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Daughter has displayed new behaviour

ParentingAutism

My daughter has displayed a new behaviour. The past week and a half, she has not been wearing shoes. In school, she will not wear them, if she goes offsite, depending where she's going, she will just slip them on so they aren't fully on or won't wear them if it's a short distance from the car to the building where she won't need to wear shoes, eg, flip out or ice skating. 

We aren't sure what is going on and the school have no clue because she wears shoes fine at home so it's only school. Hopefully someone can help us find an answer, so I will explain her day: 

Staff picked her up from home, she slipped her shoes on and straight away took them off in the car.

Drove to her Sport lesson, had no shoes on, when they arrived, she ran out the car onto the wet floor to go ice skating. Put skates on with help from staff with no problem. After her lesson she ran out the building, no shoes on and jumped in a massive puddle, started spinning round in circles so had wet feet and the bottom of her joggers were wet to but managed to persuade her to put clean dry socks on, no problem there. 

When they arrived back to school, she ran out the car, overwhelmed, not sure why yet because she was fine all morning. She ran out the car, no shoes on or coat, and it was raining and she is a quick runner so took them about 5 minutes to find her. When they found her she was dysregulated so they hugged her to calm her down, she tried running into the road so had to hold her so then she laid down on the road, next to the pavement so they moved her quickly. She was then banging her head on the wall and punching herself. She calmed down and she was shivering, soaked so staff got out the emergency foil blanket. She went back to school with staff, using staff shoes, and was wrapped up in blankets, hot chocolate, and a change of clothes. She then slept until it was time to go home. 

Don't know what happened today but she is refusing to wear shoes so school are buying some slippers so it's safe. The shoes aren't too big, too small, too tight but something isn't right but she hasn't said what. She is verbal so we do ask her. 

And one more thing, she keeps walking outside in the school garden when it's wet, which is basically everyday, with no shoes on, sits down or lies down. If anyone can have a guess with what's going on we appreciate it. 

Thank you for reading all this, she's never done this before and we want to help and understand. Sorry for the long post and rant. The school have emailed me everyday about this because it is worrying them and it isn't too safe for her to not wear shoes. It's only in school which is just confusing for everyone.

Parents
  • ParentingAutism said:
    When they arrived back to school, she ran out the car, overwhelmed, not sure why yet because she was fine all morning.

    This is, I believe, a hint to the issue.  Autistic people don't go from fine to overwhelmed.  Think of it like a bucket, and each thing that we have to deal with adds more water to the bucket, until it overflows.  Autistic people don't express things in the same way, and we can also learn to try to mask our difficulties so that we don't appear as weird or different to everyone else.

    Going ice skating would have been a much more difficult task for an autistic person than a non-autistic one.  It's a new environment which is very busy and there is a very high level of sensory, social and cognitive information to process.  It's likely that she was in a high alert state throughout the day, and the overload was a natural release once the event was over, like collapsing at the end of a long race.

    If she's fine wearing them at home, then it's possible that taking off her shoes is her way of showing that she doesn't want to go somewhere. She understands the need for shoes, and by taking them off she's indicating that she is not ready to leave the house.

    And even when someone is verbal, it doesn't mean that they can talk freely about everything.  I am verbal in most situations, enough to hold down a job and so on, but I still struggled tremendously to talk about my own needs or when something is bothering me.  As a lighthearted example, I once spent three whole days trying to work out how to tell my partner that I didn't like the sausages they bought.  Your daughter may understand that you plan these activities to be a good thing for her, so she feels bad about finding them stressful.

    I'm not saying this is definitely the case, but it's another perspective to consider.

Reply
  • ParentingAutism said:
    When they arrived back to school, she ran out the car, overwhelmed, not sure why yet because she was fine all morning.

    This is, I believe, a hint to the issue.  Autistic people don't go from fine to overwhelmed.  Think of it like a bucket, and each thing that we have to deal with adds more water to the bucket, until it overflows.  Autistic people don't express things in the same way, and we can also learn to try to mask our difficulties so that we don't appear as weird or different to everyone else.

    Going ice skating would have been a much more difficult task for an autistic person than a non-autistic one.  It's a new environment which is very busy and there is a very high level of sensory, social and cognitive information to process.  It's likely that she was in a high alert state throughout the day, and the overload was a natural release once the event was over, like collapsing at the end of a long race.

    If she's fine wearing them at home, then it's possible that taking off her shoes is her way of showing that she doesn't want to go somewhere. She understands the need for shoes, and by taking them off she's indicating that she is not ready to leave the house.

    And even when someone is verbal, it doesn't mean that they can talk freely about everything.  I am verbal in most situations, enough to hold down a job and so on, but I still struggled tremendously to talk about my own needs or when something is bothering me.  As a lighthearted example, I once spent three whole days trying to work out how to tell my partner that I didn't like the sausages they bought.  Your daughter may understand that you plan these activities to be a good thing for her, so she feels bad about finding them stressful.

    I'm not saying this is definitely the case, but it's another perspective to consider.

Children
  • in reply to Glitter

    She went ice skating with school and she said she loves it and is happy sharing a car with another student and that she can sit next to her favourite staff in the car and listen to her music. She says that ice skating is fun and is quiet because there's not many people because everyone's at school. She also has the support from staff when she struggles to ice skate but she is a good ice skater and has no problems with it. Staff say that she is better than them, able to skate on one foot and do spins so it's not difficult for her. 

    She has a schedule for her lesson, has a timer for when they need to start putting shoes on, and staff can help her if she needs it but she just refuses to put shoes on and will be happy to walk out without them. It's a confusing situation. 

    They said they sorted out the problems/worries she had on the way back and seemed fine and her favourite staff, 2 of them in the car with her, can realise when she is struggling before anything happens. They are amazing with her. But obviously something wasn't right when she legged it down the road.