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)
Something else to consider a lot of autistic people really struggle to get work when they grow up. And a lot of the ones that do end up working in a field related to their obsessions. I was like that perpetually obsessed with science and now I am a research scientist. I mean our local Vicar had been a professional nuclear physicist and even he couldn’t stand talking with me. i’ve had periods of unemployment where I just couldn’t seem to find work and a large part of it is that I really stacked up my entire CV just to be good at scientific research. even if I wanted to shift career in another direction it would be very hard for me to do so.
so what I’m saying is there’s a very serious possibility that your son will grow up to be a pro skater. I know teenage boys are always saying they’re going to be professional footballers or skaters or rockstars or some other celebrity style profession. But if an autistic kid says it and they put in huge amounts of time into it you should take it seriously because it may be the best shot they have actually having a career when they grow up. Because the chances are they gonna get fantastically good at it and secondly they’re likely to end up being useless for anything else.
My son's issue is with the fact that we live in a country that's prodominantly a wet country and that the weather can't be controlled. I just don't know any more how else to try and explain to him that nobody is able to control the weather and it's just something that needs to be accepted (i know - his brain isn't wired the same as mine)