Scaffolding a teen

[Moxie]

I need concrete ideas. My 14yo ASD kid is so smart but he struggles so much with organizing his life. He forgets to take things to school for strage reasons (instead of putting homework in his backpack, he puts it "somewhere so he will remember it" like on a table and then forgets it. That has happened more than once. He is upset this morning because he has lost his dress pants. 1) how do you lose pants and 2) despite being reminded every night to get clothes out for the next day. He is constantly telling us he "didn't have time" to do routine things which isn't true.

 

If he were an only child, I could follow him around more but he is not.

 

Don't suggest Smart but Scattered. I own it. I need more concrete ideas. A routine chart?? Reminder apps?? Something.

 

It is so hard to watch your child struggle with stuff that is so easy for most people.

[amo_mea_filiis.]

Make some visual schedules for routine times?

[bettyandbob]

You are describing executive function deficits.

 

I went through this with my oldest, but he was adamant about not getting help or following through with suggestions. My neighbor had a ds who would let her help. So, daily she helped him organize. They went through all the steps together. It took time. Putting clothing out the night before, going through the backpack faster school and sorting the contents, getting each homework assignment into the correct notebook as it was complete. They did thus all the way through high school. She found that she could only slightly back off senior year. He chose to go to cc for a year and she continued to help his first semester and then he was able to take over and be successful.

 

Intense input from you was not the answer you wanted, but that's my example that I know was successful.

 

My ds stumbled through high school, telling me "it was under control." He did ok his first year of college where he was in a military program with a highly regulated schedule, required class attendance and study hours. He stumbled a lot through a year at cc, did decent the second year at cc. He's now at a 4 year school and doing well but still working on "figuring it out himself." Last night he called me about his class choices for next term and I reminded him to check if X counted as a social sci credit, consider whether a requirement will be offered in the fall if he doesn't take it now, etc. my son is still a work in progress, do I can't report success in getting through this.

[marbel]

I am going through this with my oldest who has some executive function deficits.  I do as the neighbor described above does.  We just walk through the day together, trying to find tool he will use on his own and habits he can build on his own.

 

An example not related to schoolwork:  He takes a few daily medications, morning and evening.  I used to put them in a cup for him so we would both remember them.  Then I started putting the bottles out for him to get the pills.  We tried making a checklist but that failed. So we left the bottles out and I watched him take the pills. Then I started reminding him in the morning and before bed.  Then, I stopped reminding.  He never forgets his pills.  This took a long time though.   If he changes medications I have to remind him for a while to take the new one. 

 

But it's the same thing with assignments.  We have tried online calendars and paper calendars, blank notebooks like a bullet journal - nothing has worked too well but we are making progress with a desk-sized weekly calendar with lots of space to write thing.  I want to get him a smartphone soon to see what sorts of apps there are to help him.  He has a phone and he has never lost it, so I'm not worried about loss. 

 

We are making slow progress.  It's slow!  But it's happening.  He's planning on taking one CC dual enrollment class in the spring so he has an easy intro to college.  Then after high school graduation he'll probably go full time to CC so he will be at home and we're still able to help him.   Hoping by then things will be better.

[Joules]

This is a small suggestion but it might help.  An open bag or box seems to work better than a backpack.  The extra work of opening the backpack seems to be a deterrent to "just putting it where it goes the first time."  I love LLBean totes, because they are large and sit open:

1-IMG_4545.JPG

and can be grabbed quickly as you walk out, but anything like that works.  

 

The new rule is that ANYTHING important to go gets thrown in the bag.  The bag is always in the same place.  Then ten minutes before leave time, the stuff can be sorted and put in the pack or on the body or in the car.  I won't call it a lazy factor, but there is something about the ease of just tossing the thing in the bag that makes it easier to stick to than zipping it up in the correct compartment or carrying it to the car.

