Published on 12, July, 2020
my son is 5, has autism, and attends a mainstream school. One of his difficulties is that I find he cannot wait for anything. If he asks for something, and I tell him ‘in five minutes’ he will often cry and shout it takes too long. I have tried linking with our routine ‘eg after your toast’ or ‘after we have lunch’ but he will still get upset I darent mention his birthday as he will cry on occasion saying it’s too long away!! He needs to has what he wants immediately... even when making cupcakes he gets upset about the 12 minute baking time. Why is it he struggles with ‘time’ and how can I help him not get upset... he doesn’t seem to learn that in life, we have to wait for things, especially good things!! I just want to understand how he sees things
Hello.. I don't know if this will help but I will try to explain.. when I was a youngster a minute was literally like an hour.. I used to sit counting the seconds.. 60 seconds in a minute, I would count 1, 2,3 and all I could think was how am I ever going to make it to 60.. it's so long and so far away.. when I got to 60 I couldn't comprehend that there was another 60 coming along.. total autistic focus.. total fixation.. I'm now a lot older and still have time issues.. I have to be very precise..
These days if I say 6 o click I mean 6 o'clock 1 minute late, that eternity of a minute will literally seem like an hour so I have learnt to occupy my mind so I can try to pretend it dosent exist..
My advice would be to firstly see if this is the same and try to understand that this is a really big thing.. secondly try not to focus on the time infact i wouldnt mention it myself at all but try to occupy his mind so he dosent start focusing on time.. I guess it would be like a dripping tap.. once you know it's there that's all you can hear.. yes he has to learn how to tell the time and manage time as he grows but if he is like I was.. actally reading this back has made me think it might have been anticipation of what it was counting down to.. as again still to today I can not under any circumstances deal with anticipation.. anyway please don't think I'm in anyway qualified to give advice on this matter it's really just my experience..