DS1 is dyspraxic, he's nearly 6 years old. For as long as I can remember he's hand flapped and in the last couple of years it's progressed to holding a pencil, wooden spoon, stick, anything he can get his hands on really and he calls it his twirly whirly. He twirly whirlies a lot of the time - mostly when he's playing by himself and telling himself little stories, even if he's watching telly if has to walk around twirly whirlying, if he's distressed or upset it calms him down and we've always kind of accepted it as one of his little eccentricities. He accepts at school that he can't twirly whirly in lessons but at break time he always finds a stick to wander around with and at these times he doesn't really play with the other children as he prefers to be by himself. He's always seemed happy with this so I've never actively discouraged it.
However this evening over tea I've had a bit of a sad conversation with him, obviously as he's getting older the children at school are starting to comment and I think he's had a few mean remarks from classmates. He told me tonight it was like his brain was trying to control his hands and he wanted to stop his twirly whirlying but he couldn't, but he didn't want to do it anymore.
We live in France and to be honest they don't seem to support the idea of dyspraxia at all, when I mentioned it to the school doctor she had to look it up in a book and then just shrugged her shoulders. So I doubt I'm going to get any support here.
Are there any other parents of children who do this who can recommend some exercises to help him stop doing this. I would be very grateful if someone could give me some ideas on teaching him how to control his hands.
Many thanks