Priorities and Time

[Lecka]

It’s that time of year I think about goals, and...... yet again I feel there are goals I have but no time to reach them, because they are lower down on the priority list.

The top of the priority list is taken up by reading/language.  This is the most related to daily life.  It’s the lowest scoring area (he scored really low on vocabulary).  I see the time spent paying off in all kinds of ways, and I think it deserves to be the top priority and it deserves the time.  

Then the next priorities are whole-child kinds of things, with non-academic proiorities.  This is important and frankly it is necessary.  I can’t get around it being necessary.  It’s tough to justify taking time away here, because it is necessary.  

Then comes all the goals I would like to have, but they are farther down the priority list, and overall I cannot justify taking time from things higher on the priority list.  

I am hoping to add a few things in, in a small way, which I think will be good enough.  But it won’t be at the level I would like to do.  

[PeterPan]

Well option one is school takes a lot of time and you toss it. Option two is you weave the goals so you're accomplishing multiple goals at the same time. So like with Cooking to Learn, we're doing adaptive living plus LA.

[Lecka]

Thinking back, within reading/language, 6 months or a year ago, I wanted to focus more on building background knowledge and vocabulary.  That’s going well, and continues to be a high priority.  

It just doesn’t have the sense of “he couldn’t do a skill, and now he has learned it” that some more concrete things will have.

Yes, there are times when he remembers something in a new context.  Yes, there are times I can see that his vocabulary is expanding.

But it is not something where there is obvious progress, and I would like to do things where I could “see” progress, but objectively I think the things that need to be higher priorities are not things that have very obvious progress.  

He has a hard time understanding vocabulary words from context, so it just takes more time for fewer words, compared to my other two kids who are better able to learn new words from context.  It is also hard for him to understand small differences in meaning between similar words.  

[PeterPan]

There is some work using Alzheimer's medications with autism and learning challenges. It might not be something that better techniques make better but that you just keep plugging away at, sigh. I think, like you're saying, think very long-term. Passing a test isn't as important as adaptive living, that kind of thing.

 

[Lecka]

School is shining in non-academic ways and in ways I could not replicate.

I have met some homeschoolers here and I volunteered in the homeschooling room at Bible Study.  I can’t see it as a fit for my boys.  My daughter would thrive.

I have to make a real effort to appreciate the non-academic side, I am not drawn to it.

But truthfully it is a good environment for him and he is making good non-academic gains.

He does also pick up on some good peer influences. And, his self-esteem is good, and at home he is always second-best to my daughter, and I strongly suspect that would be an issue if they were together more.  On top of that she doesn’t want to do everything together with him, and she gets that separation from him in a way she wouldn’t get.  

So *overall* it is the right choice.

There are just some things that aren’t getting done in a way I would like.  Like — they just are not getting done.

But it is things where — if his language and non-academic stuff isn’t there, it won’t matter anyway, so it is very much things that are in the lower area of priorities. 

It *seems like* I should be able to have more balance and add some things in more, but it is so hard to build routines and I need to be consistent with him.  I have got some good routines built right now, and in theory I could add more routines, but I don’t know if I really can add more and still maintain what we have got.  I’m going to make some effort, but every time I look at it I think I have got to prioritize maintaining some current routines.  

It takes long enough to get into a routine, that there is a real opportunity cost in not maintaining something that is established and working.  

Sigh.  

[Lecka]

Yes — it’s plugging away.  I am pretty sure I’m making appropriate choices, it is just plugging away and more plugging away.  

He is 10 and I am starting to think there are some things we just may not get to, because it is more important to keep plugging away and plugging away.  

But I think my priorities are appropriate, related to his daily life, personally meaningful to him, etc, and all of those good things.  

But suffice it to say, anything that doesn’t meet the bar of “related to his daily life, personally meaningful to him, etc,” is NOT HAPPENING.  

Edit:  and yet, I spend a surprising amount of time with him one-on-one.  A LOT is happening.  Really — I do a lot.  The top priorities just take a lot of time.  

And I AM pleased with his progress in the areas of priority.  Things are going well with him.  

I just hate not getting to the things that are not happening.  

Edited December 20, 2018 by Lecka

[Lecka]

Really I think it would help me to quit thinking of the word “non-academic” and replace it with “core features of autism.”

At school I think they do shine with “core features of autism.”  It is important and worthwhile.  I have made choices based on thinking that because of my son’s individual strengths and weaknesses, it is the best choice to have a big focus on “core features of autism.”  

And then — I am able to do enough at home that I don’t feel like I truly need more time with him at home to work on the top priorities.  

There are just trade-offs to make, and I really don’t like it.  And in *theory* I could have more balance, but as I look at my daily routines and overall priorities, I don’t think there is a way to have it all.  

