How much wearing of ear defenders is ok?

[GrandmistressGlitch]

My DS 9 is on the pathway for ASD and ADHD. We've returned last night from a music festival, for which I bought him a new pair of ear defenders. He wore them throughout and is in love with them. Wore them in the car journey home, for example.

He now wants to wear them all the time. To block out the sound of the kettle, the toaster... Is excited at the thought of wearing them in various situations at school.

In general he doesn't complain about noise all that much. But his agitation does grow in noisy environments, which I try to navigate via moving him out of the situation or covering his ears. I suspect he's not able to easily gauge that it is the noise that is stressing him out, as he struggles with interoception.

The question is, how much should I allow him to wear his ear defenders?

Obviously I feel dreadful that he has been suffering without them all this time (he had a previous pair which were in hindsight, too tight) and I want to do what I can to help him regulate himself. But also I am mindful of avoiding him isolating himself further and possibly heightening his sensitivity to sound long term (is that even a thing??!)

Advice welcome please, thank you for reading!

I’d let him wear them whenever he likes.

What are you worried about happening if he wears them "too much"?

I don't think I would put a limit on it if it allows him to cope better with the world. Sometimes I put a pair of tight, sound blocking headphones on when my DC are being noisy or I just feel frazzled and sounds are too much.

Oh sorry I didn't read your second to last paragraph :D

I think the whole they'll get used to it so they shouldn't be allowed to wear it - this is a bit of a myth - there was a nice post on instagram recently from a mum to an autistic daughter who posted about this as her daughter has now got to a point she chooses not to wear the earphones. https://www.instagram.com/p/C7vFqD0x_bF/

Do you mean isolation in terms of it sending a signal to others that he isn't interested in interacting with them, making it tricky for him to hear people, or in terms of people making judgement about it? Either way, I think at 9 he is likely to be able to make this decision for himself and it should be OK. Main issue may be if school policy does not allow ear defenders you might need to argue it as an accommodation for him.

You could let him know about Loop/Flare which are in-ear versions which can look more discreet (and some have an option to allow speech frequencies through while screening out higher/lower frequencies like background noise) and he might like to have that as an additional option.

Thank you @BertieBotts . I had a chat with his brilliant class teacher who, it turns out, wears Loop herself after teaching hours and is very understanding. He has been wearing them at various points during the school day and seems so much more settled. He was worried about being asked about them or teased by his classmates but on balance he decided the benefits of wearing them outweighed that risk. The teacher spoke to the class about them and they all had a chance to ask him questions, which I think helped get that awkwardness out of the way! The school will be buying a set of ear protectors for the class so the other children will also have the option to wear them if they like.

Ah that's great! What a lovely treacher :)