Created a bit of nightmare for myself, help!

[FatCatThinCat]

My son is autistic so to help him socialise and get out the house I booked him in to do various classes and hobbies. All very informal and focussed on having fun. He's really enjoyed them over the last few years and does have friends there, although he never mixes away from classes.

But now he's older all the classes are becoming a bit more serious, with more training expectations, and greater time demands. It's not possible for him to continue with all of them. I had thought that he'd take to a couple more than others and would naturally drop out of some. But he hasn't and he desperately wants to continue with everything (except swimming which he hates, which is the only one he HAS to do).

So what do I do? He's going into complete meltdown at the suggestion of dropping stuff, but he can't be in two places at the same time. How would you handle this?

Can he alternate? If two things are on the same time do one thing one week & the other one the week after? I appreciate that might not work for all activities though.

Can you do a visual choice for him? So a picture of your ds and a picture of each of the activities and then a bit of paper saying Monday. Then ask "which one would (ds name) like to go to at 7pm? Computer club or tennis. He can only go to one- which do you think will be better?" He might be able to make a choice with it as a problem to solve.

I did think about alternating where possible but I don't think he'd cope with that. He's quite rigid with his routine.

Visualising might help. I'm going to try that. I do have some incling of his preference but not sure if he fully understands the consequences.

The hardest one is jujutsu now clashing with his swimming lesson. The one he loves the most vs the one he hates. I can change the swimming lesson for next term but I've already paid for this coming term. I'm even thinking of going swimming myself at the same time so that he can stay after and go down the water slides. Must be at least 30 years since I last put on a swimming costume. I hate the water too!

Stop the swimming then.

Don't force him.

Honestly, as the parent of a DS16 with autism who has slowly dropped all his hobbies and interests thanks to crippling anxiety - let him do the stuff he loves. He can always learn to swim later.

Have you tried to speak to the swimming lesson people and see if they’d defer the payments to the one you can change him to next term? (Presuming it’s the same school)

I’d see if I could defer swimming and let him do the class he loves - if he’s engaged and enjoys it it’ll do wonders for his sense of achievement.

@FatCatThinCat

The hardest one is jujutsu now clashing with his swimming lesson. The one he loves the most vs the one he hates. I can change the swimming lesson for next term but I've already paid for this coming term. I'm even thinking of going swimming myself at the same time so that he can stay after and go down the water slides. Must be at least 30 years since I last put on a swimming costume. I hate the water too!

I would keep the jujitsu, suck up the swimming lesson loss and the restart swimming on a different date. Perhaps, as he hates it, you could consider 1-2-3 lessons where you both have a ‘lesson’ to learn to swim helping his fear and loathing, and yours, at the same time.

I have a DC with NOTHING. Everything DC has quit and I’m at the point of not even trying to organise stuff but it’s impacting on me massively as I can’t do stuff

So from experience I’d do the above.