Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I am looking for your opinion about a situation I find my child in. He is 8 and has been diagnosed with aspergers/high functioning autistic. He has piano lessons a couple times a week but his teacher and mum have branded him as willful and stuborn because he does not want to practice or does not follow their instructions. He crys whenever he practices because of how confrontational things get, and because of how frustrated he is.
I have now been labelled as weak for suggesting that the teaching is too harsh and that maybe piano is beyond his abilities.
I am trying to be the best dad I can be for him but sometime I don't know if I should be pushing harder or easing up.
Lots of people don't understand the difference between can't and won't when it comes to ASD kids.
My lovely 16 y/o SD has an amazing singing voice, can act and dance. She does none of these things at this time. Her mother gets upset. We know that if she were in the right environment that gave her routine and structure she might try again. Or she might not as her interests have evolved.
Getting children to learn (any child, not just one with ASD) needs to tune in to their aptitudes and interests and reward progress rather than punishing a lack of progress.
Your wee man probably can't see the purpose of playing piano. Certainly can't see the purpose of practice (I might add as a ND adult it took me into my 30s until I understood why practice mattered but b still struggled because of tiredness and distractibility). All he is getting is negative feedback. He will be increasingly stressed each time he is expected to play.
Your wife needs to learn more about autism. She's no different from any other parent struggling with a diagnosis, because she's got to alter her expectations and drop her dreams. It's really about grief, she's in the stages of denial and bargaining "of course it isn't the autism, if I push him hard enough he won't be different". She may also need counseling.
I'm a step-mother and my current wrestling match with myself is around accepting that the bad choices my SD makes are not irreparable...and I'm in anger because if we were able to exert guardianship in a healthy way with the two co-parenting partners acting in SD16 interests she would be getting the right help. I'm expecting at age 25 or 35 we are going to be seeking assistance for a disabled adult who has never taken adult responsibility. So my anger is directed at her mother's behaviour. I'm also deeply saddened every time I see her because she's regressed as her mother has started using ASD as an excuse for not being able to do things, rather than her being a parent and directing the child towards different ways of trying.
Your son doesn't need a specialist teacher, but if he wants to learn music he needs to have someone who will take the time to work with him around ways of learning.
You mentioned the liking to start at the beginning. Giving him the explanation that he will benefit starting at the beginning of the phrase before the mistake, so he's able to shift the early piece focus to a bit he's finding hard might be enough. It certainly helped me. Getting him to sing the notes, clap the rythym, play on a table with the right fingers...
Having breaks for movement, having specific piano stretches and exercises. If he likes mathematics finding YouTube clips about the mathematics of music...
He might not want to play the piano. My brother and his wife are very brave with their quirky ND kids. They have surrounded them with music, demonstrated its fun and let them choose what to play. Their 10 year old plays trombone, 14 year old viola, 16 y/o is a percussionist (kettle drums home for the summer holidays (!)), 20 y/o oboe and 24 y/o the gazzo with saxaphone on the side.