What about waking up...

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and getting to school on time? Any thoughts on this?


Seems my daughter has the worst time with mornings. We have to call her more than 1/2 a dozen times each morning (which has lead us to set the alarm for 1/2 hour earlier) and then, it takes forever to get her moving, not to mention all of the promting she needs to complete the morning routine.

Then with all the other things we have to contend with in the mornings ~getting baby fed & ready, making lunches (cuz I have to ask each morning, otherwise food doesn't get eaten), preparing for any changes to expect throughout the day, promting to make sure she has brushed teeth, deodorant, turned out lights, got backpack, homework, figure out what she might eat that morning etc...

I feel so insane each morning, trying to get out the door and even worse walking through the school doors, knowing that as much as the school "understands" about my daughter that being late is frowned upon, but after 4 years in school...nothing seems to make any difference.

It is maddening!!

SO I was thinking we might do up yet another list/chart of foods that my child will actually eat and if she doesn't make a decision we can just draw on the list of ideas....any other thoughts to help us stay sane throughout the mornings ? I truly cant imagine another 10 years of this, at this rate, but I am guessing it isn't going anywhere now...

Thanks again!

Melissa

I have this problem with my 10 year old, too, for the most part. He gets up very nicely, but he moves extremely slowly through his routine. I find that he gets so distracted by other things -- the mirror, acting into the mirror, singing, etc. -- that he doesn't get to the job at hand.

I was thinking of trying to find one of those alarms that they used to use for him at his preschool, where it shows in red on the alarm just how much time he has left. I was thinking of buying one and using it for everything -- how long showers should take, how long brushing his teeth should take, combing his hair, doing his homework, even talking about his favorite obsession (DDR). I just would like him to get the hang of how long something SHOULD take, so that he has more free time to do the things he wants to do, instead of always hearing us yelling at him to hurry, to finish, etc.

Kris

Sorry to intrude,I am not a parent but one of those kids you are describing.I am 43 and recently DXed and know I drove my folks nuts....my dad almost lost his drivers licence because of all the speeding tickets he got rushing us to church.....Does this sound familiar...."where are my shoes"..."Do I wear your shoes?"..."where did you take them off?"..."if I knew that, I would have them on right now,wouldnt I"..."dont you sass me young lady"..."I wasnt sassing,I was stating an obvious fact"........those conversations dont get you to school/work/church any faster.

The thing is....I wasnt actually enjoying getting yelled at,being anxious or feeling like an idiot because I couldnt do any thing right.I am still like this today except I have modified my life so that I am never late for work(anxiety I can not stand).I have NO Concept of time....no internal clock what so ever.If I have to be some where,I plan days in advance,prepare and put every thing by the door and pick my clothes out before hand.I only shower when I dont have time schedule and have a timed toothbrush(2 min)which I reset no more then four times.

Are you aure your kids are getting enough sleep?(and not to much which makes me even more drowsy for some reason).I have been a night owl since grade school.I would go to bed at 6 or 8 pm and not fall asleep until 2 or 3am.A lot of aspies have sleep problems.You try getting up and thinking after 4 hours of sleep,five days a week and see how focused you are...I might have been jumping around singing,,,,"Rubber Band Man" into my deodorant but my brain was not switched on for the day.

My parents tried every thing to help me get and stay organized but some thing always went wrong....I have no explaination.It didnt help that I chew every bite almost 40 times(people have counted,smart-alecks)and If a hair was not just right or my clothes didnt fit perfict or itched or.....trust me,it is equally frustrating for them.Dont give up.We need these skills to function and you will eventually find some thing that "sort of" works.

You do have one advantage me and my parents didnt have.You know that it is AS and not some willfully selfish brat...right?

My 7 yo has an easier time gettin gup and ready if he's had enough sleep. We also have a list of everything he needs to do to be ready to go so that he can check off each one as he does it.

