DofE and Autism

[stickygotstuck]

Anyone with a positive or negative experience of their Aspergers/Autistic teen doing the DofE please?

Because DD has always struggled with her confidence and friendships, we always thought it'd be great for her to do a Duke of Edinburgh award when she got to Y9. Which is now.

DD is in mainstream school and has ASC, with intense difficulties in social interaction. Unfortunately, these have worsened hugely in the last year or so. Partly due to her hitting teenagehood, and of course the pandemic and starting secondary school with no transition haven't helped either. While she has always been reluctant to do any kind of sleepovers, she now absolutely refuses to spend the day (& especially the night) away from home as she gets too anxiuos. Joining new groups is an issue too.

Should we still encourage her to go? Or would it be counter productive with potential knock-on effect on her MH?

DD2 had a positive experience (bronze, silver and gold), although she didn’t have the difficulties staying away from home which your DD has.

Have you spoken to the school?

Thank you, Thatsnotmycar

Not yet. We only got the letter today and wanted to sound other parents out before speaking to school. I'm not sure exactly what to ask, really.

I'm guessing school will be able to offer some accommodations?

There are certain reasonable adjustments that can be made. They wouldn’t all be relevant to you, but if you look through some of the documents here you will see some of them are about reasonable adjustments.

Thank you, that link is very helpful!

I asked DD last night as nonchalantly as I could. She wasn't keen but when prompted, said she'd consider it if she could be sure she'd be with her friend or other girl she's friendly with. She says her friend is likely to do it.

So I guess we should ask the school if they can guarantee who she'll be with.
Letter already pre-emts this by saying they 'cannot gurantee frriendship groups will be together'. But that is exactly what DD needs.

A lot hinges on whether her friend wants to do it. Fingers crossed. Not sure whether it'd be wise to push her neither of these two girls are doing it.

Was your DD always with friends, or did she have to join new groups?

The school probably added that disclaimer as a general rule to stop everyone making requests, but you are asking for a reasonable adjustment, which is completely different.

If I remember rightly when DD2 did it they chose their own groups, and for bronze and silver she was in a group with a few friends, but for gold was with a mix of friends and acquaintances.

Yes, I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to request.

Only in this case I also would like to be absolutely sure that school won't just mess it up at the last minute and 'forget' (which they did with friend requests at the start of year 7, which set DD back several months). They don't seem to get what a difference this makes to children like DD. Time to remind them, maybe!

We offer Gold Residentials and always welcome onto our courses some fantastic young people with Asperger’s and Autism who really thrive in our residential setting. We offer a Beekeeping course in Dorset which is very calming surprisingly ! We find the other participants really step up and offer support to their peers which is so lovely to see. Just from our experience I’d say go for it :)

My ASD ds did the Silver D of E, and to our surprise loved it and went on to do the Gold last year. He liked the fact it is very structured, so you always know what you are aiming towards.

I groaned a bit inside when my Autsitic daughter came home from school, brimming with enthusiasm, showing me the papers I needed to sign in order for her to begin the DofE scheme. Envisioning which tasks/projects to do and then all the steps of executive function needed to set them up and running looked daunting and bewildering for me as a mother and I was curious about how she would manage them.
Today she confided that her school year seems to have gone by faster than it should have, mainly because she has spent too much time stressing and worrying how she would set about achieving any of the required elements of the DofE. I have reassured her that she has my full consent to withdraw.

I think she would have enjoyed the residential trip, it’s absolutely everything else that was the problem, I see the word “structured” being mentioned on this thread but I don’t know what it’s referring to. The truth is I can only understand the scheme the way my daughter presents it to me, and to her it is just a vague, nebulous, unattainable idea.

@GreenAndSpringy have you looked at the website? There’s lots of information about the different sections and what is required on there. You could speak to the school too. DofE is structured in the sense there are set things to works towards.

It’s all the in-between, particularly the social steps, those involved in deciding, negotiating and implementing them.

As a late realised Autistic woman myself (came at 51) I get it. You could drop her into an episode of Taskmaster and she’d slay (like Fern Brady), but this is more like setting up your own business and the paths/executive steps through it seem infinite. She has stressed and worried herself continuously for the past 6 months (even asking for help is another exhausting chain of potentials and steps) and feels less confident about her abilities than when she started. My swooping in now and arranging things for her would cudgel her confidence further.

DofE involves EXACTLY what she is most overwhelmed and/or perturbed by, and it’s all the in-between parts that link up the challenges.

