anxious in anticipation of demands......

[LilTreacle]

DS had a really good first week at school. Still outside of class and being introduced to the classroom for one lesson a day if he looks like he would cope.
Had a bit of a hiccup yesterday (outside of class), got flustered/confused and felt the work was too hard and lost his composure (polite way of putting it).

This seems to have knocked his confidence - either that or the novelty of going back to school has worn off and the inevitability of doing what everyone else wants all day is proving too much - he is now refusing to do anything he is asked to do, and anything he thinks he will be asked to do.

I dont know how to make this easier for him.

The pardox of needing structure to feel comfortable, but resisting it once its familiar is really hard to navigate and I just dont know what to do next.

Feeling like PDA is a better description of DS than AS.....

The pardox of needing structure to feel comfortable, but resisting it once its familiar

^ This is a good way of putting it! My ds has a PDA dx and we have had some success with the strategies set out in the Phil Christie book - eg using competition / novelty / indirect demands / humour etc. We also find routine a double-edged sword as on the one hand ds needs to feel in control, and knowing what's going to be happening seems to give him that security (and changes of routine / unexpected events are a big meltdown trigger); BUT otoh routine / set structure means someone else is dictating events = demands = another source of anxiety leading to refusals and meltdowns! It's a fine balance and atm for us involves much trial and error. We have to gauge mood extremely carefully as something that might work at one moment (eg "I bet you can't get dressed faster than daddy") will send him into a total panic at another.

Sorry not sure if that was much help! Have you read the Phil Christie book?

Ds is an 'avoider'. Giving ds choices, but controlling the options, 5 minutes warnings and motivation to want to do something in the first place and strategies of what to do instead of meltdown works well for us.

For example do you want to go into class for English or Maths today, as oppose to you are going into class for English today.

Then 5 minute warning of we are going into class for in 5 minutes (use timer, if need be)

Motivation - once in class you can spend 5 minutes doing

Then exit plan if meltdown is about to occur ie use of something he finds calming, instead of meltdown.

It might even be to start with, to motivate him to just get him into class. Thing that he enjoys has to be for most of the lesson, with just 5 minutes of work, then gradually decrease enjoyed thing and increase work.

or it might work better if enjoyed thing can be done at the end of the lesson. So 5 minutes of work, then rest of lesson spent doing enjoyed thing. Then as above.

Depending on your ds.

Oh tokens I just remembered tokens, not sure if any of this would work with your ds, so just throwing some ideas out.

Ds got to the point where he was refusing school. He then had a home tutor and refused point blank to eat before she came, get dressed or engage with the home tutor at all. He sat curled up in a ball, refusing to even speak to the tutor for an hour until she left.

Why would any child WANT to do the things they find difficult or anxiety provoking.

I made a motivation chart. Starting with the very basics of eating and getting dressed. Getting dressed - ds got to go outside during tuition and take a movement break. Eating his breakfast - a sweet after.

Engaging with tutor, 10 minutes of maths - she gave him a token for half an hour extra x-box time. 10 minutes of handwriting - a token for staying up 10 minutes later and so on and on.

My thinking 10 minutes of work and compliance, had to be better than no work and no compliance.

Thanks for the relpies.
I have not read the Christie book, I'll have a look at that , thanks.

We do use warnings, and used to use timers but are giving those a rest now as they were triggering anxiety too.

Giving limited choices works sometimes, but often DS tries to negotiate a third or fourth option, or refuses to make a choice - asking him to make a choice is another demand.

DS wants to be in class. He doesn't need encouragement to go into class itself, and he knows that he is supposed to be in there, and wants to be with the other children. But he struggles with so much stimulation and the demands made by everone else when in the classroom.

He is excluded from class since he became so anxious last term, refused to do what was asked and the meltdowns become very intense it was the only option school felt they had left to try and reduce stress, eliminate sensory triggers and keep everyone safe.

As parents we can be as flexible as we choose to be, respnd to what we see in front of us, be creative and funny to get things done, can drop things if its proving too much, accept that today certain things are not going to work, choose the battles etc. but even so we still stuggle with it.

School has an agenda and a schedule and i would imagine less able to be as flexible and 'non-demanding', and less able to guage the mood and respond accordingly, even with 1:1 support....so where does that take us?

Maybe he needs smaller class size? more expert input, like OT for example? more specialist teaching?

Ds is coping much better now. He has gone from refusing school to being able to attend since these things were put in place (except OT, we are working on this)

We moved from a small village school with no experience and limited resource to supprot, to a larger one with experience and broader resource.....but the trade off is the number of children in the class.