As for lunches, my son has started eating lunch at school. Before this year, I packed his lunch and he ate the exact same thing every day. He had he exact same thing in his lunch from 3 yrs in preschool to 7 years in first grade. Don't know if I recommend that, but that's the way he liked it.

In our house, we get as much done the night before as possible. I have a toddler thrown into the mix as well as my 8 yo Aspie son so I feel your pain

He goes to bed at the same time every night and wakes up at the same time every morning. That includes weekends so that his body is on schedule. I plans out meals a week in advance and he helps me pick which ones are his favourite. We do breakfast first and THEN get dressed because he's a messy eater. He has 5 cubby's in his closet and I put a complete outfit in each one so that way there's no fuss with him getting dressed. I try really hard to leave enough time so that I don't have to rush him. Rushing=meltdowns in our house. Some days it's works, some days it doesn't.

I'm with you all...rushing = meltdowns! Mornings are so hard in our house, and it doesn't help that I have a toddler & baby to get ready as well. Lots of good suggestions though. I'll be getting cubbies for sure.

How old were your kids before they were able to dress themselves & still get out of the house within a decent amount of time? I need to plan for 2 hours to get ready... and that's with me getting ds dressed. I really need to start waking ds up at the same time every day too, I suppose.

*gasp*

I am in complete shock at all the similarities. I guess when you know, you KNOW. I have only really been around for a few days now and after reading responses to my posts, I am beginning to realise that everything my daughter is, SCREAMS aspergers.

We are on schedule with bedtime & wake time. 8:30pm each night and start calling her every moring at 6:45am (which is a ridiculous amount of time, when we have a 2 minute walk down the road to school that begins at 8:50am), but she wont get moving (at all) until a few stretches come at about 7:25am. *sigh*

I guess my trouble is, trying to find a balance between what to be able to expect of my daughter, what we have time to achieve (with her struggles) and how to set it up so that she eventually learns to function without our CONSTANT support. Make sense?

we go through stages of her wanting to eat the same foods, all the time and nothing but (so these tmes are fairly easy)....and then BAM! out of nowhere, she doesnt want to look at it (and wont) ever again!! !

So I think I will make a list of foods to draw on.

As for choosing her clothes for her, I struggle with this because everything seems to take so much effort. I try to encourage her to make her own decisions about what she might wear, as we have had meltdown after meltdown about why she cant wear what I have chosen for her and I think it is best for her to feel confident making decisions of her own. It doesn't appear to be working, either though. So I am going to take the suggestion to choose clothes in advance into account.

Krex spoke of having no internal clock and I really felt I could understand a little better when it was put like that. It always appears like she could care less about these things, but if she just doesn't "get it" would make better sense. I have always felt in my heart, no matter what anyone else thought of my daughter that she was a good, kind, loving soul and I couldnt imagine that she was simply being "defiant or bad or disrespectful" etc. What is this about a timed toothbrush? We have a timer in the washroom for teethbrushing at the moment, but perhaps that would make much better sense...how would you have felt as a child growing up, with a timer you had to rush around to though?

I can completely understand what you are saying about feeling incompetant and hating that feeling. My daughter often takes on alot of blame, but perhaps it has more to do with the way ppl. make her feel for not being able to comprehend things that others get so naturally.

so to answer the question of my being one up on you, no we do not have a diagnosis of AS...and are waiting for an appointment for a 2nd opinion.

And the thing about being a messy eater! OMG! I feel so at home here. At long last, everything seems to make so much more sense. Please can someone elaborate???! !!

As for rushing=meltdowns...my daughter told the psych that assessed her for anxiety that mornings are the worst and that is when mom and daughter "argue"....

Makes me so sad!

So tell me...do we ever get to a point where things become routine? I could never understand why we did the exact same things EVERYDAY for years and she still needed promting.

Thanks everyone.

