Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
Looking for a wee bit of advice - if anyone else is in (or has been) in the same boat, or has had similar situations. My son is currently going through a skateboarding phase and is suddenly taking an interest in weather. He hates not being able to go out with his board as he sees the rain as an obstical to do this activity, he currently lives and breaths skateboarding. Although, I am all for encouraging him to be outdoors and getting exercise - however - living near the highlands (I'm near the Glens on the east coast) - the weather is not so great this time of the year. My boy won't stop having meltdowns as a result of not wanting to take his skateboard out in the rain and is struggling to understand that his board won't get ruined straight away - and that nobody can control the weather. He also seems to think that by constantly screaming at me about where he can go to skate that's sheltered and not flooded, and hitting me for good measure, will get me to know where he can go. I have tried countless times sitting down with him in a quiet and relaxed manner and talking to him gently about this, but this only seems to be aggrivating the situation and making him worse. It's so bad that my neighbour shouts out his window telling him to shut up and calls him derogetory names - knowing fine well he has autism and potentially other disabilities. I have tried to explain to him that he can have more than one interest and have tried exploring some examples with him. I am fully aware that it's not as straight forward as that for his brain to understand this.
Can anyone relate to this? How have you helped your autistic with things like this? (I will be bringing all this up to CAMHS when he eventually gets his appointment)
You’re neighbour sounds absolutely vile and heartless, ignorant to boot, I’d have reported him for hate crime. Please please be patient with your son, I want to give him a big hug and tell him it’s ok
I have put complaints in about the neighbour - he's an idiot, I mean - he could have came to my door instead of shouting out his window and shouting abuse for the whole street to hear, but nah - no him. I do try to be patient, i really do, unfortunately he's at that age where he's just relentless. trying to tell him I don't know 100 times a day is like hitting my head off the hardest wall i can find, it's got to the point that I can no longer redirect his attention onto something else
Yes you’re very right to complain about your neighbour- that’s so cruel. I suppose I just see it from the perspective of an autistic child as I was one and I’m raising them too so my natural bias is to have whole hearted empathy for your son, I appreciate it must be harder at times maybe for non autistic parents to completely understand and I really do not want to in anyway offend you or make you feel bad at all, I genuinely feel for your son and I really apologise I can’t support you with any helpful advice but I really hope you can access the support you both need, please keep trying and remember how precious he is