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School refusal and difficulty settling into routine

NAS75657

My Son is seven. We had the Christmas holidays when things were a little different, going to different places, meals being later. My Son was going to late/ very late and getting up early/very early, despite going to bed at his usual time. Just before he went back to school he wasn’t well but then seemed better so he went back to school for a day but was unwell for a few days so was off school. Now we he’s well again but we can’t get him to school and he still wants to go on outings but we only go to do certain places during term time weekends. If we say we will go to the places we go to in the holidays when it’s the holidays he gets upset and cross. If we tell him

we are doing the usual routine he gets cross and upset Any advice?? School have said there are no issues there, he’s very happy and doing well. 

Parents

  • We now have the added difficulty of our son refusing to go to different areas of the house. This can be not leaving his bedroom, refusing to venture downstairs or upstairs, which as you imagine also makes leaving the house difficult 

  • in reply to NAS75657

    How many areas? Which specific ones? Is it permanent (such as seeing a ghost in a corner and never wanting to go near it again). Is he in the middle of a thing when asked to go to an area (kitchen, etc.)? What is happening in the moment? It is a sudden expectation? 

    More often than not, an issue will have something to do with interruptions, which are like waking a sleep walker. Task switching will always be a severe difficulty and can cause accidents, brain fog, not just severe frustration (we feel everything with more intensity). This is due to the brain 'defaulting' to right brain thinking which doesn't sense chronology or linear time but the eternal / aeon / moment sense of time and hyper focus.

    Perhaps there's another reason. But this is one of primary difficulty for most parents with autistics - and predominantly because we live in a society with increasing smash-cut demands for our attention and think this is normal. Traditionally, a natural inclination toward being highly focused is a skill not everyone has and will someday be valuable. What tends to go part and parcel with this for Autistics, is the drive toward resolution. Finishing one thing at a time and then moving on to the next. In fact, constant interruptions can destroy this potential and also cause trauma, decreased learning, decreased esteem not just conflict. 

    If the suggestion involves dinner, I'd go to my son's room, ask him to set a timer for dinner and have him set it 15/20 minutes before - just as a buffer. Allow children to ease into life and they'll be just as allowing with others. 

  • in reply to JuniperFromGallifrey

    It could possibly be having to do something he wasn’t comfortable with in a certain room, something sensory like dressing or washing. I know he’s fallen asleep downstairs been carried up to his bed and woken in his bed the next morning, he then refuses to go back downstairs.

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