They have OT advice and SALT input as well, and EdPsych and Autism outreach advice. The school are actually very proactive and supportive (compared to previousone anyway), but its not enough.

Specialist environment may be what he needs really...

We did similar from very small school, 1 class per year, to larger one with experience and broader resources and ASD unit (although ds never had access to it)

Ds now attends indi school, much smaller classes, specialise in HFA, lots of 'inhouse' specialist support, much more organised and personalised approach. He still has lots of difficulties, which we are dealing with, but he has made huge improvements, no more school refusing etc, etc.

..takes big deep breath....

It a huge hill to climb and get to the top and accept that main stream really cannot do what is needed. Nearly there I think.

Annual review is next week....thnnk a SS will be recommended to be honest.

There was lots of talk of ss for ds, when he was out of school. I was told to start looking at ss in the area. I opted for indi school, which is mainstream, just very high number of HFA children attend due to the inhouse provision and training of staff etc.

So a bit of a half way house between MS and SS.

Only a slight highjack of your thread LilTreacle my DS2 has similiar issues - at the moment in relation to getting back into school - he has only managed to get in 2 days this term so far. Your thread title 'anxious in anticipation of demands' just sums up DS at the moment. I have spent this week persuading the school (DS is in Y7) to allow him to do 'part' days. Finally got it agreed late yesterday. Then (inevitably maybe) having in theory wanted to do part days, Ds has become anxious about the idea of going back into school at all.

So today after many hours of DS getting increasingly agitated and upset (and a bit of aggression and threats of self harm ) DS went in just to meet with his Head of Year - providing I stayed too. Despite me ringing the HOY and telling him DS could only manage a meeting and not 2 lessons as 'planned', the HOY began by asking DS where his bag was (DS purposefullly didn't bring it as he wasn't staying) and then tried to persuade DS to go to the next lesson. Cue panic and tearfulness from DS. (Then DS started pretending he had an appointment at the doctors this afternoon as a reason why he couldn't stay at school, and somehow I was meant to realise his plan and confirm said non-exisistent appt. Rather Aspie-like thinking there.)

I just identified with so much of what you and claw saying - at this stage I really can't see how DS is going to make the transition to being full time at a mainstream secondary. There are no specialist ASD schools in my area though - well not for HFA which DS certainly is in terms of academic work anyway - he isn't at all high functioning in any other way at the moment.

Lil we have the same problem with choices - often, being asked to choose = a demand = meltdown/refusal.

I agree that school by its nature is less flexible, but it might be worth arguing that if what is being done at the moment isn't working at school, that new strategies need to be tried.

Here is the Phil Christie book on PDA.

is the first of a series of (9 in total, I think) youtube videos on PDA. You'll be able to see the rest of them if you go to the first one. I think it's numbers 6-8 that give management strategies for school and home.

I'd say that lots of the PDA strategies would be appropriate or could be adapted for any child with an anxiety-fuelled need to control that leads to demand avoidance, regardless of a specific PDA dx.

Polter, some of the PDA stuff will probably look quite familiar to you as an "Explosive Child" fan! I think the EC is referenced in the PDA book. The humour thing is something that appeals to DS in terms of his liking of word-play etc and I know your DS is similar - you are probably already using the strategy instinctively.

Jack and Lil can I ask please do you still have the same problem with choices ie being asked to choose if there is motivation at the end of it?

For example ds will refuse to get dressed on school days, I suppose there is no motivation to get dressed to go to school, as it is something he hates. It tends to work better if there is a reward at the end of it, something like then being allowed to watch TV before school for example.

However this is wearing a bit thin with ds now and its getting harder to get him to comply. What strategies do you use?

Thanks for all your responses.
Ordered the book. Already well versed in the explosive child theories, but DS being 6 and not a fan of conversations (anxiety trigger unless started by himself and morelikley to be star wars or spiderman related) actually employing collaborative problem solvingis a bit one sided.....but it works when we can agree on what to do.

I came accross the PDA video a few days ago but have not got to the later ones that give strategies yet...plan for tonight methinks.

Thanks for helping me feel less at a loss....

Claw....I dont know how to even start looking at indie school that have additional expertise in AS or Autism....are they listed with the other schools by the LA when you get statements..or is it a case of googling?

There are lists of schools, which LA's give, however ds's indie school is in a different borough, so wouldn't have been included.