 

So at time to go the bag may contain a calculator, a homework to hand in, gloves, the "proper" pants to wear (for a quick change as walking out), etc.  If you are running late, the bag just gets grabbed and everything is sorted out in the car.

[TechWife]

I need concrete ideas. My 14yo ASD kid is so smart but he struggles so much with organizing his life. ...

 

If he were an only child, I could follow him around more but he is not.  ...

 

It is so hard to watch your child struggle with stuff that is so easy for most people.

 

Gently, 

 

While your son is not a child, he is a 14 yo with ASD. You will likely be helping him in some form or fashion for quite a while yet. 

 

My son has always been one to resist help. What we've had to do is look for the windows where he is receptive and use those to his advantage. 

 

One thing that my son has problems with is time management. He really doesn't seem to sense that time is passing. He also forgets to add travel time into his plans. The thing that helped the most with this is, at the start of every day, walking through his schedule and setting alarms on his smart phone. The alarm description very specifically says what it is for so that he sees it when he looks at his phone. Often there were alarms for "get backpack ready for English", then 15 min later "leave for English" then ten min later "English class room 369 - 5 minutes." If you do this, be careful not to set alarms to go off during classes or important meetings. 

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I don't have real answers, since I'm still going through this myself. I'm 41 (sigh), but as there was no awareness of this when we were kids and teens, my parents would never have thought to help me out. Actually, they were extremely hands off, and while that was great in lots of ways, there are a couple of ways in which I could really have used some more support (money management is another biggie). My point in saying this is so that I don't make you more discouraged, like there is no hope :lol: You are aware and there to help, which is great for him.

 

Anyway, what I find has been helping me is to have made a very specific list of things I need to do throughout the day and tied them to times. Then I plugged each individual list into my phone in a tasks app. I get loud, long alerts (that vibrate instead when I'm out and about, of course) that let me know when each phase of my day is happening. For example, my first alert after waking is something like "Think about dinner (take out items to thaw), swap load of laundry, look over schoolwork for day, brush teeth, shower." My last one before bedtime is "Lay out clothes for tomorrow, lay out other needed things for tomorrow, look at schedule for tomorrow, swap load of laundry, brush teeth, lotion on hands."

 

I certainly don't accomplish everything on every list every day, or even most days. But the constant alarms going off have really helped me to understand how my days need to break down, and having to actively release the popup screen that comes up listing each set of reminders is a reminder in itself and keeps me from just zoning out all the alerts. 

 

I do this in a task app because I only want to hear the single alert noise. Someone who needs more persistent reminding could put the information into an alarm clock app, so that they are forced to actively track their phone down and turn it off and face the reminders. 

 

Hopefully others have great solutions for you. I'll be reading the thread for ideas for myself and my scattered youngest  :lurk5: It's extra hard to help kids build effective skills when you never had them yourself :(

 

ETA: We lose track of clothing all the time--things end up in a different hamper that didn't get emptied, they get folded or hung into someone else's room by accident, they get kicked under the bed by accident and don't get spotted until the next room sweep, etc. Don't things like that happen to other people?

[Pam in CT]

It does make a difference if your kid 1. concurs that there's a problem and 2. is inclined to accept help in addressing it.

 

If he'll accept help, work one narrow specific thing at a time.  In your circumstances, maybe packing up the night before.  Start with a list (with a soft copy in his binder or other organized place and a Permanent copy physically taped somewhere prominent and logical, like in the room he does his homework), a specific time (or place in the nighttime sequence, like right before toothbrushing), stand beside him and ask him (don't do it yourself) to go through each item on the list... then taper back to checking each night that he's done it.... then taper back to checking a couple of nights a week (definitely Sunday!) rather than every night...  and when he's got that down, move on to another one narrow specific thing like keeping his clothes organized in his dresser / closet.

 

 

None of this will work if he doesn't want your help.  It does help some kids though, so choose your One Specific Thing and give it a try.