Melissa

No kidding about all of this being familiar... My son (6) LOVES waffles, and eats them for breakfast every single morning, which gets him out of bed promptly, but after he's done eating the struggle begins. We use a picture card schedule to get him through his morning routine and out the door, but I find that I usually still have to prompt him because he gets distracted and/or just doen't move quickly enough to keep us on time. The prompting pretty much completely undermines the whole point of the picture schedule, but what else can I do? I can't let him be late for school... Anyway, we use a reward system along with the picture cards, which worked well in the beginning, but has now lost it's effectiveness. The thing that will sometimes motivate him to move faster is the fact that he likes me to walk him to school, which we can't do if we're running late. I have no idea what his true magical motivator might be and neither does he at this point

Your daughter really reminds me a lot of myself.(Of course I am the center of the universe,so everything reminds me of myself... )

I can relate to the food thing.Some food I could and never will eat.....Cottage cheese/tapioca,apple sauce, feel to much like vomit in my mouth....cant eat them.Broc used to smell like cooking skunk to me but now it is my favorite food.For years,I loved Tuna/egg salad with lots of Mayo and mustard but the smell of Tuna from the can now makes me nausias.My family used to tease me because I loved tomatoes and speg sauce but cant stand Ketchup(which I like now).....There is no actual logic to it.
There are times I feel over stressed and over stimulated? and only stomach ramon noodles or soda crackers(kind of how people feel when they are sick....nothing spicy....but other times I can handle "flavor" fine.Just telling you the details because my family thought I was faking my smell and taste sensitivities because they changed over years and even days.I swear it was not "attention seeking" or "manipulative".For me,it was further proof that I was an alien and that my family hated me for things I had no control over.It is very hurtful to have people you love question the validity of your own "senses".It makes you feel defective or insane.If she is not able to eat a balanced diet,try to add vitamins and fiber(comes in many forms)and let her eat what she can stomach....."safe foods" when she has "sensitive days" and have the healthier foods around for her stronger days because it is good practice to desensitise......she may out grow some of this over time.A lot of NT's kids only want pizza,hot dogs,chicken nuggets but out grow this sooner then kids with AS.

I think it is funny that people with AS are stereotyped as being unable to understand that other people think or feel "uniquely"...(theory of mind) NT's trying to understand AS sensitivities and experience seem as similiarly challenged.Just because I am "different" does not mean I am faking,manipulating,lieing or deluded.If your daughter already has anxiety,useing a timer might push her over the edge.You could try and make a game of it(I love a challenge).On a day when she has no time restraints....she could use the timer to try and "beat her own time" doing a task....to practice how to set up "her area of bathroom, with only her toiletries"and see how quickly she can do it.I am really good at these kinds of structured "games" and can find very clever ways to create my own short cuts.I love to time myself doing Sudoku and trying to beat my own times.Making it a game takes some of the stress off and repetition creates some muscle memory.

Does you daughter appear....spaced out,dreamy,stares at nothing,in her head,have conversations out loud or in her head with people to practice social interactions.?I dont know how much of "me" is AS and how much other factors,so this may not apply to your daughter.I space out all the time.It's like I freeze and time escapes....I am not sure what causes this or what it is called.Sometimes I am having unconscious "practice conversations" with other kids at school who might talk to me,a teacher who might yell at me....sometimes it is reliving past experiences....something I said or did that was a mistake and I try and "undo" it in my head.Other times....I couldnt tell you what or of I am thinking anything...it just seems blank when I come out of it....maybe when I am doing a task that overloads me and I just freeze in perplexion.I only learned about AS recently ,so I never even thought about this before .....it was just me and I assumed everyone did it.Now,I believe,this very process is part of what has allowed me to survive in an NT world.I practice.I learn through observations of TV,peers,and books.I cant just watch and imitate....I have to break the interactions down and rebuild them, then practice them.I dont think I was ever aware I was doing this when I was a kid.People with AS do Learn.One reason it is difficult to DX AS adults....we learn.some better then others and we all start from a different start line but learning takes lots of practice.Dont give up.All that spaceing out is productive,even if it just looks like a waste of time....Most people dream at night to help them process their days....without it,they would go insane(proven)....I think people with As need "daydreaming" to do similar process....We are processing a world that is very confusing.

