode at school like ds did. Realistically speaking, ds would probably have fallen apart more and more and wound up following through on his talk of suicide within the next couple of years. But there really are kids out there like my friend's who have spectrum issues and milder anxiety problems, and they really do survive school and perform well there. Social learning can happen in lots of ways, but school is legitimately one of them for most kids.

 

 

I just wanted to make one more comment. This paragraph is very helpful in separating the anxiety from the autism. I always lump it all together. Separating them out makes things a little less overwhelming. I think the anxiety is what is so debilitating for her in social situations. Perhaps we should spend time for a while just working with her worries instead of working on worries, play, reading non-verbal cues, being flexible, etc. All those things are important but the anxiety is what seems to hinder her the most.

 

Thanks for this perspective. It really helps me view things a bit differently.

[MamaSheep]

I just wanted to make one more comment. This paragraph is very helpful in separating the anxiety from the autism. I always lump it all together. Separating them out makes things a little less overwhelming. I think the anxiety is what is so debilitating for her in social situations. Perhaps we should spend time for a while just working with her worries instead of working on worries, play, reading non-verbal cues, being flexible, etc. All those things are important but the anxiety is what seems to hinder her the most.

 

Thanks for this perspective. It really helps me view things a bit differently.

I'm glad you're finding it all helpful. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that ds's anxiety is more debilitating to him than his autism is--if you can tease the two apart. I don't honestly know if they really are separate issues or not, but it sure helps me to think of them that way. And I've found that breaking everything down into component parts and taking baby steps on one part of one thing at a time helps a lot with making progress. I'm a very visual person, so I kind of think of it as him being on one side of a crevasse and be being on the other side. It's unrealistic to expect him just to leap the crevasse in a single bound, and he doesn't know how to get to where I am (and would like him to be--speaking figuratively of developmental, social, communication type stuff if you see what I mean). So I need to build one of those rope and plank bridges across the gap. Each plank represents the next baby step of progress. So I need to sort of figure out what the skill we're working on actually consists of, and build a bridge from where he is to where I want him to be, one "plank" at a time, and then I need to walk over the bridge to where he is, and show him each plank, one at a time, and convince him to step on them. And if we go one plank at a time, we will get to the other side of the gap, as long as we are making forward progress, even if it takes us longer than it takes most people.

 

So say, for example, that I wanted him to learn to give people a friendly greeting when he meets them (he has never seen the point of greetings, and it took me a long time to convince him they are necessary, but he's getting better at them). 

First I would break it down: What IS a greeting anyway? What purpose does it serve? Why is it important that we greet one another? What happens if we don't greet people? What are the various components of an effective greeting, verbal and nonverbal, and why? What are some common variations of greetings, and how would I rank them from simple to complex? What kind of greeting is closest to where my son is right now? What is the component of that kind of greeting that is most within (or close to) his current skill set, and therefore least intimidating for him and most likely to meet with success if we practice it? I might conclude that a very simple greeting to aim for would be to look the other person in the eyes, smile, and say something friendly like "hi," or "how's it going?" But all of that is too much for him to start with. The most noticeable part for other people, and the easiest part for him would be the verbal part (this is not the same for every child, btw, mine is just very verbal). So I might give him two or three options as to what he might SAY for a greeting, talk about WHEN he should greet people, and then give him a reward anytime he said any of those two or three options at the appropriate moment--even if he didn't look at them, even if he said it in an unfriendly tone of voice (that's something to work on later), even if he had his finger up his nose or whatever other inappropriate thing. If he got the "plank" we're working on right, then he gets the reward. And then when he's pretty comfortable standing on that "plank" of the bridge, we work on stepping out onto the next plank. Probably it would be something measurable like whether he made eye contact (hard for him) or smiled (might be my choice), rather than something more subjective like tone of voice. Then we'd practice smiling in the mirror, or practice making eye contact a lot between the two of us until that became easier, talk about how long the eye contact should be, and that just a quick glance to "check in" with the other person still counts. And then he'd get the reward even if he stared inappropriately long or intensely or got too close or whatever, because he's at least TRYING. You know?

 

Anyway, yes, I've had a lot more success when I break things down into ridiculously minute detail and work on one to three things at a time (while keeping the bigger picture and a specific large(ish) goal in mind) rather than trying to work on those huge overarching issues all at once. I used to really wear myself out trying to "fix" everything at once, and trying to do it before he got ANY older because we'd already missed out on the "early intervention" stuff, and we were running out of time! Life has been happier for us all since I admitted to myself that this is a life-long marathon, not a two-year sprint. But it's kind of a hard hill to get over, because you do just really want things to be "all better" and life to continue "normally". It takes time to shift paradigms and see that "different", even different to the degree of a diagnosable disorder, can still be "good", even if it's challenging (and sometimes makes you miserable), and that "normal" is an artificial construct anyway (and all forms of normal contain some level of misery), and you might as well make your own "normal" and be happy in it. 

