Numberblocks!!!!

[brenda26]

Hi just looking some advice. Since my 4 yr son got numberblocks for Christmas he has been become increasingly obsessed with them. He enjoyed numbers before this and is really good at simple maths - he can count and can add simple numbers together etc. However, he has started making numbers out of the blocks - ie 17 and talks to them like they are real and even wants to take them to bed!! Probably because on the cbeebie show the numbers all have their own personality I think. He has stopped playing with a lot of his other toys and only wants to make numbers (and they can be out of anything if he doesn't have blocks). Should I try to broaden his interests by limiting the numbers or should I just let him play away if he is happy. I just see his interests getting increasingly narrower. I'm not sure what the right thing to do is? Sometimes it drives me crazy - as at times the first thing he says when he wakes up is "two tens are 20!" or "5 and 2 is 7" Maybe it is just a phase that will fade away. Everyone else thinks it's great and all I hear is "he is going to be an accountant"...but I just worry about whether I should encourage or slowly try to limit. Has anyone else had a similar child? Many thanks,

Generally, the advice is to lean into special interests and 'join him where he is at' rather than trying to interfere with access to them.
Of course, it is also fine for you to have family boundaries such as 'no number blocks at the table/at the park/in the bath' or whatever, and fine to suggest other potentially fun activities that you could do as well.

Thank you for replying! It's good to know what the advice is as I just didn't know. I can understand how upsetting it would be for him if I just got rid of all his bricks etc and I think if it was something I enjoyed I would feel so resentful if it was just taken away and I was made feel bad about it. It's just that it seems to be becoming more and more of an obsession. Even now if I put down some of his other favourite toys alongside the blocks, he doens't he even look at them. I just worry he is going to get lost in his own wee numberblock world and block out everything and everyone else. That's my worry. I just would love to know if anyone had anything similar and was it okay?

Is he neurodivergent? Intense interests are very common for ND children.

Undiagnosed as yet but I think it's likely. He also has a speech delay (albeit not helped with glue ear). This fixation on numbers is certainly making it more likely I think.

It will be OK whichever way it goes. Honestly. (Although it might not be the OK you initially imagined).
He will either

1. Move on. Problem solved. His brain was just particularly ready to think about numbers that month, now he is thinking about other things.
2. Move on, but get obsessive about something different (possibly many times over). You might even think back fondly on the Numberblocks phase when he starts waking up with Pokemon facts...
3. Not move on. In which case you have a child who is likely to excel at number and possibly related pattern-tracking STEM fields. It could be worse! And how incredibly lucky he would be to find a thing that brings him joy at age 4 and also have it be something that can grow with him (with your support) into adulthood right from such a young age - when there are still plenty of people in their 20s who haven't found that for themselves yet.

The elephant in the room is obviously "is my child not going to have the NT future I imagined but have a restricted and possibly hardship-filled ND one instead?". If that is what ends up happening (and remembering that thousands of children love Numberblocks), then it won't be because you supported a special interest. Taking one away might make life feel harder though.
If you are worried about autism in particular and he has a speech delay, my honest feeling would be to play pretend with the numberblocks characters with him (good for modelling speech and social interactions), talk to him about the numbers and how they work, help him stack the bricks (clipping fiddly plastic cubes is great for fine motor skills), sing the songs together (speech practice).....and maybe start teaching him times tables.

@BestZebbie Thank you very, very much for your lovely post and taking the time to write it. Everything you said makes so much sense and I think I just needed someone to lay it out for me. Certainly will not even think of removing the blocks from him now. Will maybe think of more ways for him to explore the world of numbers and as you suggest use them to help support where he is struggling particulary in terms of speech and social skills. Thank you again, x

Everything @BestZebbie said - plus get him some cuisinaire rods and take look at NRIch and Orchard games. It's not maths or social skills - it can be social skills through maths.

Agree that leaning into special interests gives best results with ND kids. You'll probably find Numberblocks remains but other special interests will develop over the years. You can use special interests to introduce new ideas and concepts. My son's first love is underground trains - from that we've managed to introduce elements such as signals, buses, routes and timetables, clocks and maps. He's developed excellent map reading skills and spatial awareness. We've used the underground map to help him learn to read.

Just work with what you've got....

Thanks, will definitely look in the Orchard Games as I think it might expand this thinking rather than just seeing digits and blocks! Got him Numberblocks magazine at the weekend and it's the best thing ever. It's all new to me as I've never seen anyone in love with numbers as much as he is. He literally adores them. If I can use them to expand his social skills that would be brilliant as my fear was the obsession would isolate him from his peers even more. x

See here: https://www.learningresources.co.uk/category/numberblocks

My son, who is 5 and does have an ASD diagnosis, is obsessed with Alphablocks and does the same thing! First thing I hear in the morning is him saying "s is in the word nest" or something similar. It's like the letters themselves and the mechanics of phonics - not even the Alphablocks characters necessarily - are what he has affection for and he gets a real buzz out of playing with the alphabet in any form to make short words and phonics sounds.

