Son stripping off.

[dekra]

Well it has started again. Finn would always strip off from the earliest time he was capable until maybe a year ago when he seemed to improve. The last fortnight it has returned with a vengance. I don't know what to do, as it is only inside at home we are pretty much ignoring it just now as we don't want to make an issue of it but we are also exceedingly aware the nice weather is approaching and if it is anything like last time he may do it outside in the garden which we would rather avoid as he is going to be 5 in August. The only plus point is our back garden is not as exposed as the old one but we'd still rather avoid potential problems. Does anyone have some advice on encouraging him to keep clothes on without it becoming a pitched battle? Also I am sure someone will suggest star-charts but they just don't work for him.

Edited April 6, 2012 by dekra

[justine1]

Hi

 

Sam was like this and to be honest nothing really worked. I mean I managed eventually to get him to compromise when he was about 5 yrs old(he was about 2 yrs old when he started),to wear a vest and underpants/boxers. Now he will wear a vest and shorts,this has been for a year so since age 7. Generally speaking,even in cold winter,he does not like wearing anything warm. He will not wear long sleeve shirts/t-shirts or jumpers. So I believe its a combination of sensory(he is naturally warmer) and the fact weather is getting warmer.

 

No real suggestions other than to just keep putting clothes back on when out and about,try something cooler like a vest and instead of trousers shorts in particular boardshorts/swim type shorts, Sam likes these as they are a lighter feel material. It will improve as he gets older. To add the change in Sam was when he started to become more aware of himself,no longer keeping door open when he goes toilet and not wanting me around at bath time. So it takes time really.

Edited April 6, 2012 by justine1

[LancsLad]

Can I add my own bit as an adult with AS.

 

I hate wearing clothes given the choice, and if I do they have to be the right types of fabric. I can remeber what a win it was for me as a young child when my parents gave up on the idea of me having to wear something in bed a battle I had fought for a long time. The only issue having to borrow pyjamas so I could do the life saving bits for my swimming awards. I have never worn anything to sleep yet, but bought a pair of bottoms each time I went to live in university to put on and off when leaving my room, though I forgot from time to time. Since I have recieved my diagnosis I understand that this is part of my condition and one of the easier things to accept.

 

I love summer because I can get away with a pair of shorts, my partner hates winter because I turn the heating up so I can do the same. The postman and delivery people know they will get a loud shout of give us a second while I find something to put on thought this can still be late in the day. I am however not a naturist I would be far too self concious and no speculating here please, my self esteem is pretty good at the moment don't need a few mature ladies to ask the wrong questions do we!

 

I think being serious here there are underlying reasons as to why he chooses not to wear clothes. I know when I come in from a tough day the first thing I would do is strip down to let off some of the pressure. As an adult this means a pair of shorts and possibly a cotton vest as a compromise arangement with my partner. This is a compromise given the choice I would be naked in my own home. I think you need to think what are realistic expectations. I tend to view things in respect to a balance scale. As someone with AS I have so much energy and control available each day with which to counteract the negative aspects of the condition. If I had to go to a presentation dinner and wear a penguin suit and a stiff shirt with dicky bow this for me is very uncomfortable and as such puts a weight onto the wrong end of the balance arm. I can manage this but my partner would not expect me to get dressed up anything like before the last minute, I like the way i look in these circumstances but the way I feel is so much more negative and for example I couldn't do a job like this. When I was a teacher i could never wear a jacket except for open evenings, and would walk around with my sleves rolled up all the time even on jumpers. I know other adults hated this and I might have gone down in their eyes because of it but I knew what I could cope with and what I could not. As we get older then we have to make these balanced judgements for ourselves. At your sons age you can help him with this but I suspect he should have a big input in respect to what he feels he can and can't cope with.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[dekra]

Thanks got your input Justine and LancsLad.

