Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm looking for advice for my 8yo daughter.
She is currently on the ASD pathway, and really struggles with singing and 'calming' music. She has been allowed to stay out of singing assemblies for over a year, but school have now implemented singing into every assembly. School are insisting that she needs to go into these assemblies as "In life things will happen that she needs to get used to"....
She becomes instantly distressed with these songs, and will sit with her in-ear plugs in, and her hands on her ears and cry throughout the whole singing part. As she has no formal diagnosis yet, I'm struggling to get the SENCO on board to keep her out of these assemblies, or to allow her to leave when songs start.
Any advice on my next steps?
Thanks in advance!
On the one hand they might be right. In life you can't avoid noisy environments 100%. However the answer is clearly not to just leave her to cope with this on her own. There needs to be a concerted and planed effort to help her develop coping strategies for this. Things that spring to mind include.
Yes you can you can walk away. It is actually abusive making her do this. As an adult we can walk away, she should be allowed to miss these assembles
The situation might be such that the distress sitting through assembly is such that it’s just not worth trying to pressure her into doing that … however the world is full of noisy environments and if a person can’t tolerate them at all it’s going to be very life limiting. No nightclubs, no cinema, no noisy workplaces, most public transport can be noisy at times.
so if it’s possible it’d be far better to learn early on ways to handle noisy environments because there is no practical way to make these noisy environments quiet. If the only option is avoiding noisy places it’ll limit a persons social life and work life sevearly