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What do your autistic children enjoy?

49 replies

Thatsthatthen87 · 10/07/2022 09:18

My son is 10 and nonverbal. He loves anything 'messy' (currently playing with flour) but I'm really nervous about the holidays and how to keep him entertained at home as he can get really violent and destructive. Is anyone in a similar boat and has found something that their very autistic children have absolutely loved and been entertained for hours by? 😬

OP posts:
caringcarer · 10/07/2022 11:46

Bowling cricket balls. He is obsessed with it and bowls these balls for several hours each day.

Ilovechoc12 · 10/07/2022 12:01

Salt dough and painting the creations
trampoline

jigsaws
computer is his fav - spends nearly all his spare time on it

Tilda77 · 10/07/2022 12:29

My DS has many things that keep him entertained. Many have been mentioned already. He loves playing with water. Bin lorries where he finds all sorts of things to fill it up with. Mainly lego and pieces of paper that he has cut up. His biggest passion is vacuum cleaners. He spends hours watching videos on YouTube about vacuum cleaners, saves his pocket money to buy them and cleans the house with them! His love of them began when he was 2 and has never gone away .

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x2boys · 10/07/2022 13:01

My son is 12 and severely autistic he's non verbal, he adores water,we got him a hot tub last year for his birthday an inflatable one ,he absolutely loves it .

Theladybirdthatsaidboo · 10/07/2022 13:08

Post it notes, of different colours, sizes and shapes. Covered his bedroom in them, wrote numbers on them, made trails with them - great thing is they stick but are easy to remove.

Spudlet · 10/07/2022 13:08

DS loves a fan. He likes anything that spins - watching it, controlling it, moving it around. And it keeps him cool! Bonus.

Also - swimming, any water play at all, or cycling. He likes going paddling in the river too - obviously with an adult right beside him. He likes going around squirting things with his little water pistol that I got in a pound shop, that sort of thing.

boopdeflouff · 10/07/2022 13:09

I agree with a Tuff tray, we love ours! DS generally dislikes mess but he has a friend who loves vacuum. So we would make the mess on the Tuff tray and he would clean it up. Shaving foam is a favourite.

DS loves water, in any form. An inflatable pool in the garden is a big help.

boopdeflouff · 10/07/2022 13:09

Forgot to say a wet and dry vac is just the dream for DS' friend!

LunaAndHerMoonDragons · 11/07/2022 07:52

Thatsthatthen87 · 10/07/2022 10:51

Also, does anyone else have a child who hurts them (and themselves) when upset? I don't know how to deal with this other than by avoiding upsetting him which is difficult sometimes and he's obviously getting bigger and stronger now.

The hurting you, me and his siblings go into a different room and close the door and I sit against it. He still smashes into the door, but he wears himself out fast this way. I used to put the kids in the room and stay in front of the door on the same side as him, didn't want to leave him alone, but he's too big now so it really doesn't help the situation. He doesn't purposefully hurt himself but he doesn't notice if he's hurting himself. It in no way feels like a good solution and wouldn't work if he also tried to break things like the TV or windows, but currently it's the best solution I can come up with.

My youngest is carzy about water, he used to love watching YouTube videos of people throwing toys into water. It's his favourite game, he throws toys into the bath or paddling pool. He'll also happily line up every toy we have in the hall.

Mine are really into Minecraft, but I saw that's not something he can do at least currently. Could he possibly use a console like a switch? There's less complex games. My DC find it a good way to escape the overwhelm, though too much isn't good either.

TheFormidableMrsC · 11/07/2022 09:22

My 11 yo is not non verbal, he is quite the opposite so I think that makes things easier. He fixates on things. He likes little cars and lining them up. He has a metal detector and loves collecting "treasure" rubbish. He's very outdoorsy so we do a lot of cycling, hiking etc. He loves his trampoline and his tablet. We also go paddling with fishing nets and he's asked for a fishing magnet for the holidays so he can collect more treasure 😆. He's also very creative so making things or decorating them. He loves charity shops and it's a cheap way to find bits for him to work on. He keeps me busy!!

TheFormidableMrsC · 11/07/2022 09:22

My 11 yo is not non verbal, he is quite the opposite so I think that makes things easier. He fixates on things. He likes little cars and lining them up. He has a metal detector and loves collecting "treasure" rubbish. He's very outdoorsy so we do a lot of cycling, hiking etc. He loves his trampoline and his tablet. We also go paddling with fishing nets and he's asked for a fishing magnet for the holidays so he can collect more treasure 😆. He's also very creative so making things or decorating them. He loves charity shops and it's a cheap way to find bits for him to work on. He keeps me busy!!

Newrunner29 · 11/07/2022 11:32

Thatsthatthen87 · 10/07/2022 10:51

Also, does anyone else have a child who hurts them (and themselves) when upset? I don't know how to deal with this other than by avoiding upsetting him which is difficult sometimes and he's obviously getting bigger and stronger now.

