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Schoolwork/homework - expressing personal opinions

NAS63544

This may be asking the obvious, apologies if so. My son (8 years old) does not have a diagnosis yet, however I have my strong suspicions. 

When doing homework he does ok (perfectionism is there, but otherwise ok) with factual, find-the-answer-in-the-text type questions, but as soon as there is a what-do-you-think question he gets anxious, angry, frustrated and we have to stop. Today he handed in homework where he had just left the personal opinion questions blank. We gave up.

Is this likely to be connected to autism?

Parents

  • I was exactly the same - give me maths all day - but you want me to write an imaginary story???????   It's too open-ended - no working parameters, no 'right' answer - I hated it.  

    It's really hard when the teachers insist that we're bright enough to do it but we're unskilled at measuring emotions and feelings so we need a LOT more data to act as a framework.  

    Have a chat to his teachers - is he on the radar of the SEN people?    Try to explain the problem and maybe they can find something more appropriate to do.   We love to demonstrate our vast knowledge on things but ill-defined questions are of no use to us.

  • in reply to Plastic

    Thanks for your reply. Really interesting. He is not on any radars yet, other than mine. He generally does well with the structure and routines of school and I think this type of issue is only now starting to become apparent. It's really only been recently they started getting more structured "homework" with texts to read and questions to answer. I think it's just going to get harder and harder for him . So yes, I think it's time to talk to teachers. He has been unlucky in having constant teacher changes for the past 2 years so I think he has also falllen under the radar a bit too because of that. 

    Thanks again. This is all new to me and all advice is really appreciated  

Reply
  • in reply to Plastic

    Thanks for your reply. Really interesting. He is not on any radars yet, other than mine. He generally does well with the structure and routines of school and I think this type of issue is only now starting to become apparent. It's really only been recently they started getting more structured "homework" with texts to read and questions to answer. I think it's just going to get harder and harder for him . So yes, I think it's time to talk to teachers. He has been unlucky in having constant teacher changes for the past 2 years so I think he has also falllen under the radar a bit too because of that. 

    Thanks again. This is all new to me and all advice is really appreciated  

Children
  • in reply to NAS63544

    Hi - thanks - no I haven't written anything - I'm a twin so I had a 'normal' version of me to compare and measure as I grew up - I wasn't diagnosed until I was 42 - but in that time, my love of tech and nerdy things had managed to turn into a job in electronics where I worked mostly alone doing high-tech stuff,.   I ended up as a chartered engineer running nuclear particle accelerators.

    Is your son into any tech stuff like engineering, models, planes, trains, Technical Lego etc.?    It's a good way to have something completely under control as a distraction from the annoyances of dealing with people.

    There's lots of similar threads to yours on these boards - loads of information here to assist you with figuring out what's likely to come next in his development and lots of ideas to smooth the path for him.    Try to minimise his additional stress with understanding and chatting logically with him.   Make sure any house rules are totally logical and be prepared to adapt if a better, more logical way of doing things makes sense to him.     Peace, calm and logic are your friends.

  • in reply to Plastic

    You explained it so well. I recognise  so much of what you say in my son. The expploding when he comes home. And his need for things he can control. He is really into Pokemon Go and it's all he wants to do after school. He comes home and asks me immediately if he can play it and if we can go on a "pokemon walk". And I think he's too much into it and try to limit it. But that may well be completely the wrong strategy. 

    As you see, we need a lot of help with how to help him.

    You are so good at explaining this. Have you written/published anything on the subject?

    Again, many thanks. I am going to read all I can and get the ball rolling in terms of an investigation/diagnosis. 

  • in reply to NAS63544

    You're welcome - might be worth getting knowledgeable about autism because, as you say, things will get harder for him as he gets older and more subjects are demanding more open-ended questions.  

    There's also the social element - all his peers will start to grow up soon so all of his constants and known facts about them will start to become variable as they test their social skills against each other - he'll come home from school absolutely knackered!   He'll need careful, sensitive handling as he tries to make sense and facts out of all the annoyances and vague answers of the day - decompression time.    

    He'll likely bottle it all up all day at school and may explode when he gets home.    Make sure he has a place he can go to re-balance his brain.    All of the uncontrolled interactions of the day need balance with things he can control - like video games, hobbies etc. - and taking him out to indulge his hobbies as relaxation becomes more important.