A Little Discouraged

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Went to parent support for learning disabled for the first time last night. The topic was transition from school to adult life. There was not that much relevant to me as my wish is my son stay at school for another year (he can apparently stay on until he was twenty, but one year extra should be enough) and then if need be work in my office for a nominal wage for work experience.

I did chat to two other dads and one has a son in the same year who seems very similar to our son except probably a bit more disabled. They also have a dog. He attends the social group for aspergers in our suburb and I and the other dad had a bit of a chuckle about both our sons not wanting to attend that because the kids there were "weird". The other father also told an amusing story about how they go to local football games and the fans there have developed a custom of taking off their shirts, so this was a good entree to getting his son into bodybuilding!

Meeting with the school tomorrow and not overly looking forward to that, particularly as my son appears to have started slipping again past few days.

Had the meeting with the school. My wife incidentally didn't turn up. The dean of his year (who is consistently rather manipulative) seems to me to be trying to get this non-performing pupil off her books. She wants my son to go to a "trades academy" at a polytechnic (tertiary education under university level) the other side of town. She said that he would get more attention there as there are only a 100 pupils in the trades academy as opposed to 1100 at the school, but I pointed out that is unlikely as more one on one care is a staff ratio issue which is unlikely to differ between the school and polytech. She also said that being a sort of secondary school but part of a polytechnic might give somewhat of an easier transition to tertiary level study, although I don't think the change from a larger liberal school to a polytechnic is that significant and on her proposal there would be disruption now in the school year. She did say he could specialise in his particular skills at the Polytech and that may be so although that could also constrain his future choices.

Both the learning support person and my son's counsellor were there and they seemed to go along with the dean's idea.

As I mentioned above the dean is manipulative, painting a glowing picture of how my son would do better at the polytech with his greater one on one care (which I rebutted), painting a black picture of his current school performance (eg she said even his repeated year of graphics is going badly, regardless that his school report on that was quite good). She then said it is really hard to get into the trades school (my thought "yeah right!") and they had managed to get a place for my son but it had already been held for a week and we needed to make a quick decision.

I generally countered that I thought his academic level is such that he could pass his final year courses at the school if he is given significant help eg with organisation etc.

I said I will contact the polytech and discuss the matter with my wife (if she wants to) as I do need to consider what is best for our son.

What does your son think, and have you visited the school?

I would be sure that I had addressed those two items before making any decision (or resisting).

Well I don't at all like the consistent attempts at manipulation by this dean, but that is not going to be the driver of any decision, which at the end of the day, is what is best for my son. As I noted I will be going to check out the trades school, and I will explore the matter as neutrally as possible with him. I am a lawyer and in this line you look at things from all angles. I tend to put my personal thoughts out here which is amusing given it is a public forum (albeit rather anonymous) but it is objectivity which has to drive the decisions.

I accept that I may have to put my personal views aside if that is in the best interests of my son. Example earlier, I have continued in part with the counsellor suggested trial of trying not to stand over my son, as I felt that he was actually responding better to that, despite my wish to micromanage him. I don't mind stating that I feel somewhat gutted that the chance of my son ever attending university looks increasingly remote, but if he cannot manage that, so be it. If he is best suited to a trades school, then so be it. The important thing is that he starts getting more motivated and making an effort to achieve in what is objectively required, so he can start living a productive and worthwhile life whatever he may do.

It's hard to let go of our vision for our kids and help them find a vision that works for them. What I am hoping with my boys, is that their energy is not focused on resisting me, and is focused on what their own goals are.

My younger guy does not like to study, period. While there is a certain degree of study that you need to just learn to manage, the truth is that if I decide he will go to university and he will get an advanced degree which takes additional time, I'm fooling myself. Since his attention is difficult to harness. Every assignment he does required 5x the effort as an nt kid. There's no way that my kid is going to do that.

If by chance he finds something where the study is connected to a goal (on a daily basis) I think he could muscle through.

I agree that the manipulations of school staff is a problem - we have been through it! On the other hand, I must make sure that I review all options for my son and not let the schools attitude force me into bad decisions.

@kailuamom - I can relate very much to what you wrote.

With my son, I've had quite an exhausting Sunday discussing the options with my son and daughter.

