Fluctuating abilities?

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You might also be interested in the idea of how my boyfriend learned growing up. His education was very much based on him searching the house for books that his mom actively hid so that he'd find and read them. The parents were affecting his education path, but indirectly, because it was his choice on what to read (and his parents weren't asking, which of these do you want to read).

The other thing you might want to look into is more hands-on learning. I know someone who's 9 year old knows trigonometry well because he's had to use it in building various things. Learning other material through actively making something works well for some people. (Others might get too overwhelmed by the need for perfection though, that's the issue I'd worry about facing there).

It also might make sense to just take a 'vacation' from active teaching and learning and just see where he goes when you do activities together. Go outside and explore, make things together that he enjoys (whether its the process or the product that he enjoys), play games, analyse how the games work, wonder if there are interesting modifications to the games. It might help you figure out how structured works well for him and what manners of unstructured work well.

Thanks for the explanations of unschooling. I had not known that it was a whole different concept of learning. It seems to me that it would take awhile to figure out how to apply this concept for each child, since it is much more unstructured than standard forms of learning.

Like your son, I would have had major problems deciding which activities to do on any given day or week or month. The anxiety associated with that lack of structure would have screwed me up a lot. I would not have been able to decide which activities to do, and if I just picked a few activities randomly to get the deciding over with, then I would not have been mentally prepared to do those activities or to become fully committed to doing them in my mind, all of which factors would have diminished my abilities in whatever I was trying to do.

Children with AS often have trouble with change, unpredictability, and task-switching, so I am wondering if you have tried the following approach. What if you and your son came up with weekly or bi-weekly topics to study based on his interests, and while studying a topic, you have him learn the different aspects in different ways. One aspect might require him to learn and apply visual-spatial skills. Another aspect for verbal skills. Another aspect for motor skills. This way, the topic is stable over a certain period of time, and your son knows that he is going to be working on that topic for awhile. Knowing removes the anxiety of not knowing, so he can focus on learning instead of deciding. Also, the activities may lead into each other from day to day, so there is structure involved, while the choices of the topics are still based on his interests.

Today, I wanted to balance my checkbook, upload onto a group hiking Website some photos I took from last weekend's hike, and write the notation for the drum parts to some songs a group I'm in wants to learn to play. Instead, I finished a library book and an issue of a magazine I have a subscription to. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the other things. That happens sometimes. I might need to wait days until I can do a thing I've planned, even if I really want to do it.

Some days just don't feel good. Other days feel okay, except that having things not go according to plan makes them not feel good. I'm much worse off, though, if I let anxiety or self-judgment get the better of me. It's especially easy to do that if I'm responsible for something others are waiting for, such as the hiking photos or drum notation. Sometimes I have to remember that I still have time, even if the day I picked turns out in some way I didn't expect. I can still meet my responsibilities, so having a difficult day, or just one that diverges from my plan, is not necessarily a disaster.

Another thing is that I tend to find it hard to imagine being able to feel any way other than whatever is my current mood. It helps to remember that I've felt other ways before, so I will feel other ways again. That includes feeling calm or like I can do something.

Also, I had to learn not to get upset with myself for what I can't do in the moment and for feeling unpleasant feelings. Yes, you read that right, and maybe this might be of some help here, I hope. I had to learn that being anxious, upset, tired, or unable to cope does not make someone a bad person. While I don't wish to take out my feelings on others, simply feeling my emotions is not an attack on them. It helps reduce my stress level a lot to keep this in mind. Maybe the two of you might want to talk about how feelings are okay and that even being stressed out is not something to be angry or upset with yourself for. I'm sure you may know this, but he may not realize it yet, because he knows he struggles to meet other people's (and maybe sometimes his own) expectations. I didn't know that when I was a kid, being aware that I was behaving in ways others were giving me a hard time for.

As for techniques for getting things done which must be done and can't wait, try this one that my mother (who knew nothing about Asperger's at the time and was just trying to be an effective parent) devised: Decide for yourself two activities you want him to get done. Then simply ask him, "Do you want to do X first and then Y or Y first and then X?" Even with me, my mother thought the terrible two's were a myth because she used this technique to such great effect! To this day, I can do this for myself when I'm in a pinch or just really eager to feel like I've accomplished something with my day.