 

Mine accepts that there's a problem, but doesn't much want my help in addressing it.  He'll take some guidance from other sources, but he then forgets to implement the guidance...   :001_rolleyes:  

 

I've had to do a lot of letting him screw up.  I don't deliver forgotten items to the school, I don't run out at 9 at night to rescue him for some supply he neglected to mention he needed, I don't cover him at school.  I won't lie: this causes a good deal of unpleasantness (and he's had to take detentions / points off his grades / being cut from activities he's wanted, etc.).  Better that he understand such consequences now, then when he's in the labor force and I can't save him.

 

I've also structured his environment: he has very few clothes, I make him weed out excess books and unused athletic equipment and accumulated cr@p.  I make him contain his spread to two parts of the house (one his room, the other the place he likes to study).  That helps a little, because if something is lost it's highly likely to be in one of those two places.

 

Mine is receptive to talking / learning / watching TED talks about the issue, though, so he has made real progress in learning about the concepts of executive functioning, understanding he needs a support team, recognizing how he needs to structure his environment with less stuff and more structure.  His metacognition is pretty good (he just turned 17; this has taken a while).  And he's developed excellent advocacy / apology / charm skills in finding his own way.  He knows very well he'll have to find a spouse who's able to support him effectively.

 

And part of this is just maturation, growing a frontal lobe.  It takes some a lot longer than it takes others.  Keep loving him, make sure he knows you're in his corner rather than on his back, and have faith.  It gets better.   :grouphug:

 

 

[Katy]

Things that really helped us: A book about Organizing for ADHD (short version: open shelves and bags, everything visually accessible, make things easy not perfect).

 

Also got closet dividers with a day of the week on them.  Have one set of clothes assigned for each day.  They go behind their divider, then I only have to check once per week that everything is where it should be.

[fairfarmhand]

My brothers DO NOT have ASD and they were total HOT MESSES at age 12-15.

 

Totally resistant to any help but couldnt organize themselves to save their lives.

 

So it's not just YOU and your kid.

[NorthwestMom]

You are getting great advice. Hang in there!  :grouphug:

 

I also agree that 14 is a difficult age for these skills. Keep working on them and you should see improvement over the next 2 years.

 

[Tsuga]

Shared Google calendar with reminders 15 and 30 before helps for remembering things. Joint routines before leaving house, going to bed. "Five things: backpack, homework, outfit, teeth, alarm." Repeat until it is as natural as wiping his butt.

 

Nobody's perfect. For some reason absentmindedness REALLY bothers tidy, organized people. But everybody has something wrong with them. This is your son's. It could be worse. He could be hateful or allergic to the air. I say this as a scattered person. Yeah it's inconvenient but he'll get it. :)

[Tsuga]

I don't have real answers, since I'm still going through this myself. I'm 41 (sigh), but as there was no awareness of this when we were kids and teens, my parents would never have thought to help me out. Actually, they were extremely hands off, and while that was great in lots of ways, there are a couple of ways in which I could really have used some more support (money management is another biggie). My point in saying this is so that I don't make you more discouraged, like there is no hope :lol: You are aware and there to help, which is great for him.

 

Anyway, what I find has been helping me is to have made a very specific list of things I need to do throughout the day and tied them to times. Then I plugged each individual list into my phone in a tasks app. I get loud, long alerts (that vibrate instead when I'm out and about, of course) that let me know when each phase of my day is happening. For example, my first alert after waking is something like "Think about dinner (take out items to thaw), swap load of laundry, look over schoolwork for day, brush teeth, shower." My last one before bedtime is "Lay out clothes for tomorrow, lay out other needed things for tomorrow, look at schedule for tomorrow, swap load of laundry, brush teeth, lotion on hands."

 

I certainly don't accomplish everything on every list every day, or even most days. But the constant alarms going off have really helped me to understand how my days need to break down, and having to actively release the popup screen that comes up listing each set of reminders is a reminder in itself and keeps me from just zoning out all the alerts.

