Self Care

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Hi Everyone

I'm coming to realise that my daughter really is falling behind, not academically or socially, just in the area of doing stuff for herself. She's almost 7 1/2 and has a diagnosis of Aspergers. She doesn't appear autistic really and her social skills are really quite good. She gets on well with most kids and has the confidence to stand up to bullies. Her autism appears to be very mild indeed. But, she doesn't do a thing for herself. If left to her own devices, she wouldn't get dressed/undressed, washed, brush her teeth, do her homework, eat in a reasonable timescale, go to bed, get up... We really are making all decisions for her, telling her what and when to do it. And that's not to say that she complies. Even with us reminding and prompting her, she still carries on doing what she wants to do. Every task results in a battle. She has a whiteboard with little visual prompts for her daily activities (getting dressed, etc), but, as with everything else we try, she doesn't even look at it now.

I know she's still very young, but my best friend's 5yr old can do much more for himself than she can. E.g. I see him getting his own shoes out of the cupboard each morning. I put my daughter's shoes at her feet, rather than have her complain that she can't find them, even though they're in the shoe cupboard, with all the other shoes (where I put them, as she never does). We've been so focused on encouraging/ supervising/ prompting/ arguing about the essential stuff, that we've just got used to doing the other stuff for her. If she does the essential stuff without a fuss, that's a bonus and we might have some spare time for her other skills. Normally, there simply is not enough hours in the day.

This morning, it came to a head. She's been a nightmare to get ready lately, playing with toys, when she should be eating or getting dressed and not responding to any sort of prompts. So, by the time we were leaving the house, I had just about reached boiling point. Then she said, 'Wait, YOU'VE forgotten my pencils. The teachers are always telling me off for not having any pencils with me', and she went over to the bookcase and picked up her pencils. At that, I just about blew my top. 'How could I have have forgotten YOUR pencils? I never took them out of your pencil case. What do you mean the teachers are always telling you off for having no pencils? You've never told me anything about that. You have plenty of pencils. Why don't you get some from your room and put them in your pencil case.' Yes, I went on a bit, but I was so angry, not least for her blaming me for it. She was really upset and told me that she forgets.

I feel guilty (a bit), because she has never been expected to make sure she had everything she needed for school, as I've taken on that responsibility. Her pencil case is full of pencils, turns out they are all colouring pencils. I check her bag every night, but I'm not accustomed to checking the contents of her pencil case every night. I do that every once in a while. I fill her water bottle, put money in her purse, on gym days, I put her gym kit in. She needs to do nothing, which I know isn't right. I'm going to make up a checklist for her bag and encourage her to help me check it. Hopefully this will get her motivated to do this little thing and eventually she might be able to do it by herself, if she can stay focused on the task.

But, where do I go from here? Do I have to do this for every little thing she has to do?

Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks

Stay out of "the blame game" and commend her for remembering to check her pencils! Then, look for other ways to let her experience the consequences of her own lack of action and become inspired to do something about it. She might continue to blame or presume to scold you or anyone else when SHE has to do something herself, but she is aware of the need...and your commending her for doing what she needs to do would seem to me to be encouraging to her in further discovery of the fact she actually can make a difference in her own life.

The checklist sounds like an excellent start, and then you can possibly branch it out once she adapts getting ready on her own into her routine. I've been guilty of the same thing with my kids, but I'm trying to back off of that. I want them to have a sense of personal responsibility and ownership, and not just sit back and expect to have their every need met. It is very hard to find that balance. I've been stricter with my oldest now, because I've been seeing some "learned helplessness" from him lately.

Thanks. I understand the need to keep my approach positive. The thing is, she didn't actually remember to check her pencils, she just saw some sitting on the bookcase and knew they should be in her pencil case. I find it quite hard to find a positive in it, when she really did very little to help herself. I just lost it this morning, as we were already later than usual and she's been particularly 'difficult' since the return to school last week, after the holiday. I'll try to keep the positive appraoch in mind, despite how I might be feeling.

Thanks, I'm worried about the 'learned helplessness', as I can see that happening already. I do far too much for her, mostly because we have barely enough time to do the essential stuff. She takes an hour to eat her dinner and 45mins to dress, brush her teeth and get her hair combed (whilst I'm trying not to explode). Everything takes an age, so, to save any more time, we've done things like packing her bag and getting her shoes out of the cupboard. I've phoned my husband and we're going to discuss it more tonight. He agrees about the checklist.

We have the same issue but worse as my son has absolutely no interest in doing any self-care at all. We do all of it. We have tabled it and are revisiting it this summer because we have had bigger issues (But we always do, so I am going to have to address it, anyway.) He has no incentive because any of the consequences (being late for school, or probably not being able to go due to nakedness) would visit on me, not on him. During the summer, I can set something up without worrying about ruining him for the school day.

I am going to have to focus on what I know he can do at first and then maybe make an incentive chart and see if it his will help him do some of it.

So basically, I don't have any advice because we are failing miserably in this regard, but I empathize, if that helps at all.

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 24 Apr 2013, 12:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think they should allow autistic children flexible school start times. It's a nightmare getting them ready.

My older two kids were horrible to get ready for school and they are NT. My oldest took forever to get out of bed and the only way I could eventually get him out of it is to drop marbles in the bed with him under the blanket that I had kept in the freezer. We were always late because he would dawdle and dawdle and finally Sister told me to just send him in his jammies. This was 5th grade and she said that she's had other parents do that before too when they had that problem. They had more uniforms there that they let them change into and she was right. I did that once and he never dawdled like that again.