Finally, I'm 43, and if I need a hiding spot to go into to rest my mind, I can make a tent out of blankets and furniture to be in for a while. The entertainment value of it also helps. Likewise (for both entertainment and resting my mind by engaging in an alternate activity) with building or making something creative, such as a Lincoln Log house for my girlfriend for Thanksgiving, just because I feel like it in the moment. My girlfriend understands. I've even invited her into the other end of the tent a couple of times, so we can do our reading of separate books together on the couch. I like the tent, even if nobody else is home. It's small and cozy, and I like that I can be there, because I'm an adult in my own home, where nobody can say I can't do it. That may seem like strange behavior for an adult, but I've learned that even "normal" adults engage in activities that are private that might seem strange to the rest of the world. Your son is still a child, so maybe the tent issue wouldn't be a problem. If it works, he'll have learned a coping technique. You could, for example, say he can have ten minutes in there, with a two and then a one minute warning you've told him to expect, so he can feel prepared to come back out as the time winds down. Just make sure it never gets confused with a "time out" for bad behavior. This is an entirely different thing - one which should be desirable to him, just as baths are, but without the need for getting wet.

Burnbridge, thanks for your suggestions, particularly re weekly rather than daily goals

Glad to be of help! Are you Mamaholly's son?

I find the most important key to making this work is allowing the random access to different projects. If at any moment, I need to "change gears" and switch to a different project, I go with it instead of fighting it. Made my life a lot more productive when I made that change in my habits.

I found my fluctuating abilities has had devastating affects on my life. I still have yet to find coping mechanisms.

I have ADHD and I have a lot of trouble with fluctuating abilities. Something I can do almost flawlessly one day is a disaster the next. I can't force myself to do an activity just because it's time to do it. Sometimes I need to defocus for awhile and come back to it. It can take a few minutes or it can take several hours. Maybe I have to just do something else and put that task off for another day. I have days where I can't get in the right mindset to do anything all day long.

I think using weekly deadlines rather than daily ones is good. Any kind of deadline is tricky to deal with but the looser they can be, the better. Routine is important but it doesn't necessarily mean doing the same thing at the same time every day. For me routine means I have a familiar activity I can go to, that I already know how to do and doesn't require a lot of thought or attention. A lot depends on my environment being in order, if it's not it disrupts my routine because I have to think about everything that is out of place. Sometimes I have to do something really mundane and routine before I can get in the frame of mind to focus on something else that is not routine.

Yes.

People don't usually think about it, but "thought" is an action, it takes energy and time.

Instead of just knowing or not knowing I often know that the way to do or say something is within my head, but it takes time to lock onto it and load it so I can use it.

So there's a lot of things I can do, in fact pretty much anything, even socialize well IF I have enough time to prepare and ONLY IF I have enough time to prepare.

But that's the problem there's all kinds of deadlines in everyday life people take for granted. In a conversation there's lots and lots of deadlines for getting across what you want to say, and then sometimes I have to stop in order to look in my brain to figure out what I was going to say next(especially if something in the environment interrupts my train of thought) and then when I do this typically the other person thinks I am doing it to give them a turn and interrupts. Then, I have to factor in the next words they say along with what I just figured out to figure out a new thing to say. This is especially a problem when in an argument. I don't understand why people have to put so much emotion into arguments and why they insist on speaking fast when they are angry with you(including my parents who never ever let up on that strategy even when it clearly wasn't working). Sometimes this riles me up and escalates things but more and more I say "can we please slow down this discussion?"(which may or may not work).

Sometimes people will say you said X a minute ago in the argument and I can't remember right off the top of my head if I actually said it or just something similar they misinterpreted, although I always know what I meant underneath the words the words themselves are quickly forgotten, or rather they aren't "forgotten" as in gone they are forgotten from the working memory. I have a large working memory(initial storage for memories), BUT it fills up too fast because of the incoming stimuli and forces everything into long-term storage very fast. That way I remember almost everything(in the sense that it's there in the brain if I spend enough time trying to find it) yet almost nothing(there's hardly anything I will just always remember in every circumstance even without trying, although I get plenty of random, unpredictable memories in response to practically everything I sense).

People will often inform me of things that I know already and it gets annoying. My problem is not not knowing things my problem is not being able to fish things out fast enough.

This is why we repeat things so much. Repeating things puts them closer to the surface for easier access.