 

I do this in a task app because I only want to hear the single alert noise. Someone who needs more persistent reminding could put the information into an alarm clock app, so that they are forced to actively track their phone down and turn it off and face the reminders.

 

Hopefully others have great solutions for you. I'll be reading the thread for ideas for myself and my scattered youngest :lurk5: It's extra hard to help kids build effective skills when you never had them yourself :(

 

ETA: We lose track of clothing all the time--things end up in a different hamper that didn't get emptied, they get folded or hung into someone else's room by accident, they get kicked under the bed by accident and don't get spotted until the next room sweep, etc. Don't things like that happen to other people?

1. I have skills other than organization, so while O appreciate just how irritating I am to others I try to keep in mind that if everyone was thinking about where their pants were all the time science would progress at an even more glacial rate.

 

2. We lose clothes all the time. That said, apparently for some people being able to find dress pants at any given moment is a top priority and to them, losing pants is truly unfathomable. In my world, locating dress pants is just below locating my name tag for work which is about four spots below calling SIL re: happy hour and 35 spots below ordering a school yearbook and oh look at the gorgeous lace pattern of the tree branches in the dawn morning.

 

Someone has to appreciate the trees. Just wear black jeans if you can't find pants.

[kroe1]

I know you said you do not have time to help the disorganized child in the mornings. Do you have time at night? Load up his backpack, check off homework assignments, etc. before bed. Have everything ready and sitting at the door by the time he wakes up. Will that work?

[Carol in Cal.]

My DD at that age was not remembering that stuff either, and she was not ADD or AS or anything.

She was just, I dunno, that age.

 

And it really caught me off guard.

 

After all, in preparation for sending her to brick and mortar high school we had worked on organization.  She had worked on long term projects, some on her own and some with me, and had learned to break things into chunks and schedule them.  And she had REQUESTED a planner to be added to her school supply list! 

 

DH took her to school, and usually I picked her up.  And she would forget some crucial book.  We would get back to my office (where she had  her own room and did homework after school) and I would ask her about her math and she wouldn't have the book.  And we would go back for it.

 

So, I started to park within a block of the school and ask her about each one of her classes.  Did she need this or that or whatever?  Every day.  And she didn't learn.  For about two years.  Then, suddenly, she was fine.  I think it was a brain chemistry thing maybe. 

[texasmama]

I place my 15 yo ASD son's supplements ON his plate for breakfast along with his Flonase. It took about three years of daily reminders for him to put on deodorant. He still needs a reminder to brush his teeth in the mornings. I frequently have to go look for underwear or shorts for him even though his clean clothes are in a basket. If clothes are accidentally placed in another child's basket, he will not think to look there even though the baskets are on top of each other. He needs to be explicitly taught repeatedly things that my other kids picked up with no teaching. He just needs so much more help than my other kids. He is not trying to be lazy or defiant. His brain is wired differently. I respond by building in organization and reminders and by keeping the expectation that I will be more heavily involved with him for much longer than my other kids.

[Laurel]

Anyway, what I find has been helping me is to have made a very specific list of things I need to do throughout the day and tied them to times. Then I plugged each individual list into my phone in a tasks app. I get loud, long alerts (that vibrate instead when I'm out and about, of course) that let me know when each phase of my day is happening. For example, my first alert after waking is something like "Think about dinner (take out items to thaw), swap load of laundry, look over schoolwork for day, brush teeth, shower." My last one before bedtime is "Lay out clothes for tomorrow, lay out other needed things for tomorrow, look at schedule for tomorrow, swap load of laundry, brush teeth, lotion on hands."

 

I certainly don't accomplish everything on every list every day, or even most days. But the constant alarms going off have really helped me to understand how my days need to break down, and having to actively release the popup screen that comes up listing each set of reminders is a reminder in itself and keeps me from just zoning out all the alerts.