 

Personally I have always been happy to let him run around scantily clad but after a bad experience a couple of years ago when he sneeked into the back garden at 7.30 am in the rain (I was pregnant and it took me a couple mins to waddle out there and get him back in) and some binman decided to phone the police and social services I have become a bit paranoid. The police laughed it off as a false alarm but social workers decided to lecture me about parental responsibility and made comments about his stripping (at this time ASD was still something hubby and I were only talking about in those late night in bed convos) and how it was inappropriate. I told them then I couldn't promise he'd not do it again which I don't think they liked.

 

I think shorts might be the way to go or even boxer shorts. I also need to consider he can't run totally naked for long even inside as he has a younger sister. I am just a little puzzled about why he's been happy with stripping just to undies for the last year but suddenly it's back to totally naked. I guess just got to go with the flow on this one.

[Sally44]

As already said, this is most likely a sensory thing.

I would suggest that you ask the Paediatrician that diagnosed him to refer you to an Occupational Therapist that has experience of working with children with an ASD and who can carry out a sensory assessment [something like the Winn Dunn].

 

I am not on the spectrum, but I do have sensory issues. Clothes and fabrics are one of them. Some fabric is unbearable against the skin for me. It causes me actual pain. I have to cut out all tags. When I buy clothes I usually test the fabric on my lips to see if I think I could tolerate it.

 

Like alot of people with sensory issues, you tend to find a kind of set kind of clothes and stick with that.

 

And remember that for some on the spectrum their sensory perception fluctuates. You can be both hyper and hypo sensitive at different times. For example he maybe super sensitive to some sensations and so removes clothes, and yet hypo sensitive to temperature and not feel the cold. It all depends on nerve endings and which ones are being stimulated or not.

 

For example my son can be hyper sensitive to slight touch and if he cuts himself you would think he had been tortured. Yet he can really hurt himself ie. black eye, lose a tooth, or have a serious ear infection and not mention it.

 

Start to talk to your son about clothes and ask him which clothes feel nice to him. See if he can choose something he would like to wear. Start to explain to him that how clothes feel to him is not what it is like for everyone else. That sometimes he may feel things too much, or not enough. Get the dialogue going. Then you would start to talk about what clothes you wear for certain places, occasions, times of the day etc. [Maybe an OT or even the SALT could get some kind of lotto game that you could play with him].

 

As Lancslad says, you have to start from the position that he is not wearing clothes for a reason. If it is just preference, then you can teach and negotiate what to wear and when. If it is about how the clothes feel, then you have to do more exploring together with your son to see what he can/cannot tolerate.

 

Remember that getting overloaded can affect this. He may become more sensitive. If he becomes overloaded and "detached" from his own body sensations he may end up overloading. For example, in his former school my son would sit in the classroom with his full uniform on even on a hot summer day and would be sweating, and yet claim he did not feel hot. He was just overloaded and unable to process what he was feeling and what he needed to do.

 

So if this is a behaviour that has returned, I would also think about what additional stress or demands are being placed on him either at home or in school. But I would also question whether it really disappeared, or he was too overloaded to even recognise the need to take off his clothes.

[LancsLad]

Sally just wanted to say excellent post. I think it highlights very well where we are at in respect to the autistic condition. I often feel it is easy for parents to think that this is a condition of children and that as Aspies we will grow out of things, the truth is we do not and we carry these elements throughout our lives. As we get older we can understand them more and with maturity develop appropriate strategies. by listening to each other and by being open about our experiences we can I feel really help the next generation of children who will share some of these traits.

 

What I would like to add is that some of these things are very big things in our lives, and here is one example where you share some of the issues with your own child and can very clearly experience this. I strongly believe there is a good reason for all behaviour in its formative stages, behaviour is a response to stimuli. In a lot of cases it is simply not fair of NT's to expect this stimuli to magically go away. You are so right in saying that we have to respect and understand children on the spectrum and listen to them and work with them in finding solutions which work for them, not necessarily work for us. This clothing thing was a real battle for my parents who were not then, nor are they now enlightened about my AS condition. I fought as hard as i did for good reason on a number of issues which I struggled to articulate and which I suspect they were not attuned to hearing. As a result AS has fractured our parent son relationship to the point where we do not communicate now, I feel i have tried everything I can but they simply do not respect me for the person I am. This did not happen overnight it happened as a result of a large number of minor issues such as this one on which we have never made progress. I sincerly hope that parents heed this warning. Yes we are not easy to parent at times, but as we get older we will learn to respct what our parents do for us just so long as they respect we do behave in strange ways for a reason.