I wish I had the words to explain this to my mom when I was younger(If she would have even listened).I hope you dont mind me using you as a surrogate "mother" to explain to.I find it very therapeutic and it might be what your daughter would tell you if she had the words.

On a more practical note....you can buy toothbrushes that turn off after 2 min for under 10.oo.....They now have a great mouthwash(Listeren)that turns blue on plaque so you can tell when you have brushed it off....This stuff rocks,I could never tell when my teeth were brushed "enough".My mother and I had horrid battles about clothes,out worst issue.She was very wrapped up in having me look female and I was a Tomboy"....I would wear the same outfit every day and not care.Find some thing she likes and buy multiples of it.It offers security and you dont have to "think' about it.If you are offering suggestions and making comments about her choices......You think you are being helpful(logical)She may think you are attacking her.I know it sounds absurd.Any time my mom would say anything "negative".....I was as hypersensitive, to it as I was about scratchy clothes.

Me"this is kind of cool"
Her"to expensive"
Me,"This is really soft"
Her"dont you think that will be to big for you?"(Probably down to my knees...I had odd style)
Her"Oh,this color would look good with your eyes."
Me"I hate pink"


She didnt say ......you are incapable of picking for yourself but her feedback hit me as proof that I was "wrong"not as the practical advice that she meant it to be.

Krex, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and insights! I'm glad you're finding the process to be therapeutic, and I certainly am so grateful that you're sharing your experience here. I often watch my son "space out" and understand that he's doing what he needs to cope with all the stimulation around him, and I wonder what's going on inside his little head.... Also, thanks for helping me to think about how my actions are making him feel. His emotional reactions tend to be extreme...either he appears not to have one, or he reacts very intensely. I find myself wondering what that's about. I don't every think that he's just misbehaving or trying to get attention, because I understand enough about AS that I know that's not it...but I find it hard to understand what his emotions are sometimes because he isn't able to express them very clearly.

For me, getting out of the house on time is one of our biggest stressors... trying to balance meeting ds's needs with the need to be somewhere on time (with a spirited 2 1/2 year old & a baby thrown in for good measure) is just crazy. I struggle between the desire to just be late but have a happier child, and the responsibility I feel for teaching him how to become more flexible and able to work on other people's schedule. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that the rest of the world will accomodate his apparent lack of an internal clock...

Melissa...I know what you mean about the sad feelings. I hate seeing how sad my son is after we've had a stressful morning of me constantly reminding (and getting frustrated ) in the process to get out of the house on time. As for the messy eating... my understanding (from what I've learned from my ds's testing etc.) is that it often has to do with dyspraxia/poor motor planning or problems with fine motor skills. What's funny is that my ds does NOT like having dirty/messy hands (finger painting is NOT fun for him), but that he doesn't seem to notice when he's messy with food. It's like he has trouble sometimes making his fork go where it's supposed (or not falling off of his chair, actually) because he has trouble perceiving where his body exists in relation to space. I'm reading a book called "The Out of Sync Child" right now, which is all about sensory integration dysfunctions...and it's making a lot of things make sense to me.

Shauna

Yes! Thank you:)

I cannot stress enough, what a relief it has been to find this community. I promise to be a good surrogate mum, as long as you promise to guide me through with your tales


There was a time (many, many moons ago) when I simply did not understand and would repeatedly try to get my daughter to try new things or give her whatever it was I was cooking, in hopes that she would eventually opt to eat whatever was put in front of her, but those days are LONG gone. She is almost 9 now and I know that there is simply nothing in this world that will motivate her to try something that she is dead set against and to be totally frank, it is $ down the tubes, also.