My oldest daughter had lots of trouble waking up so I would just dress her while she was asleep, steer her down the stairs with her eyes still closed, sit her on the floor in front of me and hand her a pop tart to eat with her eyes still closed, while I put her hair up and then led her out to the car with her eyes still closed. In the mornings when they were dropped off they went to a line in front of the school and sat down on the sidewalk to wait. She would go over to her line, sit down and go right back to sleep and then finally wake up when it was time to go in to class.

It's so much easier to just do it yourself for them but in the end it makes things harder because not only do they not learn to manage their time but they don't want to start doing for themselves and will fight you at every turn. It was a huge mistake that I made when they were little by doing everything for them, and as they got older I really regretted it but now they do their own stuff of course, since they are 16, 18, 19 and almost 24 lol.

We did a lot of managing DS's time for him and setting up routines and prompting...and I, too, worried about him becoming dependent. Every kid is different, but we managed it by rewarding him whenever he did something of his own initiative.

He just needs a lot of support, but now at nearly 13 he's doing much better...even took some initiative to get homework done at school during a break the other day.

The problem with parenting a kid on the spectrum is figuring out where that line between supporting and enabling is, right? It is very, very hard.

I hear ya. My son is 7 too and when I stand in the bathroom and give him instructions to wash his hair and his body parts while he is in the bathtub I wonder sometimes if he is EVER going to do this stuff on his own. My brain jumps to comparing him to his older brother who was all about doing it himself, whatever "it" was and then I stop myself. Youngest is different, I do believe that he will get there eventually. I believe he will one day get dressed without it taking 1/2 an hour and that he will brush his teeth without me standing at the sink with him. It is just going to take longer. I totally get your concern about fostering learned helplessness too. You might consider just focusing on one task that you really want her to become independent with and work on just that for a while. It might work best if you choose something that is not too undesirable for her. Try gradually reducing the amount of help you give her or the number of prompts on just that one task. Reward every bit of progress you see!

Maybe there needs to be a motivator in place for doing things in a timely manner by herself. For example, if she can eat her dinner within 20 minutes instead of an hour, that leaves 30-40 minutes that you can have a pillow fight with her (or a desirable activity). Morning time getting her to school is probably more stressful, but there might be something desirable you can reasonably reward her with for complying, even if it is something as simple playing her favorite game on the iPad while in the car on the way to school.

Thanks. I wish it would work, but the reward system doesn't seem to be working. We've tried all sorts, but it's never enough to motivate her. The rewards are always available and she knows this and is reminded every day. On her noticeboard, I've made picture magnets for all the major tasks (eating breakfast, getting dressed, etc). If she gets them done, the rest of the time until 8.25 is free time (she wanted this to be her reward). It's all planned out on the board, with a line under all the things that need to be done (use toilet, eat breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth, get hair combed) before she gets the reward. The words 'Free Time' are just under the line and larger than anything else on the board. We walk to school, so any immediate rewards need to be at home. She's decided that she wants the free time to be TV/DS time. But, despite the reward being so good (and set by her), she nevers gets there. Then she complains that she never gets time to watch TV. It's the same with eating dinner. Once that's done, the rest of the evening, before bed, is free time. She loves to play with her Daddy and he'd gladly do this for the whole evening, if the time was there, but it's been wasted by her dragging her heels over every mouthful.

Thanks. I think we're dealing with similar issues. She actually manages to wash herself (after a lot of prompting and persuading to get into the shower). I wash her back, she does the rest and only the face needs prompting, but I know that's down to sensory issues. Some day we'll both get there, I'm sure, one step at a time.

Thanks. I'm glad your son is doing so well. It's good to hear a positive story. I think I'm just starting to realise the difference between my daughter's independence and that of her peers. Until quite recently, all kids of her age needed a lot of support in the area of self care. The rest are doing for themselves in many areas now and I'm starting to see her slipping behind. This hadn't been a concern until now, so I'm trying to get my head round it and talking it through on here has really helped.

Thanks. I'm only coming to realise just how much we've been doing, which other parents would wonder at, e.g. getting her shoes out of the cupboard. It's as if I'm some sort of unpaid servant.

It would help a lot. It would at least take the pressure off us parents and we wouldn't feel so stressed. I would also feel that we had more time to allow her to do the things she needs to learn, instead of me just doing them for her. We always get to school on time, but it's only because I do things that my daughter should be doing for herself (or learning). There's no time to tutor her on self care tasks, as we need to be in school by 9am. We're always doing stuff right up to the last minute, no matter how much time we've had from getting up. She was brushing her teeth at 8.30am this morning and still had to have her hair combed before we leave at 8.35am. And hair combing is a story all on its own (major sensory issues with that one).

Another mum I know has a boy who is being assessed for autism and ADHD. Despite her efforts and no matter what time she gets up at, she's always a few minutes late. The school depute head showed absolutely no understanding for her situation and said she should get up 5mins earlier. The boy is similar to my daughter, with regards to getting ready, so I totally empathise with her on that. Also, a recurring problem she has is that they can be ready to leave, with plenty of time to get to school and her son can sudddenly say that he's not going to walk and there's no making him do it. She doesn't drive and there's no public transport from her house to the school, so to get there, she has to call a taxi. So, they then wait for the taxi and end up being late. Getting up earlier would not have helped, but the depute head cannot not see how.