But still I hope I can add in a little here and there and see how it goes!  It’s like — I want to do that, but I also want to keep focus on higher priorities and established routines, and it is hard for me to get things done that are not established as a routine.  

I keep thinking that he will get to a certain point with reading where I will feel like it’s fine to spend less time on reading, but it keeps not happening.  Even though he is making progress.  

[PeterPan]

Well I was being more b&w. I totally agree with your analysis that school is doing for your family what you think it is. It's very clear it is. And I'm sort of there too, realizing our trajectory is slower than I'd like. My current solution (besides overlapping areas to get dual work) is to STICK MY HEAD IN THE SAND. That's an option. I can pretend it's not happening or something astonishing will happen, which is my current approach. I'm just not thinking about it, because there's squat zilch, zero I can do about it. 

The other, more reasonable option is to plan on extended time. I think we can keep them in till 21, and I think for that ASD2/3 range that's COMMON, really really common. So if you extend it out that long, do things look a little better?

The other thing you can do is stop and ask if something foundational was missed to make the skill acquisition go better. For instance, working on language consistently has improved my ds' reading. Northern Speed Services has a video explaining that idea of gestalt language learning and why it glitches reading. So not that I would stop the decoding, but there might be something else there that would unlock it, who knows.

The Epiphany blog has that info about using medications to improve learning in the ASD population. It's not so crazy, but we can't make it happen. But again, I'm b&w. If it can't happen, then he's going to have to have a good life WITHOUT that piece in place or with whatever that piece is really going to look like. Is he going to be able to read crosswords? Comics? His apps? What kind of reading skills would he need for leisure and recreation? You could have some goals like that. I'm not sure "reads a book" is really where we're going with my ds, but it enriches his life to be able to read environmental print. It *motivates* him to have environmental print he needs to read in order to access. You could think of it that way, like how to get the reading goal and some other goals to merge. The Wii has a lot of reading. Some apps have reading. Maybe bingo in the car or matching pictures and words? Then you can be working on several skills at once.

[Lecka]

I think 90% of my problem is I have a twin sister who is a 4th grade girl.  It makes it really hard for me to stick my head in the sand too much.  I would like to!  

Most of the time I am happy with his progress and think he is doing well.  Just sometimes!  Because I do things are going well and to change would have trade-offs we don’t think would be better.  

 

[Lecka]

Well, I feel much better this morning.  

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, Lecka said:

Well, I feel much better this morning.  

How much chocolate did it take?   Anyways, I'm glad!  I agree finding a way to think through that and be at peace with it and just sticking with it is a good thing. It's hard because we're both fighting AND needing to accept and have peace at the same time. They don't seem mutually compatible, but they have to be or we'll go crazy.

Edited December 21, 2018 by PeterPan

[mamashark]

11 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

How much chocolate did it take?   Anyways, I'm glad!  I agree finding a way to think through that and be at peace with it and just sticking with it is a good thing. It's hard because we're both fighting AND needing to accept and have peace at the same time. They don't seem mutually compatible, but they have to be or we'll go crazy.

Seriously about the chocolate! I went through an entire bar the other day instead of my usual ration of one piece...

One thing I was pondering as I read through this conversation is that sometimes you will make gains that you didn't expect, even with a lower priority piece. My top priority with my daughter with dyslexia is reading. Math is a lesser priority. So we spend our time on each very differently. And yet she's starting to make some surprising gains in math, even with it lower down my priority list. 

I am such a free-spirit that adding in all these routines really push me...(and cause me to eat more chocolate...) but my husband helps me to tweak things and sometimes as I look at things that aren't working but that I want to have as a higher priority without losing other high priority things, I just work a little harder to figure out a way to intertwine them, so that I'm meeting goals across a wider spectrum with the same 30-60 minute chunk of time, similar to what PeterPan mentioned upthread. When it works, it's magical. When it doesn't, I split some wood, clear my head, and try again.

[Lecka]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

How much chocolate did it take?   Anyways, I'm glad!  I agree finding a way to think through that and be at peace with it and just sticking with it is a good thing. It's hard because we're both fighting AND needing to accept and have peace at the same time. They don't seem mutually compatible, but they have to be or we'll go crazy.

This is so true!

[Lecka]

I think I really may be intertwining more than I was thinking yesterday.

A while back (beginning of summer maybe) I got some Gail Gibbons books and some Magic School Bus Level 2 readers, that have turned out to go really well, that combine some science with reading and add in a lot of good vocabulary.  And that IS going well.

That does make me feel like I am doing more.  

Really it is better to focus on what I am doing, than what I’m not doing.  

[Lecka]

Well, we are having a nice evening now, and he is cooperating etc and it is going well.  It would not have been possible a couple of years ago, or we would have all been walking on eggshells at minimum.  

It does make me feel a lot better about what our priorities have been, because it is not something I can take for granted.