Hi,
my husband and I are looking for some help to better communicate with possibly autistic young teen. DS is 12 and excels in school (year 8). He has many friends, but also has many behaviours that are atypical of someone his age. He prefers very advanced history books (at the moment a 800 page book about the Holy Roman Empire) over any kind of technology, does not like computer games and sports and is generally what you would call a geek.
His younger brother has just been diagnosed with ASD and for various reasons we also suspect that DS12 is on the spectrum. For example, various sensory issues (very fussy around food, can't touch kitchen towel or completely flips out), He also suffers from misphonia whereby he hears noises that are not there (e.g. he will accuse me of making loud food noises) and he poos in the bath regularly, avoiding the toilet. We suspect he is suffering from a form of encopresis like his younger brother.
However, him being older, we find it very difficult to communicate with him. My husband and I had two sessions with a psychologist to get to the bottom of his behaviours, but have not made our son part of these sessions yet, mostly because he would react very badly to the suggestion that he should.
The psychologist suggested low demand parenting as well as emotion coaching. I do practice some aspects of low demand parenting already with him, e.g. making things a joke rather than a demand (you could climb trees with your toenails as long as they are), but other suggestions he would see right through and just don't seem age appropriate ("Let's see who can cut their toe nails faster").
The psychologist also suggested emotion coaching:
- Step 1: Recognising the child’s feelings and empathising with them
- Step 2: Validating the feelings and labelling them
- Step 3: Setting limits on behaviour (if needed)
- Step 4: Problem-solving with the child
For those of you experienced in dealing with a older child with SEN, do you have any suggestions on best to communicate. For example with the poo thing, I imagine that applying emotion coaching might look something like this:
- Step 1: “I realise that something about the toilet is causing you difficulties. I am really sorry you are feeling that way. “
- Step 2: Can you tell me what you are feeling?
- Step 3: Whilst it is ok to feel that way, it is important that you don’t do things that impact others. For example, leaving dirty towels in your room, pooing in the bath.”
- Step 4: Can we work together to think about other things we can do to make things better for you?”
We would really like feedback from someone with more experience. One of our big goals for the new year is to actually engage him more with professional support, but we need to get this right, or he won't engage.