As an example: it took her weeks to summon up what she needed to ask her Weekend Gymnastics teacher if she could include the sessions on her DofE award. He said yes, but then what? What does it mean?
We saw a podcast with Pierre Novellie speaking to Rich Wilson yesterday where Pierre (ASD) recounts how he didn’t register as someone who could read at his Primary School because he didn’t understood the concept of tests.

What HAS been useful is that she’s had a face to face introduction (of a sorts) to what it is in life that is most going to trip her up. She’s already extending herself and performing above and beyond as it is, and I’ve reassured her that she still has years to improve on the deficits that DofE has highlighted she has, deficits she can tackle at her own pace, not all at once to reach a goal.

If DD won’t allow you to help and can’t ask the school to help it sounds like DofE is going to be too much for her.

You don’t have to swoop in an arrange things for her, but if she will let you you can support and guide her to arrange things herself. For example, you could read the website, which includes information on what to do to evidence the different sections and uploading to eDofE, and then piece by piece drip information on what to do. Whilst reminding her you are there to help further if she wants you to.

@GreenAndSpringy I'm the OP.

I posted this several moths ago. Since then, DD has recently completed her Bronze award.

However, our experience is exactly as you fear - this was too much of a burden and too stressful.

Not so much the actual 'doing stuff' but all the 'arranging' and the 'admin'. There was much having to sweep in and help DD with the latter. In one word, the online system is overwhelm-inducing (both for DD and me - your situation sounds similar to me).

Also, the 'reasonable adaptations' by school were useless. She did get to the expedition with her chosen friends, but that's it. The volunteering specifically was an issue - she did hers in school helping younger students. This in itself was challenge for DD (social issues) but I thoght, great, that's part of the experience. However, DD needed a bit of support with this and none was offered. Not only that, it ended up being detrimental to her confidence -

To cut a long story short, the activity was interrupted because of said lack of support, which left DD thinking she had done something wrong (she did not). I had to point out to the coordinator that the promised support had not materialised and they had not even given any thought to the fact that she needed it (the expected an ASD child with communication issues to communicate that she needed help 🙄). Not only that but she had to restart a new activity, wich again was difficult to come by and arrange.

Plus all the admin later. I don't think may 14-15 year olds are capable of dealing with the emailing, arranging, sending contact details and reports back and forth, ASD or not. So just imagine what it was like for DD - and me.

Sorry this is long, I thought it would be helpful for you and your DD. Good luck whatever you decide.

Thank you, @stickygotstuck, I understand perfectly what you have written. Sadly we are on the same page.

I appreciate you coming back to give your feedback, and I’m sorry your own DD’s confidence was knocked by the experience.

Irony is that I am tutoring of of my daughter’s friends through one of the skills modules (she roped me in to exploit one of my special interests, which is, of course, a joy) but am having to stay on the sidelines for my own kid’s journey. And I get it, frustrating as it is, this is about her independence.

Knowing what’s involved I can console myself that getting the award is more about negotiating a bureaucratic/administrative process as she’s already doing/has done everything required. Just like the example where Pierre Novellie knew how to read and knew that his teacher knew he knew how to read and thus didn’t get what a test was supposed to be for, threading and stitching together what is required to pass a DofE might seem straightforward but it never really engages with whether a child can sew, whether the child has access to threads, that even if they ask for a needle the kid won’t know if they require one with a round hole or an elongated hole, what size, where do they get the materials from, online or from a shop, knowing what haberdashery means, whether they will want a thimble, would a threading device help.

Even responding to the supposedly simple question of what one imagines one will learn by pursuing a certain skill is daunting, and there are quite a few similar trip-up questions in the forms that require envisioning oneself having achieved a goal before starting it. Unless someone involved understands bottom up vs top down processing, it’s almost impossible for a bottom up thinker to get help answering top down questions.

@GreenAndSpringy , that's exactly it - it is an exercise in bureuacracy. For the parents, mostly.

Our school have a subject called Personal Development, formerly Life Skills. Ever hopeful, I had thought that is exactly what it was - learning to deal with 'life admin'. Filling forms, making calls, making appointments, appproaching people in authority, approaching people in the street to ask for directions, that sort of thing. Wasted opportunity if you ask me, and not just for ASD kids.

Hope it goes with for your DD!

@stickygotstuck I arranged an overnight trip for me, DD and DH that involved getting to and staying on and reaching the top of Mt Fuji last summer. From my perspective, absolute simplicity compared to the DofE process :)