I don't know how all this plays out in the long term as we're at roughly the same age/stage, but I'm another one for leaning in to the special interests. Our DS has already had phases with jigsaws and Gruffalo and he got useful and surprising skills out of both those obsessions and they did eventually get replaced by something new. We also found special interests to be a really effective vehicle for developing other skills (speech, turn taking, etc). Whether or not your DS is autistic, it sounds like he's loving learning an important academic subject that has unlimited applications in work and life, and passion for learning on that scale is what produces the future geniuses in science and art, to say nothing of the benefits to his wellbeing he gets from doing what makes him happiest. Good for him!!! 😍

Hi @Scratchybaby sp lovely to hear a similar story. Actually, my ds does love letters too and does the exact same thing! He loves making the phonic sounds and arranging the letters and could happily sit for hours!! He wouldn't be too interested in writing letters/numbers or any type of drawing but I'm going to use them to try and encourage this going forward. Loved your last paragraph, think I will save and read it everytime I start to worry again about it. Thank you again for taking the time to reply (as with everyone who did!!) Wishing you and your wee star all the best. xo

You too @brenda26 I read your post and just saw my own son in everything you wrote about yours. I already have a soft spot for your little guy!!

Our DS wasn't interested in writing letters or forming words until he started school, but he had a great foundation because of the Alphablocks obsession and really took off once they started with phonics. I'm sure yours will find the same with maths ❤

Aw @Scratchybaby thank you. It's reassuring to hear that he got interested in writing when he started school. Do you mind me asking how he is doing at school? We start in Sept and I'm already kind of dreading it. DS is okay at nursery, obv loves the construction corner. He will move around when told but would happily stay with the bricks all morning if allowed!!

No problem - DS was the same, happy at nursery but had a lot of freedom and autonomy there so wasn't really tested with following instructions. I won't lie, starting school was hard for DS and we both cried a lot on his first day, but he has amazed his teachers with the progress he's made this year - going from a boy who had a meltdown as soon as he walked through the school gates to now enthusiastically learning to read and even singing along with the other students in school concerts (all with help from an amazing TA though). He still has a significant speech and social/communication delay and can be rigid with what he does and doesn't want to do in terms of following classroom routine though, so only attends part time. (I'm not sure if your DS is quite as extreme in these respects, especially if you're unsure if he is autistic or not. We were pretty sure even before we finally got the diagnosis as the signs were there by 2.5yo).

The part time timetable due to the school not having enough supports in place (a whole other saga) but I'm not even sure if I want to press for full time. We supplement school-based learning with a private home school tutor a few afternoons a week who coordinates play sessions that focus on phonics and maths, and injects some SALT and OT type activities in there as well that he just wouldn't get at school, and he is making amazing progress academically and in terms of speech and learning social cues. It's a cobbled together hybrid of education and therapy (and honestly, utterly exhausting to maintain) but for DS it's an arrangement he seems to be enjoying. This might not be your future but it's one example of how things not might work out how you expect them to but they can still work! My only concern is if and how we can magic up a similarly successful arrangements as he gets older and the demands of school get more intense...

Hi @Scratchybaby your DS sounds so much like mine!! Although no diagnosis yet I believe it's just a matter of time, it's just not official yet. What you are doing regards his learning sounds amazing, can understand the effort that it takes but if it is working then it is worth it. I am already dreading Sept but will try and take it one day at a time. I think I am mentally preparing myself for a rough ride, as like your DS, mine can be also rigid in what he does. Thank you again very much for taking the time to reply again I've no doubt I will be back posting esp after school start so I'll be keeping a keen interest in how your DS is doing and I'll let you know how we are getting on. Take care xx

Why are you all looking for a diagnosis… sounds pretty normal behaviour to me ! Just let your kids be kids and enjoy their little quirks ! Not everything means that a child is ND… it is actually very normal behaviour at that age ..

why would you bother coming on to an SN forum to say this? many of the kids in question that we are referring to already have a confirmed diagnosis and it's extremely useful in understanding their needs and how to support them. these "traits" are only a tiny snapshot of complex individuals.

Because their child isn’t diagnosed.

As a parent who was repeatedly told by people not qualified to make a diagnosis that their child was ND … a parent who trusted these people as care givers … to only be told upon a referral that there was nothing wrong with my child at all… that all of his behaviour was very typical for his age. That this obsession with self diagnosis and people NOT qualified to diagnose a child can actually be very harmful to a child too!

the person posting … her child from what she said is not doing anything outside the range of normal .. if is very usual for children of that age to have obsessions. It is also quite common with a child born during Covid to have some speech delay. Speech delay is not solely an indicator of being ND

so I can and I will call this out as I had 6 painful years of it. And I am able to post where ever I like.

Plenty of parents of ND children will have the same story in reverse (including us). This was posted on the SN pages, a forum filled with parents of ND children, amongst other conditions, so there's a built in expectation you'll get some experiences of ND development offered up. No one is offering a diagnosis, just their experiences, and we've stayed pretty positive about it too because being autistic isn't actually unremitting doom and gloom for the person or the parents.

The point of enquiring as to whether the DC in question is autistic is that if they were, and you knew that, it might inform how you identify and prioritise their special interests. Like a lot of things with autism, it's the same as what you'd want for any child, you might just have to view the situation with a slightly different lens.