Is free choice a good thing for AS kids?

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Hi. I'm the parent of an 8 yr old AS boy. As far as routine goes, my son likes to know what he's doing and when, but is usually flexible with changes when they are explained in advance.

General guidelines for school are that AS kids work best with a strict routine and schedule that is all laid out for them. However, I am beginning to think that this may be leading to a lot of meltdowns, and that he actually needs freedom within those work times to choose to do work in the order he wants to. Sometimes I have him at home and have found that the best way to get "school work" out of him is to write a list of what needs done, let him add a couple of his own choices, and then just let him work his way through it, along with giving him the space to run outside and play with a ball or whatever for a few minutes when he feels like it. However, I worry that if he is allowed too much freedom in this regard, then it might ill-prepare him for things later in life, like future education and employment. Should we encourage him to work to his own interests and choices, or should we be trying teach him that for some things in life he has to knuckle down and get on with, regardless of how he feels about it. Can anyone offer some advice on this?

I've always found it funny when professional aspergers books list strict regulations and structure as beneficial to asperger people. Truth is, if it's structure set by anybody other than the AS, it causes more problems by creating a restrictive environment.
Some aspies really do need second-hand structure; most do not.
When I was at school I would refuse the inferior subjects, and the limited presentation by the teachers. Public education... ye gods.

i like the way you do it. he has the list of things he needs to do so it's not like he has a freedom not to do them. i used to do lists like that myself and i remember that i always started with something i liked, then i did something i didn't like as much and finished with something easy and quick to do. to start is always difficult so it's good to start with something pleasurable.

but going out to play and then having to start again that's two difficult starts in one day, while having everything finished and then playing makes the game much more pleasant

I wsas forced into situations that really HURT me. They really hurt ME, and I wondered how other people liked them. NOW I KNOW! I was basically another creature.

i agree with that. i was quite bad student in basic school. although i always lived according to a routine, it was always me who created it. i didn't like to be told how to do things. they could tell me what do, but not how. i have found out my own way how to study really effectively and almost effortlessly at the same time. so with more freedom i had better grades in high school and finished the university with distinction.

I think that children in general aren't given enough freedom to just be kids these days. There's way too much scheduling and homework. Even kinders have homework. I refuse to invade my daughter's downtime not to mention our family time with homework.

My daughter needs a schedule at school so she can deal with transitions better. At home I respect her routine but she has plenty of room to make choices. Her anxiety level at school is severe enough that she needs downtime at home to recharge, otherwise what I will get at the end of her childhood is an adult who is nonfunctional, much like many of the people I know who had so much potential but are in too much psychic pain from restrictive practices designed to make them fit into the real world to ever reach it.

Her home should be her haven, not an extension of school.

Having a schedule set by someone else is very stressful to me; but setting my own schedule is one of the ways I survive.

Knowing what will happen is a good thing for most Aspies; but not everybody needs to have everything scheduled all that tightly. I don't use a timed schedule, despite needing structure, because often times events take longer or shorter times than the schedule allows. Instead, I use a more flexible "order of events" list--a little like what you are giving him.

An autistic person on a schedule can still have problems when expected changes in events occur--especially if they weren't finished with what they were doing and/or don't have a good internal clock.

He is already living a very structured life at school. If relaxing the structure at home helps him get his homework done, then do it. Anyway, going outside and running around a bit probably helps him. Lots of us have traits of (or even full-blown) ADHD... sitting and doing a non-preferred activity gets difficult the longer you try at it; breaks are good ways to cope.

The worst thing is when other people try to fill up all my free time with random activities.
Some of my friends were so busy with scheduled activities that they had no free time.
That bothered me but I was glad I had free time, and I had more than enough stuff I
wanted to do with it. It bothers me on vacation if we have TOO MUCH scheduled touristy
stuff which I think is a waste of money, and it's simple and free fun to just stay at the beach.
I say in that case why make a vacation into a busy busy job you have to pay a lot to do?
I need lots of mini vacations (free time) or I'll just shut down and go into a trance and
feel like I'm being dragged around. The stuff I do with my free time is the only fun I have.

He will need freedom or you are going to get a very angry kid at some point

where dthe meltdons occur?
at school or at home?

Limiting choice is another option between free choice and no choice. I know that to kids at our school who have huge issues with choices the choices are given but limited. For example, instead of 8 items as the regular kids they get 4 items to choose from. They can decide which of the 4 to work on first, second, third etc. just like everyone else. First of course they must have been tested how well or worse they do with as many options as the other kids. Some get along fine though people expect them to do worse and vice versa.

I'd ask a kid with issues with choices (or/and who is beginning to learn how to make choices for themselves especially if prior to that choices were made for them) 'Start on literature. Do you want to start with task 1 or 2?' while I'd ask a kid with no issues with making choices 'On what homework do you want to start now?'. Or if it's about other arrangements: 'Do you want to drink this milk or water?' instead of 'What do you want to drink?' (open question) and 'Do you want to drink milk, water, apple juice, soda...?'

General rule: testing how well the kid does under normal conditions so that it can become obvious how limited or unlimited choices should be to ensure a positive outcome for both the child and the school work.

Meltdowns mainly occur at school. Although, if I start running home like school (eg. forcing him to do a lot of literacy work), he'll start melting down at home.

8 or 9 is an age that many children with AS find difficult.

At this age they start to form friendships.....now until this time they formn friendships with the kid who sits next to them

around 8 and 9 they have to learn the give and take and reciprocation of friendship formation, social cues and ettiquette and turn taking. this can be a source of anxiety for him.


the list is important for AS as it gives a tell of whta is to come during the day and allows "pre-preparation" and mental anticipation.

my feeling is that he may find the school work hard to digest. he may digest information in verbal forms........visual forms
or a combination of both.....( use analogies)

you need to identify what type of learner he is and present information in an easy to digest fashion.

AS kids can learn digets and remeber a lot of delivered in a form that can penetrate deep.


he may need a break in between listed topics and the list may be what is causing him anxiety.
for example...one topic on the list may be completed and in his mind he needs a break as the list has a break between the completed topic and the next topic.

the analogy of going through a door when a task is complete can help you to visualise what he sees when a list task is complete and the next task hasnt started yet.

depending on his awareness of the condition he could be playing the AS card and playing for sympathy to see how far he can strecth you and your right to be concerned about how far to let him away with and future expectations he may have.

however if he learns srtategies to cope with AS at an early age and he learns to take a break between listed tasks this may well be a good adaptive tool that he can learn and build on in latter life.

be hard on AS and it can be usefull.

hope this helps.

If somebody told me the order in which I have to do things after school that would not be good. I need to make my own schedule. I think if you gave your son a really strict routine he might follow it but when he is on his own he might not know how to make his own. Discipline is needed as well, so maybe you can make it clear what he must complete and let him do them when he wants to. I dont know the boy though so this might be really bad advise.

Hmmm . . . I'm finding it hard to work out exactly what the balance is here. I read so many posts on here of AS adults saying that they were misunderstood as children and basically bullied into meltdowns by others trying to make them conform. So, for them, "being hard on AS" actually was a disaster.

So, where is the balance between being too hard, or being too soft?

Isn't that the same dilemma most parents face, AS or not?

The solution to that one (simple in principle, hard in practice) seems to be to avoid extremes. Don't try to force a child to behave in a certain way, making all his choices for him; but don't leave everything to him, either, leaving all choices open to someone who isn't good at making them yet. Rather, teach him to make his own choices, with the aim of having to provide less and less structure externally, because he has learned to apply it to himself. If you can teach him to structure himself, then he will always have the right amount of structure.