Is it a society/systemic problem or an individual’s problem?

Agree
Actually I'd say millions of people are perfectly satisfied doing a job that pays the bills, which they aren't particularly passionate about. Great if you can have both, but for many people that's what hobbies and pastimes are for. Work is work, fun is fun.

Sailing is hardly that difficult to even get into. There are at least 3 different places within half an hour of me that do the RYAC first few courses, and then more specialist options, for about £200 each. If he's over 21 he could earn that in 2-3 shifts in McDonalds (or his preferred alternative). Or take out a loan like the vast majority of people doing a degree have to. If he was that passionate about it he could have joined sea cadets as a child or the navy as an adult. It's hardly an insurmountable challenge if that's the career path he wants. It's not like the costs of becoming a pilot, for example, which are expensive!

Very few people walk straight into their ideal job in their chosen career first. It's completely normal to do a few different jobs to gain experience (or just money!) and climb the ladder. ND or not you have to put in SOME effort and show some initiative yourself, you can't expect the govt to hold your hand and do everything for you.

That's sad. What should have happened is he be allowed to pursue his ambition whilst also working hard at school so he had a back up in case it didn't work out (as it won't for the majority of young athletes). Then he could have got some qualifications that could help him become a PE teacher or coach cricket stars. I'm all for encouraging kids to dream but not at expense of their schoolwork.

My DM used to say the same about 'careers advice' even back in the early 80s when I was a teenager. Scoffing ' most people get a job, not a career and most just grin and bear it, career satisfaction..what rot!' Can still hear that ringing through my ears.

I blame primary schools for starting to plug the "you can be anything you want to be" nonsense. They actively encourage young children and make out that, yes, they can be professional footballers, oscar winning actors, astronauts, etc. Then when they get a bit older the reality of life smacks them in the face and they realise they've been led up the garden path and then, too many times, they've not actually prepared themselves for an alternative "normal" life.

My nephew is a case in point. School hyped him up to think he was good enough to be a professional cricketer. As a result, he neglected his school studies as, of course, you don't need GCSEs to be a cricketer do you? He spent most of his teen years playing in local teams waiting to be "talent spotted". By the time reality hit, he'd left school with a string of really poor grades and ended up driving a van!

Kafka was an insurance salesman...

Is it due to ND or just unrealistic expectations regardless. I know a lad, 21, wants to be a rock star, doesn't want to work in ordinary jobs, ( gets sacked usually)no work ethic, no qualifications..thinks he's going to be discovered by someone walking past his house hearing him practicing in his bedroom...no gigs, no recording, studio..
He's not got any ND, just indulgent parents who don't want to upset him. Not wealthy either.

I would have thought he could work in another job in the meantime while he saved for training too. I can see why Maccy D's might not be a good fit for someone ND, depending on how it affects them. He isn't unreasonable to want something more suited to his disabilities. But it's unusual to waltz into your dream job at entry level.

@AlertCat Did he mention why he wasn't able to pursue a career in sailing? I would have thought the Navy could be an option, or working in the fishing trawler industry. Or he could work in another job while he earns enough to train.

Well there's a middle ground.
We all have to work and we take what we can get to pay the bills and pave the way for other opportunities. Some people get the shit stick, some hit the jack pot.

But with ND..some jobs really aren't suitable and it's not a case of sucking it up because quite bluntly..colleagues don't like it. I have Autism, but there was no diagnosis or help in my youth..I took what I got and my God I was awful..I lost all my confidence because I could not understand what was going wrong. I kept trying again and again and would fall flat on my face. It got to the point my hands were shaking when I awnsered the phone and I'd leave sweaty handprints on the hand set 😂 I'd have a panic attack on the way to the office, I carried a sick bag in my car for my morning pit stop...

But I actually found in the past few years the job centre and employers really helpful and supportive. (Maybe got lucky?) The job centre has disability specialists now and they did actually make sure I was in the right job that I would thrive in. I also have found employers fantastic. I'm not sure if that's because they are the disability confident and not all are the same. Either way I have found having supportive work environment actually helped me do work that use to cause meltdowns..I can cope with a lot more when I don't feel stressed, judged or ostracised. So maybe it's changing perspectives and removing the hostility in the work places alongside realistic jobs.

Yes he has an EHCP. At the moment he does one day functional skills (maths & english), one day work skills and one day placement.

Does your son have access to do a functional skills course? I know a lot of colleges offer them nowadays but not sure if he’d need an EHCP as this covers education funding until 25.

This is the problem with modern life I think, everyone has to multi task and for some people that's really difficult.

