"It'll only get worse"

[zaman]

My son had an incident in the playground this morning, a repeat of a similar one that has been going on for ages. Basically his group of friends are football mad. He doesn't like it (doesn't cope when the ball hits him), and he has no interest in getting better at it. Because his friends like to play it, he either feels excluded, or tries to join in and gets stuck in goal, where he is essentially excluded. Upset all round. I've offered to take him on a short course on football skills for kids, but he's not interested.

 

I've raised it with the SENCo and she has been very supportive about it. During break times only one year per day is allowed to play football, other sports equipment has been introduced. A softer ball has been introduced.

 

However before school is a different matter. This morning he got upset over being excluded from the match, and ended up stood in the playground crying.

 

I spoke to the Head and asked her if there was anything else that could be done to support him - a big ask I know. She said that she understood I found it upsetting, but that was the nature of autism, and that from her experience it'll only get worse as he gets older.

 

My questions are:

 

can anyone think of something else to do to resolve the football problem?

 

Excuse my ignorance on my next question please. But my grasp on autism is not so much that it 'gets worse' but that perhaps the differences between autistic and NT people become more pronounced. But is it not also true that autistic people can 'learn by rote' social interactions, like what to do if your mates want to play football but you don't? Having said that, I know a lot of NT adults who find it hard to excuse themselves from things.

 

The comment on top of the incident left me quite upset.

Edited October 2, 2009 by zaman

[jordansmum33ok]

My son had an incident in the playground this morning, a repeat of a similar one that has been going on for ages. Basically his group of friends are football mad. He doesn't like it (doesn't cope when the ball hits him), and he has no interest in getting better at it. Because his friends like to play it, he either feels excluded, or tries to join in and gets stuck in goal, where he is essentially excluded. Upset all round. I've offered to take him on a short course on football skills for kids, but he's not interested.

 

I've raised it with the SENCo and she has been very supportive about it. During break times only one year per day is allowed to play football, other sports equipment has been introduced. A softer ball has been introduced.

 

However before school is a different matter. This morning he got upset over being excluded from the match, and ended up stood in the playground crying.

 

I spoke to the Head and asked her if there was anything else that could be done to support him - a big ask I know. She said that she understood I found it upsetting, but that was the nature of autism, and that from her experience it'll only get worse as he gets older.

 

My questions are:

 

can anyone think of something else to do to resolve the football problem?

 

Excuse my ignorance on my next question please. But my grasp on autism is not so much that it 'gets worse' but that perhaps the differences between autistic and NT people become more pronounced. But is it not also true that autistic people can 'learn by rote' social interactions, like what to do if your mates want to play football but you don't? Having said that, I know a lot of NT adults who find it hard to excuse themselves from things.

 

The comment on top of the incident left me quite upset.

 

Hi my son 12 is not great at football but he likes it, only problem is he gets very angry when rules are not followed.

I know the school still used to encourage him to play and they must hope that in time he would adjust or accept that it does not always go his way or the the rules followed

 

I think the course is a great idea and maybe once your son goes he will enjoy it.

Comments can be hurtful but not always true

 

[NobbyNobbs]

the gets worse part is that where he is (primary i presume) he is part of a very small group where everyone knows him and is relatively knowledgable about him. he has a reasonably intense support base which can control his environment to a certain degree. when he gets older he will be part of a very large group where few people will know him and less will understand. the type of support recieved at play in primary is unsustainable as even if he were to recieve 1-1 at breaks in secondary, that wouldn't help with the football issue. LSAs can't stop 13 yr old boys playing football because another child doesn't like it. he will either need to learn to mimic (which isn't the ideal it sounds, its still incredibly isolating) or accept he does not want to be part of the football crowd and find something else to be interested in (perhaps thats a direction to look at with the school) presumably the girls aren't so football mad, maybe he could be directed towards a few of them (who can also be very maternal and supporting) to play with on football day. the school should also have some sort of befriending scheme that he could be included in where another child is buddied with him for that day to play with.

