Published on 12, July, 2020
Sorry for the long post - but just need to give some background.
My son was diagnosed ASD just before lockdown (March 2020) in Y7. From Y6 he was being absent from class and this built up during Y7. Since returning after lockdown the situation is worse. He was on a reduced timetable - mornings only - and seemed fine with that. However, now, in Y9, he's rarely in school. He has anxiety and has had OCD - mainly intrusive thoughts - since Y5. This has got worse and used to lead to regular meltdowns. Now this seems to have changed a bit and he says that he mainly feels stressed and restless. He's currently with the Tavistock Autism department and has therapy for anxiety once a week but this is very long term (which is great) but we don't see his attitude to school changing much.
In class he says he feels stressed and overwhelmed. He told me this morning that 50% of that stress is due to him feeling that he doesn't know what's going on because of what he's missed. He's very bright (we think this is one reason he was able to get away with masking in primary school - they didn't worry about him because he was always able to get reasonable scores in tests).
He's very much a perfectionist and finds it difficult to just sit in class and try to get used to the discussions etc. He will obsess about not understanding every small detail and therefore come to the conclusion that if he doesn't understand everything he's going to do really badly. So, it's a vicious circle.
He has an EHCP for 25 hours but the support can only work if he's in school.
So now I'm thinking should we pay him for being in school? He's very motivated by money. It sounds terrible I know but at the moment we're getting worried as he's missed so much school. His GCSE course starts next year and if his approach continues like this he will miss out on that. We don't feel that he must be academic or needs to go to university etc but we want him to have options and we feel these are being narrowed - just that he doesn't have the foresight to know that. And what 14 year old really listens to their parents? He wants to be an architect and we've explained that this will mean studying and university but all that he can think about is not going to school right now because it's too stressful.
Any advice and suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks.
My initial reaction was negative to "cash for (school) honours"... but on further consideration I think it might work.
I think though it would need to couched in such a way that you are paying him for a service - ie: an employee rather than bribee. Perhaps a formal writen contract complete with performance reviews, rigorously applied penalties & bonuses for going above & beyond. I would also build in moderate annual increases to discourage him blackmailing for more.
Done correctly this might be a good introduction to employment in later life.
Hi Moon, this make sense to me - although I'm not autistic. I'm wondering what autistic people make of this - especially if their school experience was/is similar. I'm also worried that it might be bad for him - like I've said it turns out we were encouraging his OCD by paying him before the task in the past (a bribe). Apart from not encouraging his intrinsic motivation is there anything else this can work against? (I figure that if it's only his motivation that's at issue here we can work on that after this bridge has been crossed.)