[Sally44]

Very true Lancslad.

 

One of the biggest things for my son was realising that what he processes is different to what others are experiencing. He could already see that he behaved and handled things differently. But his interpretation was that he was a loser, or rubbish, or stupid. Not that there was an actual difference in experiences.

 

I also have an auditory processing disorder. And again, with these two conditions, I too just thought that that was how everyone was. But I could not understand how other people could hear and talk in pubs or clubs when all I could hear was music, or just a sound within the music or the melody and nothing else. I could not hold a conversation with anyone.

 

It is the same in group discussions or meetings. I often cannot process what is being said when coming from multiple people. Or, even more annoying, is that my ears just pick up what they want to, which maybe parts of words/sentences, background clock, light bulb buzzing etc. Just a mish mash of sounds.

 

As a child my mother used to make alot of our clothes. And she used to like frilly synthetic fabrics. I vividly remember her making a dress for me to go to a party in and I refused to put it on [because it felt so awful]. She gave me the ultimatum of either wearing the dress or not going to the party. I chose not to go to the party.

 

I also zone out and appear deaf. I don't know "where" I am at those moments, or what I am doing or thinking. I think that maybe I am thinking about something quite deeply and that causes me to screen out everything else. And then I suddenly become aware of someone calling my name, and slowly I come back into the room. This really winds up my husband [and family and friends to some extent]. They think I am ignoring them. I'm not. I genuinely cannot hear them.

 

Again I am not on the spectrum. But when I consider all the different combinations of difficulties, and how they vary throughout the day depending on other factors and ability to cope with an accumulation of things - I can clearly see how a child or adult on the spectrum is really working very hard to keep it all together.

 

Just one clothes tag can set me off.

 

Also bits in shoes. I cannot tolerate anything other than a soft, smooth inside to my shoe. I find it hard to walk bare foot because it just hurts my feet too much etc etc. Yet i'm not on the spectrum. So I don't have the other additional difficulties that others have. I know how I feel when I am totally stressed and "just keeping it together". And I imagine that for many they are functioning at that level most of the time, eventhough they may appear on the surface to be quite okay.

 

My son has hypotonia, and so he often appears floppy, which people interpret as being "relaxed and laid back". He isn't. He is highly anxious most of the time, and due to Dyspraxia is often tired and his muscles hurt - so he may lie down - again giving the appearance of being laid back when that is not at all the case.

Edited April 7, 2012 by Sally44

[chris54]

My son has a real problem with the feel of cloths.

He wears as little as possible most of the time.

We thought we were going to have a problem with new school uniform which is very formal, one thing I was worried about was him having to have his shirt tucked in. But he see the shirt as a barrier that stops him feeling the trouser waist. And the shirt and tie, But being skinny the collar, even done up with the tie is very loos, so not to much of a problem after all.

He does change out of his uniform the moment he gets in the door and only ever puts anything on his feet if he realy has to.

And them clothes tags.

Edited April 8, 2012 by chris54

[dekra]

I can't stand tags myself and I can't have bare shoulders in bed, even little strappy straps I can't cope with urgh!

 

I have had a funny morning, we are having a lazy Sunday and Finn is running around just in a t-shirt as he usually does but is not interested in stripping. The baby on the other hand has been stripping all day! Not something she's ever done before and I thought uh-oh not another one (she already has developed her brothers yoghurt obession now that he's finally over it) but just before I put her up for her afternoon nap and she'd suddenly covered in chicken pox spots poor baby lol but explains the stripping!

[justine1]

Oh dear Poor little one hope she gets well soon.

[dekra]

Thanks, was a false alarm involving blackcurrant juice I feel silly now lol.

 

How's baby Justine?

[justine1]

OOPS! Hehe that is funny.

 

She has been fine up until two days ago...she may have croup. Taking her to GP tomorrow.