Mr and I have what may be construed as an odd approach to Monster. We believe that to an autistic brain, this world is a terrifying place. Monster's senses are under a constant assault. Either the sights and sounds overwhelm him or he cannot sense where his body is. Until recently, rarely did he feel comfortable in his body or in this world. Unlike neural typical (AKA "normal") kids, he could not exercise any measure of control over his own life. To some extent he could not understand, to a greater extent he could not express his wishes, fears, anxieties or joys.
Because he has so little control over his life, a life that has been filled with doctor's appointments, evaluations, classes and therapies, Mr. and I decided to give him as much control as we can. Whenever we can, we allow him to choose whether nor not to take medication when he feels poorly. We ask him if he wishes to go to the doctor when he feels ill. He gets to decide what we do on our free days, who he sleeps with (Mr. or me), what's for his dinner (within his diet) and which movies to rent or watch. One other freedom we give him is the decision of when to go to school.
Many times, on Monday mostly, he has a bit of a meltdown about going to school. We require that he goes to school to say hi to teacher. If he still wishes to leave, we will say goodbye and come home. In general, he gets to school and asks to stay. Before this morning, he has only chosen to leave once. And that day was a horrific first day of summer school in a new place with an unprepared teacher; leaving was a good choice! This morning, he didn't want to go to school. In the car, he said "go home". At school he said "go home" and when it came time to say hi to teacher, he said "hi" and "bye". And away we went home.
I have no idea why, Mr. thinks Monster is suffering Spring Fever-he's tired of school.
Instead of school, the boys went go-carting, Monster's newest love.
Here they are at 6 flags over the weekend. Mr. is telling Monster "All Done" and Monster is saying, "That way, dad"
Go, Go Speed Racer!
Sounds like a great choice! I'm glad he had fun.
ReplyDeleteI'm always interested to hear about what works with your DS and what doesn't. Or, what works best on most days and what tends not to work on most days. Or, what might have a crap shoot's chance of working...you get the idea.
ReplyDeleteYou know my DS is NT (as much as any of us are). Still, the things you do with DS give me ideas of ways to help DS manage his life. I never would have thought to give him the option of just popping in to say "Hi" (which would likely result in him wanting to stay at school) on the MANY days where he doesn't want to go at all.
So, thank you for probably heading off future meltdowns/teary school days.