To think perhaps my son isn’t autistic but instead modern society is too challenging for him to cope with.

[SpinningTops]

My son is 7 and on the long waiting list for an autism assessment.

Sometimes I wonder whether he would cope absolutely fine if he was an 80s or 90s child. Maybe it’s rose tinted glasses but modern life seems so chaotic and jam packed, so much to learn at school etc.

He’s in a small class at school and seeing the number of children struggling, so many with ‘special jobs’ to just get them into the classroom, makes me think something is wrong with the system rather than all these children being neurodiverse. And this is an absolutely wonderful school which outwardly he says he loves.

It’s just something I’ve been thinking more and more about recently …

A bit of a hermit, he builds Lego most of the time.

If we want to go out he very much gets stressed, just wants to stay at home all weekend. I think he needs to recover.

He is very interested in fairness, routine, the only way we can get him out is with a visual timetable of what the day will involve. He gets stressed about when things will happen. We have some explosive meltdowns.

He’s also extremely emotionally aware and loving.

You'll find most teachers agree with you on this.

Yes.

Yep. As a child with undiagnosed dyscalculia (it wasn't recognised as even existing then) though I had to live with the shame of being 'thick' at maths, I will say it mattered less in the great scheme of things.

In some ways, of course, it was wrong that I was just written off. My maths teacher was a kindly soul, but he had no tools to help me, and when my mother asked if I could have extra tuition, he simply said, 'there is no point. She won't pass'.

Terrible as that probably sounds now, it wasn't the end of the world at the time. Whilst we now understand that it wasn't that children like me were just a bit thick, the upside of that is that, back then, being 'just a bit thick' wasn't the huge barrier it is now.

I am a 70s born autistic. Life was absolutely not at all easier for me. Primary school leafy me traumatised. High school was a struggle every day and I was permanently ‘in trouble’. Early adulthood led to self medicating with alcohol, which led to extreme vulnerability resulting in serious sexual abuse.

i went to school in 70s and 80s. different schools across the country and overseas.

It wasn’t always idyllic. I was smacked for getting sums wrong at primary in the UK! Secondary was large and up north, lots of fights every lunchtime , boys often had a quick grope of the girls when passing in corridors, it was loud noisy, 300 kids in a year. I was driven to get on but still had to negotiate a path of doing all my work but not being beaten up as a swot!

At a recent school reunion a number of those in bottom sets were saying how they’d all been diagnosed with ADHD as adults and yet at school they’d been allowed to smoke in the classroom and read magazines as teacher just wasn’t interested.

Yet most recently my ND nephew has 8 GCSEs even though it was a struggle for him.

Maybe it’s harder now for ND kids because they’re not being ignored and being challenged to achieve?

This is so powerful.
Schools were original designed under the 1898(?) education act to produce good little factory workers to keep the country going.
Sadly, lots of what they were founded on never moved on.
Society today doesn't rely on uniforms, limited toilet breaks, lunch 'hours', yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, and yet that's what we're still directed to do.

I mean. I was stuck in a special school in the early 90s because they thought I was unteachable. Turns out I was just deaf and needed hearing aids.

I agree, but I do think it's more of a schools issue than a wider societal one. The one-size-fits-all model of tests, tests and more tests is a nightmare for children who aren't academically minded. DC who constantly fail feel out of kilter with their peers and their surroundings and that can lead to behaviours that are often pegged as ND.

My DD was one of those DC. She struggled, failed most of her GCSEs but is now at a vocational college doing a BTech and is like a different child. The practical lessons and less-loaded timetable suit her far more than traditional schooling.

I don’t disagree with this. We’ve made a conscious effort to be a fairly technology free household.
The kids watch a hour or so of TV Friday - Sunday. Nothing mid week.
They don’t have access to tablets / phones.

They play, Lego, knit, draw etc and are probably happier for it (even if they don’t know it!)

Autism is based on the child displaying odd behaviour (stimming, etc..) and developmental delays. Is your son displaying different behaviours and struggling?

I agree this. I have left education, one of the reasons the current curriculum. From year 1 onward, education is like a secondary school. If you can't sit in a chair and write for 6 hours, you'll be left behind and become disengaged.

I don't know whether there are children misdiagnosed, but the rigidity of the curriculum means only certain children thrive.

This is disgusting, and not unsurprising.

My son barely saw a screen until he was over 3 but he still had very clear adhd traits from babyhood. Reflux baby, screamed constantly, desperate to be mobile, walked at 9 months unaided, running by 10 months, climbed everything, had no interest in a screen as it would mean sitting down. I had friends with boys the same age and we spent all day either in parks or softplays or playgroups because they all had a lot of energy. Yet I remember when all the boys were chasing round a tree one day and the other 2 sat down to eat and drink, my son ate 2 bites and was back running at speed. He spent about 3 times as long constantly moving as his pals.

