Unsure about activities

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Hello,

I have a 6 year old boy that I feel might enjoy being involved in some organized activities. I know other parents with non-Aspy children have them enrolled in sports, music, Cub Scouts...etc. in my case, I don't want to force him into something he doesn't want to do but I do feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't try to expose him to things he might enjoy.

So far, hasn't been interested and is kind of a homebody. That may not be an Aspy trait for him....his Mom is the same way. Furthermore, I am not entirely sure he'd follow directions well so I don't know if he's ready.

He is very active at home....doesn't sit still unless there are video games involved. He likes to jump around, fall to the floor pretending he's a superhero...etc. His teachers say he is very good at singing, dancing and especially creative. They've recommended art, singing, musical instrument and dance classes...but he doesn't want to do them. His Mom wants to get him doing gymnastics because of all the pratfalls (he has constant bruises from it).

My questions are...how will I know if he's ready? How can I gauge his interest or get him interested? Are some activities especially good for Aspy children?

Thanks in advance for your help,

- netgeist

... I don't let my daughters diagnosis hold us back from enrolling her in activities. I don't think it's a good messege to send. So she is currently enrolled in dance, piano, and girl scouts.

That said, it takes a pretty huge commitment on my part to keep it going. Also, I never force her to go. She likes these activities, however forcing her to go when she doesn't feel like it taht day is probably going to lead to her detesting the activity. So if every once in awhile she says "I'm not feeling good and I just don't feel like it" we don't do it.

Also I have to stay and help for dance and piano. For girl scouts, I volunteered as a leader, there was no just dropping her off and hoping it worked out and that everyone would be understanding.

The really weird thing is that she will spend entire girl scout meetings more or less zoned out not doing too terribly much and certainly not interacting with other kids. But she comes out of it pumped and ready to do it again. She claims to have a lot of fun.

So I'd say give him some options, let him pick. LEt him know what to expect. Try it out. If he doesn't like it, then try something else. It's not a big deal.

I don't know whether my DS6 is Aspergers or ADHD, but I do enroll him in activities. He played soccer in the fall, probably will again in the spring. I really need to get off my can and take him to Cub Scouts...

...but the key there is that it's something he WANTS to do. HE's bugging ME.

I certainly don't think a diagnosis ought to hold anyone back from trying; the additional nice thing about Cub Scouts for us anyway is that parents and siblings are encouraged to participate (ie I can be right there with him, see what he does, and correct him in real time).

Now-- it depends on who you are. Taking my kid to activities is a massive undertaking for me (on the order of a quarter-pack of cigarettes, a pep talk, an escape plan, and half a dozen scripts for polite conversation). Aside from having one older daughter and two littler ones, I'm Aspie too and am definitely one of those Aspies that would flat-out prefer not to spend two hours on a Saturday morning sitting around a soccer field with strangers. Thanks to some as*hole therapist who is currently no longer practicing therapy and being investigated on federal disability fraud charges (as well as a few other as*holes), I have a MASSIVE shame and self-loathing complex that is (you guessed it) also getting projected onto my kid.

It waxes and wanes-- some days, we just went to soccer practice, feeling like the people we used to be. Most days, we got there and got through it somehow. A couple days, we ended up texting the coach to say "he" was "sick" when HE was perfectly healthy and I was the one who couldn't bring herself to walk out the front door with a less-than-perfect child.

Long story short(er), it basically depends on your kid's interest and YOUR ability to tolerate your kid's mistakes. If you're going to have to either ignore them or feel obligated to go off on the kid like a bomb, it's not a sin before God to just stay home. If you're going to have to drag a melting-down kid into the car, then drag a melting-down kid out of the activity, it's not a sin before God to just stay home. You can always nurture art and creativity in other ways-- say, a big ol' box of crayons, a stack of old magazines, some glue and safety scissors...

Also: My mom and grandma were NUTS about activities. I got dragged to sports camp, Bible school, ballet, Girl Scouts-- you name it, if it was "typical" for a little girl to do and they could spin a sales pitch on it until I agreed to go, I went. And I saw it though. And I didn't get much from any of it (unless you count pool time and the African Stick Game from sports camp, and a lifelong hatred of tulle, dance, and French from ballet).

Push pursuing the INTERESTS-- even if the most social it gets is visiting the library. Toss the lessons out there, talk about what could be expected, and be willing to GO and to be VERY INVOLVED-- Girl Scouts I think could have been enjoyable if I had been something other than the-kid-in-the-corner-who-didn't-sell-enough-cookies-and-couldn't-do-tricks-with-a-jumprope.

It is a good idea to present different activities and ask if they might be something of interest. Beware of pushing children into something however. This could easily backfire and create a lot of resentment. I know it would for me. Instead, try to offer suggestions and watch the response. Take them places that might be of interest museums, zoos, anywhere, especially places that cater to children. The point of this is to expose the child to many different experiences. See what gets their interest and then encourage them to follow those interests.

We've tried quite a few things with a couple of successes and some massive FAILS. As it turns out, pretty much any organized team sport is not on my ASD kiddo's bucket list. He could not tolerate soccer practice (he was 5 at the time) because none of the kids would do what the coach was saying. We tried swimming lessons, they were OK for a while but then he stopped being willing to participate so we haven't been back to that. Gymnastics was really good for a long while then for some reason I have not been able to figure out, he stopped liking that. I pushed a bit to try to get him to keep on but it became obvious that he really just wasn't having it anymore. I tried TaeKwonDo because, you know, everyone says how great martial arts are for ASD kids. FAIL. Too many kids moving around and making too much noise in too small of a space.