 

perhaps work on enabling him to accept he just doesn't like playing football. its irrelevant whether he is good/bad at it then. if you dont like something you dont have to do, dont do it!! easier said than done but with some effort on both yours and the schools part you may succeed if its paired with allowing him to do something he does like.

[oxgirl]

I think the Head's comment is totally unhelpful and I don't agree with it at all. As everyone grows up and goes through life some things become easier and some things might become more of a challenge, it's the same for an autistic person, imo. Many things have gotten easier for my lad as he has gotten older. There are some things that remain difficult and others that are more obvious now but on the whole I certainly wouldn't agree that 'it only gets harder', lots of progress is made and many things become an enormous amount easier in lots of cases. Try and hold on to that. My lad is nearly 16 now and I'm just starting to see signs that things could, actually, turn out okay, he will get there. Okay, so it might have been a struggle to get there and it might take longer and involve more work, but looking back to how he was five years ago I can see that we've come an awful long way. Things certainly haven't got harder, things have just changed. <'>

 

~ Mel ~

 

[trekster]

My son had an incident in the playground this morning, a repeat of a similar one that has been going on for ages. Basically his group of friends are football mad. He doesn't like it (doesn't cope when the ball hits him), and he has no interest in getting better at it. Because his friends like to play it, he either feels excluded, or tries to join in and gets stuck in goal, where he is essentially excluded. Upset all round. I've offered to take him on a short course on football skills for kids, but he's not interested.

 

I've raised it with the SENCo and she has been very supportive about it. During break times only one year per day is allowed to play football, other sports equipment has been introduced. A softer ball has been introduced.

 

However before school is a different matter. This morning he got upset over being excluded from the match, and ended up stood in the playground crying.

 

Is there some alternative activity he can do with his friends? Have you tried exploring peer awareness in the class to try and help him? It was mentioned in this edition of Communication magazine. It was mentioned at our local parents group (im on the committee and the only non parent. Once kids began to understand the young lads autism a lot changed at least in the classroom for him. One friend phoned him up the night before to say he couldnt go to school the next day so his young asperger friend wouldnt worry. Now that is progress!

I spoke to the Head and asked her if there was anything else that could be done to support him - a big ask I know. She said that she understood I found it upsetting, but that was the nature of autism, and that from her experience it'll only get worse as he gets older.

 

She should meet me and then say whether my autism has got worse as ive gotten older! i am really offended by her attitude. Since when is living in my own place unsupervised with 10 hours support a week "autism getting worse"? Also im a university graduate as well and ive got one year and a bit left on my dissertation.

My questions are:

 

can anyone think of something else to do to resolve the football problem?

 

Apart from peer awareness or trying and find a buddy for your son that can help with the football.

Excuse my ignorance on my next question please. But my grasp on autism is not so much that it 'gets worse' but that perhaps the differences between autistic and NT people become more pronounced. But is it not also true that autistic people can 'learn by rote' social interactions, like what to do if your mates want to play football but you don't? Having said that, I know a lot of NT adults who find it hard to excuse themselves from things.

 

The comment on top of the incident left me quite upset.

 

Yes the differences can become more pronounced but it depends on the child and whether they become a "social imitator of other positive social skills" or end up with a reactive depression to being different. i have been through those stages and also "escaped into imagination" and "arrogance and denial" (the later only happens during a meltdown).

 

HTH

 

Alexis

 

[trekster]

Hi my son 12 is not great at football but he likes it, only problem is he gets very angry when rules are not followed.

I know the school still used to encourage him to play and they must hope that in time he would adjust or accept that it does not always go his way or the the rules followed whistle.gif

 

I think the course is a great idea and maybe once your son goes he will enjoy it.

Comments can be hurtful but not always true

 

treksters reply

How about your son does the referring of the match? Or he is helped to find some friends that will follow the rules.

