I would be grateful for any advice please
my daughter has started secondary school and things seem to be going downhill. She is struggling with maintaining friendship with peers and her anxiety is increased. She can’t get on the bus and at times refuses to go to school completely.
her meltdowns have increased as well as her expression of violence towards other (she has never hurt anyone) .
I am trying to support her but am struggling and would appreciate some guidance of how to help her
Hello NAS80767
I have no kids so I cannot claim to give any "advice" in that regard but I massively changed when I went to high school and not for the better.
There were other issues, but ultimately what I hated with a passion were the breaktimes, I hated the "chaos" and the noise, I was an "odd" kid so I used to be very low in the high school social cliques, my friends were mostly the other "outcasts" and we were the easy targets, compounded with other issues I eventually ended up going to a pupil referral unit due to extreme truancy and an absolute refusal, inability might be a better word, to go to school, but situations are much different.
The only thing I wish to ask, do you have an inkling as to anything that could be causing the triggers? If not you could maybe try asking her some "leading" questions?
To give a few examples and phrase it in a way you know would work better for your daughter, "Is it the classroom or the break times that cause you anxiety?", "Are their any particular subjects that are causing you anxiety?", "Do you find some of the behaviours of your friends confusing?".
Maybe give her a small notepad and pen and ask her to write down when she's getting anxious and what she knows is about to happen, depending on her communication style that may help, I don't now enough to give any other, I won't say advice, but thought process to that.
At the very least, you may spark the mindset of her sitting with her thoughts at brief periods during the day, recording them, I know because of what I was going through there used to be an extreme level of confusion when I got home, because it all "rolled" into one thing that I could no longer separate issues or concerns once I did get home.
Again, I don't really want to call this advice, I have no children myself, I don't know what you've already tried to do, I am not sure if I have autism or not, my mom does and she originally came onto this forum first. If there is something in there that seems like a good idea then feel free to try it is all I'm trying to say.
I hope you can find a solution that works for you either way NAS80767
Rambling opinion >>> I would also say that High School in general is just a garbage setup for some, it's very fast paced, you go to one lesson, then another on a completely different topic (Switching "order" of thinking), with breaks (complete "chaos") interspersed they have to recalibrate for each "environment".
While I get that they are having to prepare kids for adult work, even in an adult setting, you have one job, that requires a set amount of obligations to it, that usually make sense to the jobs role, in high school, it is structured more like work than primary school, but you are having to constantly swap completely what you are "focusing" on, with very little time to adjust to that.
I just honestly don't think high school cuts the mustard for a lot of kids in general, autistic or otherwise, I think it's too much of an awkward transition.
Ramble done.
edit: I left out the Knows originally
Paul M.
Hello NAS80767
I have no kids so I cannot claim to give any "advice" in that regard but I massively changed when I went to high school and not for the better.
There were other issues, but ultimately what I hated with a passion were the breaktimes, I hated the "chaos" and the noise, I was an "odd" kid so I used to be very low in the high school social cliques, my friends were mostly the other "outcasts" and we were the easy targets, compounded with other issues I eventually ended up going to a pupil referral unit due to extreme truancy and an absolute refusal, inability might be a better word, to go to school, but situations are much different.
The only thing I wish to ask, do you have an inkling as to anything that could be causing the triggers? If not you could maybe try asking her some "leading" questions?
To give a few examples and phrase it in a way you know would work better for your daughter, "Is it the classroom or the break times that cause you anxiety?", "Are their any particular subjects that are causing you anxiety?", "Do you find some of the behaviours of your friends confusing?".
Maybe give her a small notepad and pen and ask her to write down when she's getting anxious and what she knows is about to happen, depending on her communication style that may help, I don't now enough to give any other, I won't say advice, but thought process to that.
At the very least, you may spark the mindset of her sitting with her thoughts at brief periods during the day, recording them, I know because of what I was going through there used to be an extreme level of confusion when I got home, because it all "rolled" into one thing that I could no longer separate issues or concerns once I did get home.
Again, I don't really want to call this advice, I have no children myself, I don't know what you've already tried to do, I am not sure if I have autism or not, my mom does and she originally came onto this forum first. If there is something in there that seems like a good idea then feel free to try it is all I'm trying to say.
I hope you can find a solution that works for you either way NAS80767
Rambling opinion >>> I would also say that High School in general is just a garbage setup for some, it's very fast paced, you go to one lesson, then another on a completely different topic (Switching "order" of thinking), with breaks (complete "chaos") interspersed they have to recalibrate for each "environment".
While I get that they are having to prepare kids for adult work, even in an adult setting, you have one job, that requires a set amount of obligations to it, that usually make sense to the jobs role, in high school, it is structured more like work than primary school, but you are having to constantly swap completely what you are "focusing" on, with very little time to adjust to that.
I just honestly don't think high school cuts the mustard for a lot of kids in general, autistic or otherwise, I think it's too much of an awkward transition.
Ramble done.
edit: I left out the Knows originally
Paul M.
