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Alternative hobbies for autistic 10 year old boy

MumOfT

Hi, 

My 10 year old son was recently diagnosed (after a 5 year assessment process) with ASD. He is high functioning and attends a drawing club, music club and young film makers club all for one hour a week on various days.

The problem we have is every other hour of the day all he want to do is sit on his Switch, You Tube, Phone and play/watch all things Pokemon, Minecraft or Roblox. He needs forced into being peeled away from them to the point where me and my husband are concerned that he has a VERY unhealthy relationship with them.

We are having a tricky time with school at the moment and everything seems to result in anger followed by an autistic meltdown, leading into the occasional kicking and punching. Our worry is he is being influenced by what he is seeing on his computer games and youtube.

Other activities he enjoys is building Lego, doing puzzles, Rubix cubes, drawing Pokemon but never opts do do any of these activities and when he does, we get 10 minutes in and "he's bored"

I am looking for suggestions, advice, any help really on how to approach trying to wean him off his screen time to have a more healthy relationship with it?

Also while I am here...is there any sport or external hobby that is typically good (if that's even a thing) for children with autism? 

Thank you in advance for any advice given.

Parents

  • Is there anything he's doing in his weekly clubs that sparks his interest enough that he might want to do more of those things outside of the allocated hour (or could be convinced to!)?

    At 10 he's potentially old enough to learn a musical instrument and while that does possibly mean extra expense for parents - I can speak from my own experience of it being truly life-changing.

  • in reply to NAS90609

    So he started Trumpet lessons at school last year and enjoys it when he is at school but trying to get him to practise at home is a nightmare. We would love him to take it on more. Any advise or tips you could give would be amazing.

Reply Children
  • in reply to MumOfT

    I think the one thing that made the difference when I was starting out was having a teacher that wasn't just going through the motions - they made an attempt to make the lessons fun and relevant and they sparked a curiosity to discover and listen to new music.

    They used to split the session into two halves - the first half I would have to learn and practice fundamentals - which is vital but boring - but in the second half they would play and sing a song that used some elements of the lesson - so I could hear where that troublesome chord fit and understand why I was being made to play that ridiculous scale over and over - and that's the bit that kept me interested and motivated and introduced me to artists and musical styles that I still find joy in 40+ years later.

    FWIW - practicing is still hard :)