Time management plan

MasterL is 14 and in year 8 at school. He is Autistic, and struggles with many aspects of the school day.... social interactions, keeping up with instructions in class, unexpected interruptions... just to name a few.  His workload is increasing which means more homework, and he is finding it difficult to balance the time he spends on the things he wants to do and the things he has to do when he is at home. 

To be honest, I struggle with the same thing! So much so that sometimes during the day when the kids are at school I get so caught up in a project that I want to do uninterrupted that I lose track of time. So I did something to prevent me being late. I set an alarm on my phone. At 2.30 my phone asks me if BabyR needs to have a feed before we go pick up the kids, and at 2.45 my phone reminds me to leave to get the kids. Sometimes I get to the school early and I'll be standing there chatting with other parents when the alarm goes off. At first they used to laugh at me. Now they all just say "It's time to go get the kids"!!

Tonight when MasterL was having a bit of a meltdown and telling me how much homework he had and that he'd known about it for a while but now it is due and he doesn't have enough time to do it all..... we decided he needed to set a routine around homework. He already has a few routines he runs for himself during the day so this is not a new idea for him. I suggested that he set some alarms like I have to help him remember when to do things until it becomes habit. He was happy to do this, so we sat down together and set some alarms. 


He decided to have alarms for homework time in the afternoon, getting ready for bed time and lights out time. He must have really liked the idea because then he went on to add alarms for the weekend to remind himself to check if he needs to do homework and to clean his room. 

The great thing was that once he had the alarms set he was so much calmer, and managed to go through the rest of the night easily even though his workload had not changed. It's amazing how having a plan makes everything so much easier to manage. 

Brave smart and strong..... my amazing son. And a rant about funding cuts.

I believe it was Christopher Robin who said you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think. Well, technically, it would have been A.A. Milne who said it, I guess.

One thing that strikes me about my Autistic kids is how resilient they are. And how clever. I'll explain.

I go through the day and I process sounds, sights, smells and sensations. I interact with people appropriately. I plan and carry out tasks. I get from one place to another. I smile and laugh or look serious at the right moments (mostly). At the end of the day I am tired from doing all this.

My Autistic kids do the same things. The difference is that they do it all having learned by rote all the social cues and correct responses. They do it all from in the middle of dealing with a sensory system that interprets everything much more intensely- lights are brighter, sounds are louder, touch is painful. That has to be exhausting!

Every time they master skills they get busy using them well in their everyday lives, and then at some stage the rules change. They grow a bit older, and require a new set of more complex skills that they must rote learn and implement. Some stages have a few new skills to acquire, some have lots!

This past year has been a stage with heaps of new skills for my 13 year old Autistic boy to learn, as he started in Year 7 at High School this year, in a mainstream class. We did as much preparation as we could before hand, and off he went. Sadly, it is true that kids on the Autistic Spectrum are much more likely to be bullied than their peers (46% compared to 11%). This has proved to be the biggest issue my son has faced this year. We had him prepared to navigate hallways, deal with 7 teachers, able to cope with a daily timetable that changed over a fortnightly rotation, ready to plan out and manage assessment tasks. We have started teaching him more complex, adult style social cues and responses. What we couldn't get him ready for was having his lunch box stolen, being shoved in the hallways, being called rude names, having money demanded of him by other students, having his school bag urinated on and having his mobile phone stolen. We supported him through all of these things, with the help of our Psychologist and with the co-operation of the school.

Half way through the year the NSW Government took away his individually allocated support funding (click here to read my Open Letter to NSW Politicians expressing my concerns about the Every Student Every School Policy), and he lost time with the Teachers Aide who had been working with him. Things had been hard, but manageable before that. After the funding cut, things got very hard. Both my Hubby and I, and our sons teachers could see he was not coping as well socially.

Amazingly though, even with all the stress he was experiencing, my Brave, Strong, Smart son managed to achieve so well academically that the school has suggested he would be suitable for placement in a class for Gifted and Talented students next year. The suggestion was made as a way to support him better academically as well as socially, as the group of students he will be placed with are highly motivated to learn and much more of a predictable and mature social group.

