13 yr old DS with ASD. I'm worried I'm getting it all wrong .

[Pippioddstocking]

After a few years of suspicions we finally managed to get DS his ASD diagnosis last September. He is high functioning and appears to struggle with sensory stimuli such as crowds , lots of noise etc.
He is now is a smaller school and seems to be doing well , lots of friends , less meltdowns.
The bit I'm struggling with is the holidays . He doesn't really want to get dressed or leave his room. Every other day I am managing to get him to leave the house to engage in a short activity but it's a struggle. He tells me that he finds leaving the house and seeing or being around people too draining and that he just wants to switch off in the holidays . It's great that he can express this but it's week 3 now and he really has just spent the majority of his holiday on the x-box , in his room, on his own .
Anyone with any experience , ideas they care to share.
FWIW , last year I pushed him into daily activities and the meltdowns were horrendous and resulted in him threatening to kill himself .
I'm so worried I'm doing it all wrong .

Hi Zzzz thanks for the reply.
I suppose my concern is that it's the absolute opposite of what " good parenting " seems to entail. Every other parent I speak to seems to be supplying their neurotypical offspring with exciting and enriching opportunities for the ester holidays whilst my DS chooses to sit in his room alone .

Good parenting is parenting the child you have not the one you were expecting

They are words of wisdom!

You have to stop comparing your child to NT children, and yourself to NT parents, your child is struggling with being unstructured in the holidays so the way he copes with it is being in his safe space, doing something he enjoys.

Let him be himself, don't try to make him be like the NT kids, because it won't work, as you found out last year.

Why does it bother you so much that he's not like the NT crowd? It shouldn't matter to you what they can do or want to do, they aren't your kids. Yours is great at articulating what he needs, maybe learn to listen to him a bit more?

Yes, I agree with wise words above. He sounds very in-tune with his needs and it is working in terms of reduced meltdowns. Activities around the home can work well to ease your parenting guilt. Gardening, painting, trampolining, boardgames, gaming online eg minecraft with others and using headsets means they can be sociable with others with similar interests. Check out Stuart Duncan's autcraft (there is a FB group). Which is run for people with autism playing Minecraft. Both my DC prefer solitary activities in the holidays specifically as they have to gear up so much during term time. The main thing to work on, it seems, is accepting that you are not a NT parent but an autismal one! It will happen in time.

My DS is 12, just diagnosed. He spends a lot of time in his room in the holidays, BUT I do try hard to get him involved in some activity or interaction and all his screen time is monitored. Gaming is pretty addictive and endless hours of it I don’t think is good for any child, particularly one with ASD. I hasten to add Im not the sort of parent that thinks it’s healthy to schedule endless “activities” in the holidays, but exercise outside and interaction with me, his sister or a friend I think is important. He reads a fair bit and plays lego in his room. I’ll try to get him to play a board game, come for walk with dog, cook cakes, mess about in the garden. I use bribery - come on, walk the dog with me and then 20mins screen time this evening, or ask him what cake he’d like to bake. Sometimes he’s been fine to play a board game because it fits into a “special interest” like Lord of the Rings, or because I let him plan food for “party food” at the same time. We go to the cinema, and then we can have a chat on the sofa about the film afterwards. I read the books he reads and then we have chats about that.
All these things are specific to my DS I understand, and yes, I feel guilty that we’re not going cycling or rock climbing - he hates any sport - it is hard, and my DS needs downtime on his own, but once persuaded/bribed he always (nearly always) enjoys himself.

My son is ASD, similar age... Last school holidays he didnt put a single item of clothing on other than pants for the whole week and just wanted to have some seclusion. He too played the xbox all week! I didnt want to force him out his comfort zone :-) even though it was driving me mad!!