My 5 year old daughter refuses to do any activities

[Anxietyqueen1987]

I've lost count of how many weeks we've been in lockdown but I am really, really struggling. My 5 year old daughter is Autistic (moderately-severe) and she refuses to do any kind of activity. I've tried reading her storys, painting, colouring, kinetic sand, oobleck (water and cornflour), baking etc but she wont do any of it. She really stuggles to communicate and is very much like a toddler and I am at my wits end with it all now. We live in a top floor, one bedroom flat with no garden - I do take her out for exercise but even that is stressful as she doesn't understand social distancing and will try and run over to people. She never sleeps, I am lucky if I can get her to sleep before 11 pm at night. My downstairs neighbour is also getting fed up and is banging on the ceiling because of all the noise and jumping (which I completely get). Is anyone else in this situation? The only thing my daughter wants to do is go on her amazon fire and that is it.

Is there anything she likes to do other than the tablet? Does she like sensory play - bubbles, slime, swinging, rolling up in a blanket or anything? When she does play the tablet are you able to sit with her and interact with her over it? What sort of things does she like to watch? Is there an in there such as her pretending to be in her own video with you?

Usually the advice is to follow their lead and engage with them in their chosen activities (intensive interaction) rather than trying to get them to do activities of your choosing, though there is a place for that obviously. It’s harder if all they want is the tablet though.

It must be very difficult with a young child in a flat

What are her special interests - my DS is similar and we've managed to get him to participate in things by linking it to his love of trains - so we painted train signs, made the London Underground map from Playdoh etc.

I used to live in a flat and also have a bouncer! Do you have an indoor trampoline? You can get small ones with handles, we have a larger 40 inch one currently but have had smaller ones. We bought a soft play mat and placed it under the trampoline. The neighbours reported that they couldn't hear it.

Have you tried an activity board? My son is very visual and has difficulty processing things. Listing lots of activities was too much for him as was guessing what he wanted to do.
All you need is an A4 board with images of some activities velcroed to it. Then she can have a look through it, process what she can do and let you know when she wants to do it. We still use a version of this now he's a lot older.