How much stress should you put on a six year old with Aspergers?

Just to let you know that swimming is not part of the ks1 curriculum for PE. It starts at ks2. If your school are choosing to do it, that's fine, but don't let them tell you it's a compulsory part of the curriculum. Its really not appropriate at that age - they must be spending most of the lesson time changing! How is that a good use of curriculum time?! I hope you make some more progress with the head.

Hi there,

Thank you for your post it was really helpful. as you say we have to keep reassessing our childrens needs as they are changing all the time.  I will do my best to flow like water and adapt   I hope it all works out for you and your son whether you continue to home educate or not.  i hope you settle happily into your new home in England.

Puffin

Hi Arran,

Thank you also, my sons school is in the North of Scotland by the way, very small unlike my old huge primary school in North London!

He does have one good friend thankfully.  My husband and i will continue to read the homeschooling books and be ready if the time feels right to give it a go for my sons sake.

Take care

Puffin

Hello all,

An update as promised after all your support.

Well on phoning the school the headmistress was away so i explained the situation to my sons temp teacher (his usual is away on maternity leave).

I always find it difficult to explain my sons actions and feelings to others but i did my best, you see he is usually smiling, rarely talks and definatly would not ask for help.

The teacher listened to my concerns but said he would have to attend swimming.  She was very helpful though, she phoned the swimming pool and arranged a one to one assistant for the pool and told them of the Aspergers.  She herself also volunteered to get in the pool if my son asked.  I explained he would not ask, (they must think i make it up half the time)!  My son can be sooo quiet at school it is a type of selective mutism esp. with the teachers, a way to avoid anxiety i think. (completley different when at home and with good friends).

She insisted i get him there which i did, and thankfully all went well .  I am not sure his teacher really understands my sons Aspergers , yet!  but she did listen and did more than others have in the past.  The most important thing also was my son arrived home after school, happy!  he did say he asked to get out at one stage, i am not sure why but they ignored him, but on further probing he decided they probably did not hear him .  Swimming is once a fortnight at the moment so hopefully all goes as well  next time.

Thank you all for your support.

puffin

puffin said:

My husband is very keen to home school our son to avoid any extra pressure and i want to to but i feel i want to keep him in primary school as long as we can, for his sake, it is a fairly small class 14 children and only 32 in whole school so as schools go this is as good as it gets, especially if you have Aspergers.

Out of interest where is this school?

His dad would take him out tomorrow if he could, but i worry about his social skills.

The mainstream school system is based around a concept that academic subjects are taught and children learn social skills naturally as they go along. This doesn't work for children with AS who need to be explicitly taught social skills as they are incapable of naturally picking them up. Children with AS benefit from having a few good friends rather than lots of acquaintances. The environment of a very small school is not something that I'm familiar with because my primary school was about 10 times the size which makes it difficult for me to comment on the friends vs acquaintances scenario.

Hi there

My son loves swimming so I cannot comment about this.  However on the home schooling front I have been home schooling my son in the interim until I could solve a horrendous situation with my local authority who were not wanting to accept a partial diagnosis as we have recently moved from Scotland to England.  To be honest our son has loved it.  I have got to know his strengths and difficulties he has.  I have used innovative ways to teach him and he has grown in confidence.  The main reason I have chosen to integrate him into school is the social aspect, which is where his difficulties lie.  I agree as a parent one has to get the right balance between our sons needs and in helping him to understand the neurotypical ways of social interaction.  I worry that although he will be the smartest boy in town, he may struggle if I do not help support his social interaction skills and then become socially isolated.  However, if I find that the school is creating an empty child who is constantly unhappy and suicidal, as with his last school then I will have no hesitation but to home school him until he is older.  Of course there is also the financial family implications of me not working anymore which we would just have to bear, but this is less important as as long as we can pay our bills.  Our son is the most important of all and we did not have a child to hand over for someone to inadequately deal with.  This is an ongoing debate for us as parents.  Luckily we have now found a fantastic centre which is a charity called Daisy Chain where I can talk over these issues with other parents in simliar situations. Keep talking and reassessing.  Flow like water and adapt to your childs needs as they change in time too. Hope this was objective for you.  Wishing you the best of luck. x

Hi mum of 3,

No the ASD team are not involved , not to my knowledge anyway.  I am going to talk to the headmistress who is the SENCO coordinater today.  I am not even sure the school have made the swimming instructors aware of my sons disability, but they do know, it is only too obvious how timid and anxious he can be. 