 

I do this in a task app because I only want to hear the single alert noise. Someone who needs more persistent reminding could put the information into an alarm clock app, so that they are forced to actively track their phone down and turn it off and face the reminders.

What app do you use? Dp struggles with this (and like you, recognizes his struggles, so attempts to set himself up for success and accepts help). We use Cozi, so I can set appointments and reminders for him that will get pushed to his phone, and he also sets reminders for himself for lots of things (big and small). But he does zone out on the alerts sometimes.

[Tsuga]

I use Gcal and iCal.

[Carol in Cal.]

PS Forgot to say what to do.

 

One thing I did was start checking grades on the computer.  If there was missed work I would ask about it.  If there was late work ditto, because most of the time that was some kind of mistake on someone's part--the teacher didn't record the grade, or she didn't hear them ask to collect it, or something crazy like that.

 

I casually chatted with her about her school work.

 

I offered to take her to stores for things she needed for her projects, proactively.  By that I don't mean that I said, wow, you haven't got the stuff for your bio project yet, so let's go to the store.  No, I mean that I sort of spied on the computer on when things were due and coincidentally would say, 'Hey, I'm going to the mall; would you like to come along?  Do you need anything?'  And every once in a while I would just randomly pick up art or craft supplies that I knew she would find useful for some project or the other, nothing too specific, and give them quietly to her as a just because present. 

 

I made sure she had plenty of protein in her diet, and a reasonable amount of exercise.

 

I administered borage oil liberally.

 

I generally stayed up when she had homework to do (not always, but usually) so that she wouldn't feel like it was super late. 

 

Also in ninth grade when she developed a very serious tech addiction that was ruining her sleep and her focus, I figured it out and took all of her tech away every night without fail, around 8PM.  I actually slept with it all turned off next to my bed.  She was furious at the time, but a year or two later she was very thankful and said that it was totally the right thing to do.

[Deee]

Some people are just breathtakingly crap at executive function. i am great at everyone else's entirely disinterested in my own. DH has horrible time management skills. He is often running late or in a flap and gets very grumpy. Always, its because he hasn't left enough time to get ready. DS14 is just starting to come out of the fog, but I'm doing plenty of scaffolding. We 've started using a daily task list. He must then prioritise the tasks and cross them off. No gadgets until the priority A tasks are crossed off. Its painful, but it is working. I'm also more conscious of verbalising how I manage things. He can see me tracking expenses, I discuss when we need to leave for something and what has to happen when before we do leave. i make it conversational so i don't sound like I'm nagging. I also use an Army trick we used on recruits (recruits hand over all their executive functioning skills in the first stage of recruit course and you have to do all their thinking for them): I give him warning orders and notices to move. "At 12.30 we are leaving for the movies. At 11.45 you'll need to have a shower, then we'll have lunch. You need to pack all your stuff for drama because we won't be coming home before that. You'll have dinner in town. What do you need to take? Do that now then have a shower." i go through this again at 12. It means I have to be ready earlier so I can free up my time to organise him. He's slowly getting better.

D

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

What app do you use? Dp struggles with this (and like you, recognizes his struggles, so attempts to set himself up for success and accepts help). We use Cozi, so I can set appointments and reminders for him that will get pushed to his phone, and he also sets reminders for himself for lots of things (big and small). But he does zone out on the alerts sometimes.

 

You know, I just came across this thread again while searching for something, and I realized I never replied to you! In case you still need to know, I use an app called TickTick (I have an Android phone). It's a to-do list app, so I put in each reminder as a recurring to-do list item. The notification sound I chose is a long, loud, musical sound--long enough for it to reach me through the household noise, but not ongoing like an alarm clock would. It catches my attention but doesn't require me to drop everything to go track my phone down.