I knew long before anyone would hear me, that my daughter had sensory issues ie: texture of foods, loud noises, busy malls, crowded lunchrooms, poor motor planning, annoyingly painful battles with tags & loose strings in clothing, etc, but as Shauna has said, I have had difficulty understanding the extreme responses to these sensory nuisances and gaging whether or not some of the behaviour was more for attention, than it was due to the madness the sensory concerns throw her way because the responses seem grand in comparison to the issues. I guess it would make sense that I will never know what it will be like to AS, just as she will not know what it would be like NT~& I thank you for that reality check.

I guess my question about the timer was poorly planned on my part, I think more than the timer itself, I wondered how you would have felt growing up in a world where you had all of these supports that parents are using with their AS kids~ie: picture planning, timers, charts, etc
Would it have made you feel more or less "insane" (as you put it)?


Quite often, I find that my daughter stresses more, causing everything to take THAT MUCH LONGER, when she has to recieve constant promting from us.

What is it about AS that causes the need for constant promting/reminders, not knowing how long to brush teeth, etc anyone?

As for getting "spaced out"...it did happen, once upon a time ago and I don't know that it has stopped completely, but we went to see a child neurologist to test for seizures and everything came back negative, so I stopped thinking about it, & made the assumption that it meant she was overstimulated. Now she is older and spends more time to herself & knows when she needs time out to herself, so perhaps I don't see it.

My daughter is also "hypersensitive" and often has outbursts thinking that ppl. are mad at her or annoyed with her, or hate her etc. At times, to everyone around her, it seems fairly irrational, bordering on paranoia, as it is usually as a direct result of things that seem so meaningless (but again, this is from an NT standpoint, not really knowin very much of AS, so please forgive me if I sound harsh, I am just beginning to wrap my brain around some of these things).

An example of this is : Coming home from a classmates b-day party (which she is keen to get involved in, stresses about once she is there and has a difficult time warming up and often comes home upset/angry/frustrated), but all of that aside, she comes in the door and says, "it was the worst, joshua spit in my face and laughed at me". *gasp* shocked and dismayed, i may have been, but I have learned over the years, I need to break it all down into pieces, asking millions of questions until I know for certain this actually happened...so the end result of that was, he is a boy, that was teasing the girls and he "likes" my daughter (or so other classmates think), so he was playing with her and rasping his tongue between his lips and ran away laughing.

Now, if I had have gone to a parent about a child that "spit" on my daughter, I would have walked away feeling like a complete nut job (and have done), for not breaking it all down first.

Actually, come to think of it, this would make a good topic, so I will begin a thread for all to see and add to, in case they have missed this....

Thank you Shauna, for explaining those things. I am with you on most everything you said, including throwing a newborn into the mix for good measure I have read some of the out of sync child years ago, when I was trying desperately to understand some of these things and noone was interested in hearing me...but since, I have lent the book out to a colleague, who lent it to another, who lent it to another....seems that AS is quite common these days. I have 5 colleagues that I can think of off hand, that have children with Autism.

Have you tried a visual schedule to help her get through the mornings?

A check list of what she must accomplish?

This has really made my son's morning much easier to get through.



He gets a check next to each step (those are dry erase boards) and then a sticker when he gets all 5 checks.

If he gets 5 stickers in a week, then he gets an activity of his choosing...trip to the ice cream shop, video game time, whatever he wants.

We also use a timer for the eating portion of the morning (that is where he really drags).



Good luck! ****I'm sorry that I wasn't able to read all through the posts....Too many sentences in one block without spacing for me (I'm an aspie and my son is an autie) to get through it.****

It's because in the autistic brain, the front lobe cortex is compromised. That part of the brain is responsible for executive functioning. Here's a quick read that explains what that means. It will give you a much better insight into why your daughter struggles in certain areas.

http://www.aspennj.org/executive.html

Here's the problem - When you're constantly prompting her and doing things for her, she doesn't learn to take any responsibility herself. Why should she, when you're always at her elbow doing it for her? Let her experience the consequences of her actions, and learn from them.

