Having problems HE my 6yr ASD son...

[logi]

Hi i have an almost 7yr old ds who i am trying to HE after a bad experience at MS school (he only went for 2-3 weeks) but its proving very difficult for me and i feel im letting him down.
Docs ect. have said he would benefit from an autistic unit so i agreed to maybe try 2 days a week, so he was supposed to have his name put before a panel to get a place ..we have waited months for this ..anyway the meeting took place and apparently my son wasnt put forward (everyone seems to be blaming someone else).
I would like to keep HE but he wont do what i ask of him and ive tried to make it fun ect.
Also he doesnt mix with any children his own age and often seems bored/lonely he wont go out much even a trip to the shop is a real effort ....i just dont know what to do for the best.

I wonder who you need to contact about that? If you register him with the LEA they'd have to place him pretty quickly I suppose. What about asking for a home tutor in the interim?

To be honest i dont think he would settle in any school happily and i wouldnt send him upset...i love HE but he is quite controlling so anything i suggest he goes opposite...it has been recently suggested we may be able to have a tutor for him 2 hours a week just to get a statement but the next panel meeting is march....i want to find ways of managing him better he is a bright boy but likes to be in charge.

Hi, I imagine the problems you are having are not unusual among parents who are home educating children with autism. Have you joined the HE-Special mailing list? I only drop in there from time to time but there seem to be quite a lot of parents there struggling with such problems, and maybe someone would have some good suggestions.

A number of people there seem to be quite skilled at navigating the school system, so they may also be able to advise on how to shake things up and speed up the part-time placement in the autism unit if you want to push for that.

www.he-special.org.uk/

I have a 3 children with asd, eldest is nearly 16 and completely autonomous. My youngest is 5 and did school for 3 months, then we pulled him out after it was effecting his mental health so badly.
my son is also very controlling in what he likes to do, but we get around this by following what he is interested in. So if he is playing transformers obsessively I do maths with him using his transformers to count with, if he is really interested in something we watch on the tv we go off and find activities on the internet to print off and do and play games on there.
We made a fabulous book about knights this week as he was playing knights with lego, we found everything on www.homeschoolshare.com it included dot to dot, tracing over words, design a shield, label parts of a night, he loved it!
Yesterday he wanted to play games on the computer, we found a mr men website, where he played memory games, listened to stories, and then he wanted to play more games so we found alphablocks on the cbeebies website, and he spent nearly 2 hours playing on that, making up words and in between playing that we made alphablock people out of wooden blocks.
I do a little bit of structured things with him, probably no more than 10 minutes at a time, I use opportunaties like him asking me to cut things out for him, whilst i cut out what he asks for, i get him to do a beginning handwritting tracing activity.
Practical things usually go down well! science experiments they can mix up and watch, baking etc.
Hope this helps!

Yes to the HE special list - very good place to go for expert advice

Yes also to following the lead of the child. I'd stop trying to be "educational" to be honest, and work really hard to help your child further his own interests. Meet him in the areas he is interested in, and that will give him the best possible chance of beginning to learn those social and empathic things that he'll probably be finding much harder than academics. The academic stuff will emerge on its own accord, IMO, through what he's doing.

e.g. a child might well learn to read all on their own through playing lots of games on places like the CBeebies site and pbskids etc etc, plus watching DVDs round and round with the subtitles on, and then the parents maybe find 10 mins a day when the child is receptive to having stories read to them, perhaps stories featuring the same TV characters. And then one day the child starts reading the story to the parent, apparently out of the blue.

Oh yes, computer games! My (nt) daughter has a good online HE friend on the autistic spectrum. They've never met in real life. They played Toontown together for about three years. The controlled environment has made it easier for them to find common ground and gradually come to understand each other. I think this has been great for both of them. And I do think my dd's reading came together as a result of that game!

Great game, very age-appropriate and varied. There are many things players can do on their own, but teamwork is always helpful. Seven is a common age to start. toontown.go.com/

I home ed and I think sometimes when youre thinking 'this isnt working' is probably one of the times your ds is getting most from it .....I used to judge a 'succesful' learning experience by what Id 'taught' for example one Autumn we went to the park collected different leaves,reserarched what tree they came from,dried some of them,made a collage from some of them and then wrote an autumn poem on a leaf shaped piece of paper - all very 'schoolish' but they didnt enjoy doing it at all.