 

In this app, for each recurring item you can set the pattern in which the item occurs, down to it only popping up on certain days each week. This was crucial for me--I needed to be able to select the specific days that an item would recur. Most other apps I tried only had daily or "weekly/monthly on X day" options. It took me awhile (several hours) to set the system up and several days to proof it (turns out I have to release each reminder in order for the next reminder to be created, but the notifications stay at the top of my phone until I do so). After that, it worked pretty seamlessly. 

 

I'm about to start working with a bullet journal as well. So I use Google Calendar for events and important reminders (like a bill I need to pay on a specific day), the TickTick reminders to help me flow through my day, and now hopefully a bullet journal to help me capture to-dos, thoughts, ideas etc. as I move through my day so they don't poof into my head and then vanish forever  :tongue_smilie: We'll see how that goes!

Edited November 30, 2015 by ILiveInFlipFlops

[amy g.]

I have this kid too.

 

I don't know that a book is really going to have the answers you need. For my daughter, she had to find her OWN tricks for working around her non typical brain.

 

That doesn't mean that I left her alone to sink or swim, but in helping her, I don't tell her what to do or set up systems for her, I always ask questions instead.

 

What has worked before?

 

Where exactly did your plan break down?

 

Do you think....might be easier for you?

 

What happens is that her solutions look 1,000 harder from the outside. When she tells me her plans, I think that she is going about it in the most complicated way possible.

 

Her professors say,"I'm not sure why you want to have a layover in Portugal just to fly from Houston to Austin, but go ahead if you think you can pull it off."

 

For example, she had a presentation to give. She knew the material. Her power point was already done. She just needed to practice what she was going to say about each slide. She was so stuck and starting to panic. Her solution was to sit down and write a 15 page academic paper on the subject first. Why? Because she figured out that she could manage and organize her ideas if she could see them written down. The act of writing got her unstuck, and it was easier for her to make decisions about what should be kept in, and what was just too much of a tangent.

 

The main way she makes sure she doesn't have an emergency is the belt and suspenders method.

 

She has at least 10 back up plans for every project. So if a major paper is due at 11:00 am. She might email the professor a copy the night before saying,"I still want to revise this tomorrow, but I'm sending you this just in case." Then in the morning, she will work on it some more and print it out. Then she will email it to herself so that she can print it from school if she needs to. Then she saves it on her computer. Then she saves it on a thumb drive.

 

She will leave home at 7:00 am and take her paper to the tutoring center where she will have them look over her grammar and punctuation. She will email the new version to her professor, then print it again.....and it continues.

 

When she was about to give her TedX talk, she leaned over and whispered something to the organizer and he cracked up. She asked him, " Are you sure that you don't want me to run over to the library and buy a back up thumb drive?"

 

I agree that the kid has to be invested in success and want to learn coping mechanisms, but I can't imagine my being able to think up these plans for what works and what doesn't work for my daughters own unique brain.

 

One thing we know is that just leaving them alone to fail repeatedly does not work.

 

I mainly function as a sounding board. I ask probing questions and steer her in the direction of other people who might have more specialized information that she needs.

 

It is a ton of work, but worth it. The world needs the influence and the insight of these diverse thinkers. We can't let them be defeated by missed deaines and lost papers.

[Seasider]

Not from an ASD perspective but something that helps me when I am living life on the fly, too much on the schedule and a tendency to get organized...[ETA DIS. A tendency to get DISorganized!]

 

Not "a" place, but "the" place. I establish only one place a particular sort of thing must live in my house. If papers are to be laid on a table for taking somewhere the next day, there's only one spot on one table where they go. One hook on which to hang my purse and keys. One hook in the bedroom closet for that outfit I'm going to wear tomorrow. That way, even if I was deliberate in setting something out the night before, there's no doubt about what helpful place I set it - it's always the same place. Is training to this same place the real issue, or are there no "only places" established? Not having to stress about where I put things takes a load off mind. I understand it's hard when you have other kids, but if you can devote more attention until this becomes a habit for your son, he might stick with it til it clicks and he can see the benefit.

Edited November 30, 2015 by Seasider