Incidentally one for those boys had an entirely screen free existence with a very crunchy German mum and moved back to Germany when they were 4, still screen free, very monessori, diagnosed at 7 with ADHD and attended a socialist school for a year to get school ready.

It's an inate brain difference. Before screens were the focus it was something else. For me it was novels and encyclopedias. My son has screens, his current obsession though is Pokémon and while he has Pokémon switch games his favourite passtime is Pokémon books filled with facts and categorisations.

You see what you want to see.

Also he can't focus on a screen even the way a neurotypical kid does, he plays a switch game hanging upside down off a chair cycling his legs and manages 20 minutes stints even at that. I see friends kids who totally zone out on a screen, my kid is upside down or jogging on the spot and talking incessantly about what he's viewing or playing. He's also rather be outside or trampoline or basically in constant motion which you just can't be and screens give us and him a brief break from the constant movement.

It’s an interesting question isn’t it. School tends to be quite rigid, kids have to fit in. If they don’t then they’re seen as the problem. There’s next to no viewing of children as individuals unless they have a diagnosis.

friend of mine took her boys out of school and home schooled them. I’m unsure if they ever got diagnosed with autism or not but that was the way the school were heading. She focused the home schooling on stuff they were interested in and they thrived. They’re both young adults now and doing really well.

Yep. This exactly.

Schools in 80s and 90s had no leaning through play for Reception. It was straight to desks and learning and no wandering round. Higher up the school there was less low level behaviour issues as you weren't allowed to talk except at certain points and no wandering off to get a drink. Classrooms were less noisy and busy than modern day ones. Which may be a part of the reason why ND kids coped better, quieter, calmer and clear expectations. And there were more special Schools, so the really struggling kids never made it to mainstream.

Absolutely. DD struggled in primary with the open concept of having a topic going through all subjects and no timetable.
Too much free flow, too much sudden changes to what was done the day before.

Come secondary and she was in heaven. Knowing what subject was when and where did wonders.

She burnt out during Covid though - see above, too chaotic but academically she improved so much.

Actually, this post sums it up far better than I did! Powerful stuff - and absolutely true.

I agree.
Of course there are many kids/adults who have ADHD regardless of screens, but I think there is a significant proportion of kids whose ability to concentrate and focus has been destroyed by screen exposure.

I can even see it in myself. I’ve taken to watching YouTube Shorts, and now I definitely find it harder to sit and watch a whole TV programme, because my brain is expecting a new film every couple of minutes. I’m a 58 year old professional, so of course I know this is easily reversible for me, but I don’t think the same could be said for developing young brains. Children who spend their days watching TikToks are going to find it hard to suddenly sit in a class focussing quietly on maths.

They absolutely are being over diagnosed. This will be the shame of the decade, in years to come. We're not helping our young or society by over diagnosing.

That is a very stereotypical way to describe Autism. My DD can mask for the best, you wouldn't know she has it.

Absolutely no developmental delays unless you count the inability to read social cues.
She stimms mainly at home because this is where she feels safe.

I don't think the increase in adhd is a surprise when children, at an ever growing younger age, are increasingly more exposed to mental and physical stimuli. They little minds are constantly stimulated with external triggers. They already have to concentrate on so much to just learn the normal childhood stages, but it's no enough.

Children nowadays don't know what silence is. They don't know what boredom is (ie. a time to be left with your thoughts and develop creative skills). Parents encourage a constant buzzing environment and even feel guilty when they don't.

Kids grow to be overwhelmed, fight against it and bingo, they have adhd. And whilst interventions are put in place to try to manage the 'crisis' times, the kids continue to be overstimulated, sadly often even more as they are yet thrown into a world of even more interventions.

Kids need calm timrs to recuperate and grow healthily.

Completely. It’s obviously better that kids aren’t just written off as being thick now. However it is a shame that there is this pressure for everyone to be able to achieve.

I don't think the increase in adhd is a surprise when children, at an ever growing younger age, are increasingly more exposed to mental and physical stimuli. They little minds are constantly stimulated with external triggers. They already have to concentrate on so much to just learn the normal childhood stages, but it's no enough.

Children nowadays don't know what silence is. They don't know what boredom is (ie. a time to be left with your thoughts and develop creative skills). Parents encourage a constant buzzing environment and even feel guilty when they don't.

Kids grow to be overwhelmed, fight against it and bingo, they have adhd. And whilst interventions are put in place to try to manage the 'crisis' times, the kids continue to be overstimulated, sadly often even more as they are yet thrown into a world of even more interventions.

Kids need calm timrs to recuperate and grow healthily.