A subsequent year we did a similar thing ds remembered some of the trees then he asked if we could 'varnish' them with PVA glue and water and put some other 'autumny bits' with it,a conker a soft brown scarf and then he found some brown paper to display it on - I remembered the song Autumn days so we listened to that on U tube then he decided we could make up a similar song with words that were relevant to our family - so in effect he planned that days learning and it wasnt dis similar to what Id done previously just it was fun.

thankyou all for your advice...anymore welcome................................Dracschick what you said made me laugh at myself because this is exactly what i tried to do the other day,we collected leaves,sticks ect for an autumn picture/collage and when i started doing it my son said "no im not doing it" and wouldnt help ...then he said he wanted to do it by himself so i let him and he stuck 3 leaves on and said put it away.
He loves having stories read to him and i often hear him reading in his bedroom ...i will have a look at computer games..he likes cbeebies website and mario but the ones ive tried to get him interested in the past dont keep his attention long.
He also loves board/memory games...as long as he wins...he often has his own rules.
mumof4darlings-he does like science and i did buy a kit off ebay with "kitchen experiments" and he enjoyed that.
Perhaps im expecting too much i feel like i need "work" as proof of teaching him i guess because his doctor did say im doing him "damage" by not sending him to school to socialise....this makes me question myself as i dont want to ruin his life/future.

Logi,I was home educating ds2 (through ill health) when ds3 was due to go to school- so we decided to home ed ds3.....ds3 wasnt a very sociable child,he was very quick to learn to read very quick to learn his numbers very quick to learn in general......when we had our home education inspection it was noted that ds3 wasnt very sociable,theres no way to 'encourage' socialisation,ds3 could be in a playground playing alone or he could be at home content in his opted isolation.

I pointed this out to the h.e woman and she did agree,ds3 had optimal introductions to social interaction but he didnt feel the 'need'.

Fast forward 2 years and hes the life and soul hes very popular has loads of pals and has really developed as a character-he just needed time to be himself.

A he child has access to far more social interaction than a schooled child - a school childs environment is filled with child based interaction both with peers and adults everything is designed at a childs level.

A he child lives in the 'real world' they soon learn to smile at the greengrocer and get a satsuma ,they learn to speak louder to the elderly lady up the st, they learn 'social nicety' and thats not a lesson taught in school.

Dracschick...yes thats true i kinow my son was only at school a short time but he tried to cling on to one girl who didnt want o be with him (which he couldnt understand) and i would watch him through the classroom window sat alone crying its when im thinking of this (as i write) that i think why the hell i would want to send him back.
I detested school as a child and sadly even today i can still feel the despair i felt at school...i never settled and at 14 just refused to go.....the thing about school that amazes me is that i was in the "top set" for all subjects and i never had a clue about geography (still not that great now so much for education).

Many people have said to me about my ds not socialising yet my son will pay for things at the shops and often speaks his mind(maybe a little too much)....
Also i know lots of children of similar ages who go to school yet are still very shy.

Our last encounter with an elderly lady was in a lift when she went from level 6 to level 7 and my son said "excuse me lady you could have walked that" lol still need to work on "social nicety".

socialisation and Gps! Do you know what my sons paed said to me when we attempted to get him a diagnosis? She told me that he needed to socialise with 'normal' children his own age so that his odd behaviours start to disappear!

I dont think it matters what age he socialises with, so many people are het up that they must be with their peer age group. my son is happier with children older than him, but he will speak to children of similiar age when he is relaxed and ready in a situation that he can handle with me there to support him and back off when I can see he is coping!

Enjoy the time spent with your son and try not to worry what others think, its hard, but you are doing what is right at this time for your son!

mumof four...i have been told that too ..let him socialise with nt children.
I agree there does seem a pressure to mix with his own age,i have 4 granddaughters aged 3 and under who he sees everyday and he does seem to prefer younger children or older but he doesnt get to mix with older ones.
I do need to stop worrying about other peoples opinions i know and deal with now.

I remember first time asking our GP for a referal regarding autism and the GP tutted ,rolled his eyes and said "what makes YOU think he has autism,he looks fine to me".......i occasionally see that doctor now and he hasnt mentioned it since ds diagnosis.

logi- I had one mum say to me 'your eldest cant have asd he is too clever!' its amazing how misunderstood people are!
I hope you have a fabulous relaxed week! let the structure go for a while and see where it takes you!
I will tell you that its perfectly normal to go through lapses of utter panic wondering if you are doing the right thing, whether you are doing enough and questioning yourself! Thankfully those days are getting fewer for me now, but they do still come, and then my youngest amazes me with something he knows and i feel so proud of him and those feelings chill again!

thankyou will chill a bit this week and see what it brings..thankyou ..and im glad those days of panic do pass ,thanks again.

It is rather strange that we expect children to get on with other children of the same age. Most people are fine about adults who don't like children, as long as they can manage to be civil and tolerate children when they have to be in their company for a while. So why can't we accept that all children are different, just as all adults are? Some like children and some don't.

In the long run, when kids grow up, what will matter most is their ability to get on with other adults!

Yes saracen thats very true....i just wish i could find a couple of friends for him but my last attempt (not that long ago) i thought went ok but i didnt get a reply from the mum when i offered her around with her son,and ive seen her since and she said "thats strange my phone still has the same number"...but that was it.
I then feel angry for my son...which i guess is my problem lol.