My daughter would try and do this I always try and turn it to something else, like if she starts hitting her head with hands I will take hands and make her clap and say clap so redirecting the stimming

Newrunner29 · 11/07/2022 11:34

Stimming or frustration

Newrunner29 · 11/07/2022 11:34

Or jumping

TheFormidableMrsC · 11/07/2022 11:57

Thatsthatthen87 · 10/07/2022 10:51

Also, does anyone else have a child who hurts them (and themselves) when upset? I don't know how to deal with this other than by avoiding upsetting him which is difficult sometimes and he's obviously getting bigger and stronger now.

Yes I do. I walk away. He's a massive child and I've been injured many times. I just put myself out of harms way and let him sort himself out. He often punches, bites or scratches himself and I will say it makes me sad but quite honestly he's best left to get over the meltdown by himself. It's hard going though.

doadeer · 11/07/2022 12:01

My son is non verbal he likes coloured stones and chickpeas.
Water. I just get loads of containers and he tips it between them
Kinetic sand
He likes to go swimming
Play in the dirt
Listen to Disney songs

x2boys · 11/07/2022 12:11

doadeer · 11/07/2022 12:01

My son is non verbal he likes coloured stones and chickpeas.
Water. I just get loads of containers and he tips it between them
Kinetic sand
He likes to go swimming
Play in the dirt
Listen to Disney songs

He sounds a lot like my son ,he will spend hours pouring water in and out of different containers.
It's the randomness of stuff he likes🤣

SpaceJamtart · 11/07/2022 12:12

Not my child but my brother. Fan of messy sensory things, searching, sorting and physics e.g. floating spinning gravity etc

Finding hidden things in the dark with a torch, when he was little it was finding trucks and cars, when he was early teens it became those glass pebbles.

Finding loose change buried in sand with a fork or a sieve or chopsticks (pirate treasure)

Baby sized paddling pool with cornflower water mix or paint or sand or ice cubes or rice krispies, shaving foam, frozen peas, uncooked rice or pasta, mud etc sometimes a combination

Water toys

Potions

Big roll of paper sellotaped to the walls for doodling on

Ramps that go down the stairs, bigger the better for rolling things down or cars

Making parachutes for different sized toys to then race them off the bannister, developed from a love of throwing anything he could off the bannister

Making dens with the sofa and blankets and cardboard, (bulldog clips are amazing for keeping sheets up and attached to clothes airers.) He wanted nobody else in these

Outside, he liked going to little rivers (if no other families close by) to sit in or float toys in or make rope swings near.

Treasure hunts in the woods, usually chocolate coins because he liked pirates

Digging holes in beaches

Diverting water in beaches by digging tunnels

Hoovering, the neighbors would let him come and hoover round their houses too, and cleaning glass windows with the spray (just water spray before he could be trusted not to drink it)

Painting walls, he used to use his pocket money to save up to repaint the bedroom, every summer for 8 years between 8-16

Whittling

Paper mache goo, just sensory not making anything.

Testing the power on rechangable batteries

Sorting buttons and beads

Shaving foam and the squirty bath soap, and frozen flannels.

Roundabouts, swings, slides, mostly accessed at night or really early in the morning to avoid people before he got older and could handle waiting for his turn etc

easyday · 11/07/2022 12:13

My niece (12) loves swimming, but of course that's a limited activity!
She collects those little plastic dolls and creatures - they come out of an egg? She takes a bag full of them when out and about and she will play with those (though I think she's moved on to dinosaurs now that I think about it). Anything she can organise in a 100 different ways.

SpaceJamtart · 11/07/2022 12:22

Also as a child who loved watching water pour and splash and sitting in rivers, as an adult he has a garden fountain in his bedroom. Will watch it happily for hours and has done for years, it keeps him calm and he likes the noise when he sleeps.

doadeer · 11/07/2022 12:23

@x2boys

Literally I'd say we do this for about 3 hours a day! It intense commitment to water play 😆

doadeer · 11/07/2022 12:24

SpaceJamtart · 11/07/2022 12:22

Also as a child who loved watching water pour and splash and sitting in rivers, as an adult he has a garden fountain in his bedroom. Will watch it happily for hours and has done for years, it keeps him calm and he likes the noise when he sleeps.

What a lush idea!!

x2boys · 11/07/2022 12:28

doadeer · 11/07/2022 12:23

@x2boys

Literally I'd say we do this for about 3 hours a day! It intense commitment to water play 😆

Yes my son likes to play in the sink ,first thing he runs to when he wakes up ,the problem is if I take my eyes off the ball for a minute everything ends up in the sink 🤣

ForTheLoveOfSleep · 11/07/2022 12:36

x2boys · 11/07/2022 12:11

He sounds a lot like my son ,he will spend hours pouring water in and out of different containers.
It's the randomness of stuff he likes🤣

My daughter does this with bricks and two mixing bowls. 😀

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