sphil

[troutpout]

You mentioned about your son 'pacing when thinking' in the other thread. Ds does it too....and if he's really thinking he almost runs up and down.
Never heard another child doing this....so had to post
Interestingly when ds was dx...they mentioned at first that he didn't stim and then saw him pacing at school and realised that this was him stimming.

Sorry...meant to add my question !

(don't know where my head is at lately!)

Can you get him to stop doing it easily? Does it comfort him do you think?...

ds seems to use it when stressed or when particularly confused about something. It does seem to chill him out.

As far as I know he doesn't do it at school - no-one has ever mentioned it anyway. I think he has an increasingly good idea of what is socially acceptable - I've noticed he's toned down his twirling and 'fighting invisible monsters' in the playgound.

I can stop him doing it - but he gets very cross with me, so I tend to ignore it. After all, I don't want to stop him thinking!
He does it when he's just played a computer game or watched a particularly exciting TV programme - I think his imagination is working over-time and the pacing is him processing the excitement and letting out the agitation in a physical way.

Ds2 can do this too. I understood it to be to do with stimulating his vestibular system and helping him to process his thoughts and organised them. I'm not sure it is necessarily stimming just for the sake of it.

DS2 does this, he says it helps his thinking, he means thinking up imaginary epic space battles mostly but his teacher last year let him walk up and down the corridor when he was stuck with story writing. It is his main stim and he does it a lot, not very relaxing for anyone nearby, and his need to do it at playtime (to let off steam after attempting to sit still and listen) does get in the way of playing with other kids ( he does play with other kids in the morning on arriving at school before the ordeal of trying to concentrate has taken it's toll).

Ooh i think it would really help ds with storywriting too...(one of his really difficulties at school).
He says he doesn't do it at school now however...since he's moved up to secondary (which explains why he's probably doing more of it at home lately).Sometimes the lightfitting in the sitting room moves underneath his bedroom !
Interesting to see we have a few pacers anyway

Oh, that's an idea - I might get DS1 to do it before he does his homework. He already chews something - an OT tip which works really well to focus him.

You're right that it's not very relaxing though - and because of that it does get to me sometimes