Hi there, I have just joined this community as the mum of the most WONDERFUL 16 year old girl who is only now heading for an autism diagnosis which is all but confirmed on paper. She has had a terrible time and we are only just coming to understand why. I am keen to turn to the autistic community as there is so much I need to learn, so you will probably get frequent threads from me. But for today, my topic is school.
I'm guessing my daughter's story is familiar to many of you. She is highly intelligent but they are discovering that she has considerably physical difficulties with things like motor skills and she struggles with social skills, dealing with complex social situations, etc etc. She also has a very complex sensory profile which is currently being assessed.
Long story short, she struggled a bit in infants and junior, then she went to a secondary grammar, threw herself into it at a million miles an hour, took part in everything, tried really hard to make friends and did for a short time, then she what I have until recently called a breakdown (I have now learnt this is more accurately termed autistic burnout) had to take considerable time off and things have never been the same for her. She finds the school environment incredibly difficult to cope with. She becomes unbearably anxious. She is exhausted at the end of every day. She has no friends and none of the other kids engage with her socially. But she still does well academically. The most frustrating thing is that she does much better academically learning remotely. She has loved lockdown. If it were two years ago I would consider changing her path, but she is just coming up to GCSEs and she has a deep passion for learning and a career path for which she needs those grades so I feel like taking her out now would just make her feel that the past 4 years of battling have been a waste of time.
The school are actually incredibly kind and supportive, but I believe their knowledge only goes so far. They think that because she manages to go in and do her lessons and stuff that she is "resilient" in school. I now understand that she is absolutely expert at masking (sorry, I know that term is not considered ideal but it's the only one I have) and at home I can see the damage it is causing her - burnouts, meltdowns, shutdowns etc. School has already confirmed there will be no option for her to continue learning remotely when they go back in and she would be heartbroken to lose access to some of her teachers. I can only think that my best tactic is to try and educate the school on what life is really like for an autistic person from a sensory and social perspective as I think that would help them to try and put some things in place that might enable her to just about get through it. And then we can take stock armed with the knowledge we now have.
So, my question is, would anybody on here be willing to share with me your experience on how you found attending school? I do ask her but she finds it hard to explain and much easier to say yes or no if I ask her specific questions - but often I don't know what I should be looking for. I thought that perhaps if I could gather a few real life experiences (anonymously, of course) that describes how it really feels to be an autistic person in an NT environment, it may help the school to step inside her head and see hw intolerable school is, and we may be able to find ways to mitigate that.
I have found a number of articles but I was hopeful that some of you might feel kind enough to be willing to share your stories so that both myself and the school can understand her perspective - or at least know the right questions to ask.
Also, if anyone has any advice at all as to how I can support my daughter I would welcome it. For so many years I didn't see what was right under my nose and as a result most of my parenting has been completely misguided. Now that I'm starting to realise what's happening I desperately want to put that right, show her that she is loved and accepted, help to make her environment as easy as I can, and support her in becoming the absolutely awesome young woman I know she has the potential to be.
Sorry for the long post, I'm new to all this so still learning what's acceptable to this community.
Thank you xx