[KezT]

I don't know if this is something you want to consider - it depends on your own circumstances, but our solution to the early morning problems was just to avoid it DS is allowed to go straight into class when he arrives at school and is a something monitor each term - I think he is fruit monitor this term, taking the free fruit over to the infants classrooms. Last year he was stationary monitor, setting out all the pencils etc on each desk (until there was an issue with the scissors )

 

The school is good about putting stuff in place during the school daty, but it is difficult for them to control before/after, and a bit unfair to expect them to really.

 

Or you can give him a pep talk on how important goalie is in the game - then he can join in and feel valued?

[Sooze2]

My son the same issues over football,he hated the contact side of it and thought tackling was outrageousely rude! He has learnt to avoid it now because it just winds him up. It took a long time to teach him that some things aren't worth getting wound up over and to walk away and find something else to do, he doesn't always need to do exactly what his freinds are doing to fit in and so he takes cars or something to school with him to occupy himself when he doens't want to join in. He still gets a bit wound up but sometimes he needs to know that not everything has a solutuon and making the other boys change to keep one person happy could alienate them a bit so he's better off making his own entertainment at those times.

[pearl]

<'> try not to dwell on the 'it gets worse' ... comment. Some things get better. JP is in a much better place as a young adult than he ever was as a child.

[Kathryn]

Some things get better. JP is in a much better place as a young adult than he ever was as a child.

 

Ditto for my daughter!

 

K x

[lisac]

Same here too, x

[zaman]

Thanks everyone for such thoughtful and insightful comments. I'm going to find out about the football course for Oct half term as he said he would be interested in it. His teacher spoke to the class that afternoon about inclusion in playground games.

 

Sometimes everything seems to be going along ok, and then you see your son stood on his own and crying in the middle of the playground, and it brings it all home again.

 

I would hope that as he gets older and more verbally skilled, that he is able to explain to the people around him what his being autistic means. My daughter has just started senior school and there is a boy in her class who spoke to the class about his (what my daughter thought was) 'Asparagus syndrome' and how it affects him (I use the word autism so she didn't get the connection). And it has affected the way that the other kids view his behaviour.

 

Thanks again.

 

Z

[Daisydot]

This sounds so familiar. My older son is quite reasonable at sports but has always disliked football. Like another poster said, he still isnt sure of the rules and gets very stressed if someone shouts at him if he misses the ball or something. He still hates it when he is picked for the inter house football matches, which he inevitably is because as I said he is reasonably ok at sports in general. When he was in primary school, he literally was excluded from playtimes because all most of the other boys could ever do or talk about was football. Now he is at senior school, he is with boys who like football and pleanty who do not, so the playground thing doesnt seem an issue any more. Basketball is the cool thing to do if you are 12, so its fine not joining in with the football mad ones.

 

I think the comments made by your sons headteacher are pretty poor. I have to say the HT in my son's primary school used to come out with stuff like that and in the end I just realised he had no idea at all how to support children with ASD.

 

 

[chris54]

I never liked football, never had the ability to play and never had any interest in following the sport.

From what I cam remember from my school days, there would always be a number of games going on in the playground and if you didant join in you just stood on our own in the corner, playtime revolved around football.

Sports lessons consisted of playing football most of the time, I would be the last to get "picked" and just stand on the sidelines trying to avoid the ball.

Even now at work and socialising, my total lack of any interest or knowledge of football surprises people.

My brother on the other hand almost made it to professional standard. Played in a local team right up into his forties, Then took up golf, which now dominates his life. Hes retied now and divides his time between his grand children and golf.

 

My son is going down the same road as me, he has no sporting ability, but how much is his attitude to sport influenced by me?

[minerva]

My eldest also cannot stand football, he says that its a variety of reasons, he hates large groups & chaos, which football tends to look like when you dont understand/arent interested in the game. He also finds it a lot harder than the others due to the Dyspraxia & can seem really clumsy leaving him with very low self esteem in that area.

 

He is extremely good at some that are more solitary though, Ice Skating, Roller Skating, the 100m sprint and cycling are his preferred sports.