Ds's school was recommended to me by people on here and also other professionals working with ds.

www.schoolsnet.com/pls/hot_school/sn_homepage.page_pls_schools_guide?x=16180339&y=&a=220708

Something like this might help, you enter postcode and which type of school you are looking for.

claw when ds' anxiety levels are high, offering a reward if he'll do x doesn't help. In fact it can make him worse because he gets even more frustrated with himself and wound up knowing that he feels he's not able to comply with the request and is going to miss out on the reward. Often then it comes down to backing off altogether / temporarily, or trying to negotiate a solution (what Ross Greene would call "emergency plan b") or distraction etc.

Rewards do sometimes work if he's less anxious, eg something like "if you get dressed now there'll be time to play x minutes on the Wii before we have to leave for school" etc.

With choices, sometimes the pressure involved in making a choice leads to refusals and meltdown, even if all the options are "good" ones - eg would you like cake or ice cream!

Thanks Jacks, that is often what I do, back off, sometimes ds just needs 10 minutes to process. I know exactly what you mean, choices can make ds quite flustered, something as simple as do you want chips or potato stars for dinner!

Ds is generally very compliant, with me. It tends to be if people try to force him or are negative, it really rubs him up the wrong one.

Thanks again, its reassuring to hear that others treat it similarly and I don't just need to be more 'strict'!

The backing off seems to be the only option sometimes.

This is something I think DSs CT and TAs have difficulty with (the SENCO understands really well but she is only on the periphery of every day events)...he's got his own way if they don't insist he does what they ask.
Once they have stated what they want, they cant back down, that would teach him that 'bad' behaviour gets you what you want - he knows it doesn't, but he still resists and refuses anyway.

On the surface to the average eye (school) it just looks like bloody mindedness and defiance for the sake of it. That more effort is being expended refusing and resisting than it takes to do as asked, and it just does not seem logical.

It is all down to perceiving the difficulty as an inability to cope and a need to control the environment as a panic response. Its a totally different mind set, and its the opposite of what seems natural...its hard for us as parents to reconcile and I guess switching from NT thinking to SN thinking can be very hard for a CT with 29 NT kids and one gloriously unique original illogical thinker.

That is what really gets me, the attitude of 'him getting his own way'! Ds is not being awkward on purpose, he is anxious and struggling to do it!

Ds home tutor was very much like that, the 'you will sit up straight and do as i say' school of thought, it just makes ds worse and less compliant.

You do have to 'jolly' ds along, you do have to give ds 5 minutes to process requests he finds difficult, you do have to offer motivators, you do have to be positive, rather than negative with ds. If you do something for 5 minutes with ds that he enjoys doing to get him engaged in the first place, he is then more likely to stay engaged, rather than 'sit up and take notice of me' Home tutor saw this as 'molly coddling' but it get results and she did eventually change her attitude and ds did eventually engage with her.

You've probably all seen this summary of Ross Greene's philosophy from "lost at school". I sent it to ds' senco to try to explain the points that you are making, Lil and claw.

Thanks for that Jacks, its very helpful, I have bookmarked to refer to, he words my thoughts so well.

Particularly the bit about problem solving and solutions. I received an email from SALT about 2 days ago stating she was basically discharging ds 'as his language skills are well developed' and 'he had no difficult with problem solving and was able to think of solutions'

Grr that's sitting in an office with you for 40 minutes, on a 1:1 basis, not real life!

In the playground with 100's of kids, feeling overwhelmed, being able to identify the problem or why you feeling like that, let alone think of a solution...all goes out of the window. Ds runs and hides or self harms.

Im going to have a good read of it now, thanks again.

Oh Claw how frustrating

Its not always an absence of ability/skill entirely, its the inability to deploy the skill in real time when flustered, excited, confused, angry, over-stimulated, overwhelmed...they need strategies and support for real life that take this into account.

Knowing what to do, and even how to do it, in theory - whether you can work it out yourself or have learnt it by wrote - doesn't make you adept at actually doing it. That's not an SN thing, that is just life.

As Ross Green says...children do well if they can. So when they consistently don't 'do well', and usually the consequences are not pleasant ones, we have to conclude this is because they cant, rather than wont.

Someone tell that to the LA, CT, TAs, SALT etc.

It is a minefield trying to get LA, CT, TA's, SALT etc to understand and makes you look like you are asking for strategies or interventions where they are not needed, which equals mums fault 'over anxious mum responsible for over anxious child' child is getting anxiety from mum!

Hard balance trying to raise awareness, without coming across as being anxious!