I am doubting the schools knowledge of Aspergers (it is a mainstream school).  i think i need to arrange another meeting to remind them of his particular worries.

Hi Hope,

That sounds awful, you see that is just what i am trying to protect him from.  I know if they push him too hard it will wreck all our efforts to have him feeling happy and safe in the pool and learn to swim eventually at his own pace.

As i mentioned to Mum of 3, i have decided to phone the school again and talk it through, i have to get across somehow how serious his anxiety is and that i do not want him pushed to far or i will stop him swimming with the school completley.

Thank you both for your advice.

Puffin

My own experience of swimming at primary school was a horrible one, and I never learnt how to swim - it put me off completely.

I have always been very nervous anyway, and was scared of jumping into the pool. The teacher ended up pushing me in , a horrible thing to do, and I lost confidence. I stayed in the shallow end with floats, but ended up quite scared of the pool. In the end, the school took me out of swimming, which really annoyed my parents as there was no explanation. This particular primary school hated having to deal with special needs kids in the first place. The headteacher always had a sour look on her face when my dad approached her about what the school were doing to help me, and school did not follow the eductational psychologist's recommendations. This was long before I got diagnosed, but the school were still aware that I had problems.

Very good point and well made, definatly food for thought.  Especially about the possibility of "undermining confidence".

Thank you very much.

Puffin 

The environmental issues and the nature of water, especially chlorinated water, and the noise, movement etc are factors - and swimming seems often reported as a problem area.

Otherwise I tentatively raise a point here that may get some fierce reactions. Before the diagnosis was around, children whether six or younger or older found themselves having to cope with all their difficulties, because they weren't taken seriously.

The converse now is to be protective. But to be honest, in most cases there are still peer difficulties, bullying, teachers who aren't understanding, and the slow process of accessing support, I'm not sure that knowing someone has AS makes things any less stressful.

The only change seems to be that we do try to protect and cushion the external experience. I do worry that might be counter-productive. It creates an over secure safer environment which children get too dependant on as they get older.

The idea is that softening the external pressures is supposed to prevent the damage that used to be done to AS kids psychologically, coping at a disadvantage in an unsympathetic world.

However there are other forms of damage. Some of the measures in place may be deeply undermining confidence. Diagnosis does impose certain limitations on perspectives about life.

I'm not arguing against that support and protection, only there needs to be more guidance about when getting children to face up to difficult things might be beneficial. The right supporting information is however lacking.

Hi Azalea,

Yes i hated swimming too when i was young, possibly that is clouding my judgement.  The memories come flooding back, yuk!

I think the pool is too noisey, and he is not ready to put his face under and they are pushing them further and further now in water confidence.  Truouble is if they push him too hard, i know he will never go back.  The teachers can see he is nervous, it really shows on his face, but they still feel it acceptable to push him that bit further, and as i said maybe it is , it might just be me being over protective and not knowing when to back off?!

At school his main fears are gym and one lad who is a bit of a bully in the playground.  They have no playgroung monitor to watch over them and i think my son gets pushed around sometimes by this child,  (Thats why i started him in a martial arts class last year) so he could defend himself if neccessary.  he also being a real perfectionist can get a bit upset if his work is corrected.

I am naturally a very sensitive person, probably a bit too soft but am also aware my son could possibly take advantage of this also?!

Thanks for your comments Azalea, really helpful as usual.

Puffin

Hello,

Thanks for replying,  I think there are a few issues with swimming at the moment, firstly they are expected to jump in at the start and he is terrified at the thought of that.  He does jump in with us but with dad to catch him.  We do go to the same pool.  There is a bus ride there and they have a race to get changed which he hates, mainly due to the fact i think he comes last.

He dislikes getting water in his eyes and they are asking more and more now for the kids to put their faces in the water and again i think my son is the only one who has not done it yet so more pressure there.

I think he knows that if we ask him to do something at swimming if he is really scared he will say no, but at school he feels he cannnot.  i do not think they would allow him to, i have been to watch before and seen kids in tears and still made to jump in.

No my son does not have a statement, but does suffer from anxiety quite  badly with new situations.

I will have a look on mumsnet, thank you.

I hope i do not sound too pathetic, i have always been protective of my son , only child and all that , but it is also just in my nature.  I think i do look out for him a bit more since the Aspergers diagnosis, maybe i should back off sometimes, trouble is my husband who also has Aspergers is even more protective than me?

puffin