So that's some of what didn't work for us . Currently he is doing an afterschool program one day per week. The theme this semester is Cardboard Challenge. SUCCESS!! The kids get to make things out of recycled material, tape, glue and their imaginations. This is so up his alley that I can't even begin to tell you. His aide does accompany him to the class but she says that he hardly needs to interact with her at all. He has created some cool stuff and has had some really good interactions with his peers. This summer he did a cooking class for kids. That went well. We also tried a couple of art classes. One went very well and the other was a bomb. The one that worked for him was highly structured with very little time where the kids had nothing to do. In the other one, the instructor did not have enough planned to fill the time and there was just too much "free" time. That wasn't so good. In general though, I think art classes can be good because, in my experience, there are a lot of quirky kids in those classes anyway and some ASD kiddos may have an easier time fitting in that kind of environment.

I do kind of insist that he try something the first time because he pretty much always says no to my suggestions but if he tries it and really doesn't like it, I have learned my lesson and I don't push him anymore. Look for activities that you don't have to make a huge monetary commitment for when you sign up that way if the kid doesn't like it, you aren't out too much money.

It isn't his diagnosis that is holding me back...it's his seeming lack of interest. I feel like he would like these things if he started but don't want to force him into anything. I feel like a nudge might be a good idea but not sure how to go about that.

The comment about Aspy children not always taking to team sports gets to the heart of why I posted here in first place. My son doesn't do well with a lot of noise, would get concerned about other children not following rules...etc. I'm wondering if Aspy kids gravitate towards certain activities.

Thanks,

- netgeist

We have the same issue. We have not signed our son up for anything since before pre-k. My son's interests are unusual and to incentivize him to be away from home for even an hour a week, would require a special interest. We live in a rural area, and they have things but they are either sports or outdoorsy things like scouts. We would have to drive a long way to get to anything he might consider.

Ugh-- team sports are my ultimate nemesis. It's an important skill, I guess-- teamwork more than athletics-- hence I hauled my kid to soccer practice (though I stress again, if only out of admiration of Big Sister, it was HIS idea-- "Do you want to play?" got a big "YESSSSS!")

I think, most of the time for most Aspie kids, something a little slower-paced (or without so much stuff to track, and not so reliant on fast reaction time) and more individual works better.

It's not necessary to join organized activities, of course. There's always going to see stuff. We lived WAAAAY out in the boonies-- it was still possible to pick a single attraction or event (say, a museum) in the city and visit it. We could, honestly, have done it a few times a year (three or four, anyway).

Even the library can be enough to stimulate and feed an interest-- for all of my early and some of my middle childhood, there was nothing I couldn't do with the school library, the public library, the local bookstore, and my imagination. I can only imagine all the possibilities the Internet opens up (something I really need to look into now that I have this stupid awesome printer).

Socializing-- hell, I know it's everything everything everything that is stressed for spectrum kids. But, to a certain significant extent, there is no force on Earth that is going to make a spectrum kid do it (or anything, really, but especially that) until s/he is darn good and ready.

In part there may be types of activities that kids with ASD may tend to like more, swimming, hiking, I've been wanting to get mine involved in golf, in other words more solo activities than team sports. But I think there are also specific instructors or degrees of organization that make some activities easier for some kids to feel comfortable participating in. It does really depend on your kiddo's particular needs and sensitivities. As I said above, my son does better in creative art type classes where there is enough structure so that he doesn't feel "at loose ends". He loves to be able to express his own creativity but he needs a certain level of direction.

We also have the perfection thing to contend with. We took him out to do miniature golf, and oh, boy... It was meltdown city. We can take him out to aquariums and museums (depending on the type, the zoo, that sort of thing, but structure and socialization (which is often the point) no, no no. Also at my son's age (8) these things are no longer Mommy (or Daddy) and me. You are expected to drop off your kid and have them participate and not freak-out over things.

nope...

Golf would be a good idea...he likes to go to the driving range with me. I also want to get him involved with music because he seems to have some talent with singing and keeping a beat. It I just don't know how to introduce the idea of lessons to him and while I am fine with nudging him to try things, have no desire to force him.

My fundamental concern is that he has really become a home body since we let him started playing a limited amount of video games. I couldn't even get him to ride his bike this year...one of his favorite activities for the two years before. It feels like he wants to stay home in case he gets to play video games again that day.

My other concern is that he look back on something later in life and wish he had learned it somewhere along the way.

There is also the issue of him not yet being good at taking instructions.

What about Cub Scouts? Has anyone had experience with that?

Thanks,

- netgeist

This sounds kind of similar to some things that I have gone through (choosing not to go somewhere in case I can do something else that I want to do if I stay home). Is there any way you can set a time period each day where he will definitely be allowed to play video games? Maybe only let him play during that period (at least for a while, until he finds another activity that he enjoys doing and won't skip to play games). That way he'll know that he can play at a certain time, and he won't be constantly worried that he might have had the chance to play a video game if he does anything else during his free time.

What about Karate? Lots of boys do that. It also has a good bit of discipline involved, but he gets to hit things.

Or judo or jiu-jitsu. Another important thing people learn there is how to break their fall or roll with it.

Hi. My 10 yr aspie son (also has adhd mood disorder and sensory issues) has tobe the one to choose what he does. This year is the first year he came to me really wanting to join a club. It is lego robotics. He choose this not for social reasons but because it is right up his alley with his special intrests. So I talked with the school counclor... she runs the club. I decided to volunteer to help. Once I found out everything this entailed I am thrilled wanted to join it. It involves doing so many things aspies struggle with. Any way my advise is let your child choose. Maybe set up times with coaches of diferent teams where you and your child can observe. By doing this your son can actually what its about. Just maybe it will spark his interests. Hope this helps.