Not only am I encouraged by the schools willingness to do this for my son, I am sure that it is the more suitable, more supportive environment my son needs to gain back his enjoyment of school and his interest in learning. And I am immensely proud of him! He never fails to rise to the challenges set before him, despite the extra difficulties he has to work through. Seeing him do that is one of my favourite parts of the journey of parenting Autistic children.

The rant part of this post is that the NSW Government should count themselves lucky that they are in the fortunate position of having staff working in their schools who are so committed to seeing kids with additional needs well support regardless of how much resources are stripped away from them. In our family we have already seen the trickle down effect the funding cuts are having. We feel very relieved that the schools our children attend are willing to work with us to make sure our kids get what they need despite having significantly reduced funding to work with. It angers me that the people who made the decision to take away the money that provides that support will never know what the real cost of their decision is and will continue to be.

But lets finish on a positive note. My son is amazing! He has worked hard. He has dealt with things he never thought he could. He has grown. He has persisted. He has achieved well. We are now winding down for the year, having a few days off here and there, even though school is officially still on. Soon we will have a nice long break from school. Next year is a new start in a more supportive environment. I am sure we are going to see more great things form him next year. If he could do so well this year, with all the extra awful things he's had to deal with, imagine how much more he will achieve with many of those stressors removed.

I am one very proud mum!

The Weird Kid

More discussion last night with L about how school is going. Academically, he is powering on. Socially- not so much. His one friend has been absent for the past 2 days, so L chooses to be alone during recess and lunch times. This makes me a bit sad, but in the past I have told myself it's OK because he is happy that way, which kind of helps me feel better.

But it seems now that his desire to be alone if his friend is not there is causing problems. It's not that he couldn't go and hang around with other kids in his class. He'd be welcome to. He's been invited to. But he doesn't want to. They don't do things he wants to be involved in, so he prefers to be alone. This applies to everyone- even teachers. He told me that when he is by himself in the playground, people come up to him and try to talk to him. He thinks it's because they are being nice and checking up on him, but he says he finds it "creepy". He doesn't want people to come up and ask him if he's OK, or if he wants to join them, or even to just sit near him and say 'hi' when they do. He doesn't want to talk to them at all, even to say 'hi' back, because he doesn't know them, he doesn't understand what they want from him, and he just wants to be alone. His words. Some people have even placed a hand on his arm or shoulder as part of their greeting and he really *hates* that. So I asked him what he does if people approach him. He told me he usually doesn't answer them, and that he just walks away without looking at them.

E was listening to this conversation between L and myself. When L left the room she told me that she thinks if he does that too often he will become known as "the weird" kid and he will be picked on and harassed because kids will find it funny to see his unusual reaction. Which is exactly what I was worrying about as I was listening to him talk. She said some of her friends have already told her they think he is a bit strange.

Again, the difficulty of coaching him through this is that I am not there to see what these interactions look like, so I am not able to interpret the intentions of these "creepy" people and help him learn to interpret them appropriately for himself. I am so out of my depth.

I also worry about what is going to happen when L's one friend gets tired of playing the same things, and talking about the same things over and over again? I know that it is starting to happen. L says sometimes his friend wants to go and play with other people, and L doesn't want to join  them. Which is normal, and right. But sad for L, and for me. How long do we have before L is alone in the playground all the time? How do I help him gain confidence to be around people who have different interests to him, when he can already articulate that he knows people think he is "strange" (his words)?

The last thing I want is for my son to become known as "the weird kid". I talked about being weird in my post "The weirder the better", and I still believe there is nothing wrong with being unique or "strange" or  "weird", but right now this is causing my boy problems and anxiety. What should I do? If you have experience getting your own ASD teen boy through this stage, I'd love to hear from you.

I can't sleep

Sometimes I just can't sleep. I'll lie there for hours, waiting to go to sleep, but I don't. Lately I find myself thinking that my arms are all in the way and I can't get comfortable. I am lying in bed thinking about my arms, and then about all the other times over the years I have suffered periods of insomnia.