Patience
I recently noticed that I haven’t posted for about a month. If you read or check regularly, don’t fret. We’re all ok. Just preoccupied with life. Sometimes I’m hesitant about posting about the bad days because I don’t want to fall into a whiny, complaining voice. But maybe reading about our struggles will help someone else. Life with a child with high-functioning autism is challenging, to say the least. School has been stressful lately and I haven’t wanted to post for fear of sounding dissatisfied or ready to give up with home schooling. We still firmly believe that home schooling is the best possible education for our all of our children. So here goes…
One aspect of high-functioning autism is that skills can be very uneven and do not always transfer to new situations. For example, a child may be able to do complex math problems in his head, but be unable to work the same problems on paper. Or, a child may be able to spell a word on a spelling test, but not spell it correctly during dictation or when writing. This is part of the problems we’ve been experiencing. T can read far above his grade level, but often can not tell you what the main point of the passage was. As schoolwork becomes more difficult, T’s frustration (and mine) skyrocket, causing us to take frequent breaks in order to complete work. He is becoming very negative as regards schoolwork.
Today, he gave me the following excuses on why he can’t do his work:
My eyes sting.
My hands hurt.
My head is shaking.
I’m too cold.
My eyes sting. (He had been crying)
There were probably others, but I gradually began to tune them out. In each case, I checked him over to make sure nothing was physically wrong and offered him comfort, “How about a cool washcloth to wipe off your eyes?” or “Do you want long pants on?” T refused these ministrations and went on to his next excuse. After a while, the tears subsided and he tried his best to complete some of the assignments. It is often hard to tell when he has a real excuse versus when he is just trying to get out of school work.
As the morning went on, it was obvious that we weren’t going to get very far with school today. T and I had a parent/teacher-student conference. T told me that he felt bad that he was behind in math. We decided to stop all other subjects for a week or two to allow him to catch up on his math. In the meantime, I ordered him a therapy ball to sit on during lessons. He has trouble with attention and focusing, and has problems with balance and the vestibular sense. I hope this will help him to stay on his chair and focus of his work. Sitting on the ball will enable him to sit and wiggle at the same time.
After our conference, I required T to go back and finish his math. He was to complete as much as he could do for 30 minutes. Tomorrow is another day.
I am definitely learning patience.