I wasn’t making a blanket statement as in all ND people would struggle with a job at McDonald’s for example, but more citing the challenges that often crop up. In my years working in retail I worked with some autistic people and there were some obvious struggles, mainly to do with customer facing back and forth interactions. In such a fast paced environment it’s also very much down to having a very understanding employer, and again you’re unlikely to get managers with experience of how to meet the needs of ND employees. Putting someone on making fries on paper sounds doable, but unexpected things crop up in even the simplest tasks. I hate to sound negative about these things, but that’s just coming from my own working experience. I have an autistic son who I have no idea about his working potential but it does worry me how brutal it is out there even for NT people.

Nobody like working at McDonald's. I enjoyed working at McDonald's. That must make me neuro-divergent. 😀

DS can be quite sociable, more than people typically imagine for someone with ASD. So I don't think he especially minds working with people, what he finds most difficult is processing information and sudden change.

So he might be okay at somewhere like McDonalds if he had one job e.g cooking the fries, was given an adequate amount of training to be good at that one job then not suddenly be asked to switch mid shift to cooking burgers or another task he wasn't familiar with.

The reason I ask is because we have a real problem in horticulture that our wages are supressed by volunteer workers, those training, and charitable opportunities ‘ie. Sen, nd, outreach - you name it’.

Whilst horticultural therapy is great for many people and good for them; we have this as a real problem within the industry.

And it’s a win win for these organisations. Man power at no wages or minimal. Plus they can tick some boxes and say look at us - look how good we are.

But for the industry it’s nothing short of a disaster. We need knowledgable and competent professional people to be able to earn good wages to upkeep our environment. There’s loads of money spent on schemes in public sector to improve people’s lives, environment etc and then they go to shit because there’s not enough skilled professionals to maintain.

Okay maybe I won't add it then!

They were awful with my son, the environment is horrendous for neurodiversity on a sensory, social and anxiety level and given their sexual harassment history is not a place I’d want any of my ND young people working in again.

The public and charity sector does account for most of the placements. Occasionally you can get public sector office based placements too but sitting at a desk wouldn't suit DS so we've not pursued those.

I'll add McDonalds to my list of potential future employment. Aldi claims to be ND friendly but I don't know if that's true in practice.

Great thread!

I'm with the peeps who say following your passion isn't enough, ND or NT. When I left school, I went to art college to become an artist. (Specifically a pale, poetic, Pre-Raphaelite artist.) Guess what - that's not how I earned my living for the next 30 years. (It was IT.)

Here's an article that expresses it better it than I can: calnewport.com/on-passion-and-its-discontents/

The problem with most min wage jobs is that they tend customer facing, fast paced roles, which is generally a nightmare for someone ND. If you’re making burgers all day in maccy’s it’s got to be loud, fast paced and orders are flying in from here there and everywhere, which again could be an ND persons worst nightmare. It can also take ND people much longer to settle into a role and become good at it, longer than typical, and many employers are not that patient. The only other option is for them to become qualified (and good) at something they are actually passionate about. Therein lies the challenge. No the gov shouldn’t fund someone who’s ND something that they would need to fund themselves, ie learning to sail. They would ironically need to get that job making burger in order to save up for it!

That makes sense. We have the LA itself maintaining gardens, plus a famous rhs garden, and several national trust gardens locally, so I can imagine they would be open to supporting this type of thing more than other employer.

I know McDonald's also has an excellent reputation for supporting ND and several cafes rin by charities.

My experience is that it's a case of accepting any organisations who are willing to take SEN young people. Often that's more the hands on/physical work type of companies.

The pathway my DS has been on it's been up to the course co-ordinators to scrabble around trying to find placements, a number of which end up falling through. If they do happen it often ends up poorly planned, the start date being much later than it should have been and the hours offered not what was agreed.

It's a bit of mess really despite the college trying their best for the young people and difficult to navigate for a demographic of people who really need clear instruction and consistency but rarely get that.

I’m in the process of qualifying for a not particularly well paid but highly skilled job that I am passionate about. I’ve done shit jobs in the past- I’m quite an anxious person and I spent my days off fretting about my working days. I think if you are someone who can easily separate work and leisure time, doing a job that you are not interested in or even hate, purely for the money, is fine (my DB is like this). Whatever my job, work always becomes my life, so it’s important to me that I enjoy it.

Anyway, I don’t think most young people do multiple degrees to “find their passion”. I think they usually already have a passion/something they know they could be passionate about, and then pursue it, which is slightly different IMO. There are exceptions of course- presumably those people are massively loaded.

Its one of 3 options my LA offers for SEN post 16 'pathway' so you will have to ask them why it's to go to job. I'd love to know what the process was for these specific pathways.

I can only assume people think if you like sailing, you are happy out in all weather's and there are more opportunities in horticulture than sailing?