On not getting dressed in time - Buy her some nightgowns that go down to knee level... ones that are obviously pyjamas but cover as much as a normal dress a girl that age might wear. When it's time to go to school but she's still nowhere near ready (maybe she's managed to put her socks on but is otherwise still running around in her nightgown), jam her shoes on her feet, throw a coat on her if it's cold and take her on as is. Her classmates will stare, ask her why she's still in her pyjamas, maybe even tease her over it some. She will swiftly learn that this is not something she wants to go through again, and will become more conscientious about being ready on time.

On the breakfast fiasco - If she's so ambivalant about eating breakfast, don't nag her to eat. Say, "Fine. You don't want breakfast? Go get dressed, then." and let her do without. Later that morning around 10am, when she's extremely hungry and lunch is still a good two hours away, do you know what will happen? She'll realize she should have eaten breakfast, and will be far less prone to turn breakfast time into hassle time in the future.

On the deodorant issue - That's her responsibility, not yours. She forgot to wear her deodorant? Ok, after gym class she's going to smell a bit. Yes, the other students will probably pick at her over this, and she's going to be embarrassed about it.... but I guarantee you that the next morning, she'll put on her deodorant without any prompting from you.

On the lunch issue - If she's old enough to be wearing deodorant, she's old enough to be packing her own lunch and you should not still be doing it for her. Tell her to pack it the night before. If she doesn't do it, the next morning give her enough money to buy her lunch, and send her on to school anyway. If it turned out to be Eggplant Casserole Day on the school's lunch schedule, then that's just tough. She should have gotten off her ass and packed her lunch.

On getting her things ready - When it is time to get in the car, the textbooks she brought home, her homework, and her school supplies should be in her backpack. Make that plain to her. The next morning, when it is time to go and her things are still scattered all over her room, take the backpack (and whatever is already in it) on to school with her. Leave the rest behind. When she gets taken to task by the teacher in a couple of her classes for not having her homework or textbooks, she'll understand that her actions have consequences and will strive to be more responsible.

On the School of Hard Knocks -When you tell them and tell them and tell them and tell them and they still just don't get it, don't enable the bad behavior and then stupidly wonder why things are not improving. Unless it is something which would cause permanent disability or death, step back and let them learn from the natural consequences of their actions. Experience is always the best teacher.

Otherwise, don't be surprised years from now when she's 40, still living at home, chronically unemployed, single, has no job skills, has no life skills, and you are still having to remind her to put her deodorant on every morning.

All of which I would have done, if this was a "normal" situation or NT child.

I have a background in Social work and am familiar with alot of the techniques that would work with NT children with behavioural issues and I went down this road when I did not understand that she was unable to process like me and this only made things worse, in my honest opinion.

She isn't a "difficult child", she doesn't have "behavioural issues", she isn't "seeking attention" and any or all of those suggestions hard knock or not, will only promote more anxiety & stress.

What I am looking for here is a way to balance our lives with the complete understanding that my child has these special needs, isn't processing things as I might and is desperate to think and feel like every other child, but simply does not know how and all the while, I am interested in supporting her, not shaming her into learning these skills.

Thanks for the comments, though, this is similar to the advice I have recieved from the many that just did not understand what it was like to have a child like mine.

Social work, eh? Mine's in psychology. The social sciences are fun.

I'm just saying this... there was a time when I had much the same troubles as your daughter. If my parents had not believed in the school of hard knocks, I don't even want to think about where I'd be now. (Probably living in my mother's basement, or in an institution somewhere.)

Sometimes you have to stop making excuses for them, shielding them from consequences, and trying to be their best buddy. Sometimes, it's time for a more "tough love" approach, you know? When you prevent them from learning the consequences of their behavior, how are they to grow as a person or to learn any better? If they don't grow as a person or learn better, how are they to function in adult society later on?