 

And now I'm rambling on again. You're going to be so tired of hearing from me. I think I'm avoiding putting science together for next year...lol. 

[Violet Crown]

Lots of good advice from MamaSheep. The only thing I might add is that it's easy to despair when it looks like there's been regress - like all those carefully laid planks have been torn out and you're back to square one. I try to always remember that we're never really back to where we started: my daughter now has actually done the thing she or I wanted her to do, and now she knows for certain that she can do it. And she will. Every success is in the bank.

[MamaSheep]

Lots of good advice from MamaSheep. The only thing I might add is that it's easy to despair when it looks like there's been regress - like all those carefully laid planks have been torn out and you're back to square one. I try to always remember that we're never really back to where we started: my daughter now has actually done the thing she or I wanted her to do, and now she knows for certain that she can do it. And she will. Every success is in the bank.

AMEN!!

[Jennifer-72]

I can't really add much to the wonderful advice you have already got, but I did want to mention a book I found to be a helpful read: Managing Anxiety in People with Autism.

 

Good luck with ballet! Have you thought about maybe having her do a couple private lessons first so that she can get to know the instructor and environment before having to deal with the extra sensory and anxiety demands of a class? That is a strategy that has worked well for my ds.

[longnightmoon]

Anyway, yes, I've had a lot more success when I break things down into ridiculously minute detail and work on one to three things at a time (while keeping the bigger picture and a specific large(ish) goal in mind) rather than trying to work on those huge overarching issues all at once. I used to really wear myself out trying to "fix" everything at once, and trying to do it before he got ANY older because we'd already missed out on the "early intervention" stuff, and we were running out of time! Life has been happier for us all since I admitted to myself that this is a life-long marathon, not a two-year sprint. But it's kind of a hard hill to get over, because you do just really want things to be "all better" and life to continue "normally". It takes time to shift paradigms and see that "different", even different to the degree of a diagnosable disorder, can still be "good", even if it's challenging (and sometimes makes you miserable), and that "normal" is an artificial construct anyway (and all forms of normal contain some level of misery), and you might as well make your own "normal" and be happy in it. 

And now I'm rambling on again. You're going to be so tired of hearing from me. I think I'm avoiding putting science together for next year...lol.

 

  

 

Again, SO helpful. Your intentionality in breaking things down for your son is a great teaching example for me. I think that would work really well for my dd. I'm also very visual and I love the crevasse imagery in helping guide that process. And i guess you're probably saying I shouldn't be thinking she won't be able to be an independent adult if I don't do first grade right? Lol. That is how I operate. I've been under that self-imposed pressure of trying to get everything "therapized" before the magic age of 7. Yes, I think a paradigm shift to the marathon mentality would be kind to my sanity. I feel like we are getting there and adjusting to our reality of daily life but I'm not quite there with the "fixing" stuff yet. Seriously, your BTDT perspective has been such a blessing to me. Thank you so much.

 

Lots of good advice from MamaSheep. The only thing I might add is that it's easy to despair when it looks like there's been regress - like all those carefully laid planks have been torn out and you're back to square one. I try to always remember that we're never really back to where we started: my daughter now has actually done the thing she or I wanted her to do, and now she knows for certain that she can do it. And she will. Every success is in the bank.

  

 

This is really encouraging for me to remember, especially as fall approaches. It does feel so disheartening when we try something new and it feels like we end up taking ten steps backwards. But we learn so much from each regression, too. I will remember this - thank you!

 

I can't really add much to the wonderful advice you have already got, but I did want to mention a book I found to be a helpful read: Managing Anxiety in People with Autism.

Good luck with ballet! Have you thought about maybe having her do a couple private lessons first so that she can get to know the instructor and environment before having to deal with the extra sensory and anxiety demands of a class? That is a strategy that has worked well for my ds.

That looks like a great book. Thanks so much for the recommendation. That is a fantastic idea to try a few private lessons first. I've been wondering how we can increase the odds that ballet will be positive experience for her and your suggestion would be so helpful. She does so much better if she can at least get used to the space first and the class second. Thanks for the suggestion - I really appreciate it!