The school or at least the dean said her preferred option was for my son to go to the "trades academy" at a polytech the other side of town. It is for hairdressers, plumbers etc, but the proposed course for my son is creative technologies

It is a one year course and my son would continue to be nominally enrolled at his school for the year. It is government funded so would be free for the year. My son could get school qualifications (for usual penultimate year of school) and also the first year of the certificate of creative technologies there. He could continue with the creative technologies certificate diploma (about $6,000 a year after that) and even conceivably progress to a bachelor degree in creative technologies.

I am intending to take my son to see it in the next day or so but, unless it seems really good and my son feels really at home there, I am now pretty sure I will not agree to him going to the trades academy, for the following sorts of reasons:

1. My son is currently adamant he does not want to go to the trades academy; it will be disruptive for him to leave his school after two months of the first term; he feels he will leave behind the friends (of a sort) he has made over the past five+ years; he feels he has been making improvements very recently but he has not been given the chance by the school to show he is making improvements.
2. I think he will just carry his autism over with him ie he will have just the same sorts of problems as he is having now at his school if going to the trades academy
3. If he goes to do that course at the trades academy it will strongly tend to restrict him to doing "creative technology"; while his interests have mainly been in that area he did for instance say that of his current courses he was enjoying cafe cuisine (baking/cooking/winemaking course) the most, and he has been baking etc quite a lot himself at home - so there is an (admittedly smaller) chance he might want to get involved in eg the food preparation industry or something else rather than creative technology
4. I have often read (-has someone reference to any studies etc online?) that there is evidence that autism leads to developmental delays of up to 30% (although his counsellor at the school meeting disputed this); if my son is say at a 14yo level then he is likely to get a lot better over the next few years (some autistic kids stay at school until 20) and may be able to handle final year academic course next year at his school for example, which would give him wider options later
5. There is nothing stopping my son doing the course at the polytech (or similar courses elsewhere) next year or the year after.
6. It will be more costly for my son to go and do the course at the polytech as he would need to start paying I think $6,000 a year for that from next year, whereas if he stays at the school for a year 14 (one year past what is normal) he can hopefully save some of his benefit before he has to start spending it all on courses. (I think it is really important that my son try and get a tiny nest egg so that he could have the deposit to buy a little apartment for himself one day).

I may say his mother apparently is thinking that the trades academy is the answer and will solve all his problems, so this is going to be a further bone of contention between us. However she has recently seemed to be washing her hands of him some, not replying to his texts and voice messages, and stating she is not seeing him weeknights any more, and would have not seen him today Sunday if I had not taken the kids to her place. She also missed the school meeting. However it may be in part she is just busy.

All this stated, I am thinking that I am likely to have to accede to the school's second option of my son dropping his year 13 (more advanced) courses this year. He is doing two of those. With media studies he got a lot of help from the teacher last year but only passed one of the three standards in the exam. With some of the work I have sighted this year, he has not seemed to have a handle on the work, although just recently he did seem to make a reasonable effort with a first cut dummy website and the teacher apparently thought that was ok. With Art despite his real talent he failed three of the four assignments last year (internally assessed) and got dispensation to do Year 13 Art Painting but is currently behind with that, although a design I saw him do late last week seemed reasonably good. Still he admits this evening that the two teachers will probably say he is not up to scratch with the subjects.

My daughter actually thinks we should explore him doing a part course at school this year and work for me part time; I am reluctant about this however as I think it best he try and keep things moving.

My son is extremely disappointed and upset at the idea of dropping his two year thirteen courses. As a separate issue it turns out today he thinks he does not have autism just social anxiety and avoidant behaviour, so in my view he unfortunately does not have basic insight into that either.

I think it's great the way you're listening to your son; I think that is really important. I think you are also correct in that he'll bring his disability wherever he goes - unless the trade school is willing to deal with it directly, it will be an issue there as well - unless one of the trades keys in to a special interest, which may help negate the stresses of school.

Your daughter brings up an interesting alternative - the problem I see with it is that you have a limited time left for free school, and this would in effect reduce the amount of education he gets (will they extend that if he has a disability?) Depending on how stressful he finds working with you, if it's the accumulated stress of school that makes it difficult (this is not unlikely) and not any one specific stress, it might help. Something to think about if things don't improve with the decisions you've made already.

Good luck!

On your developmental delays question, I don't think there is a one size fits all percentage to it, but I do agree that in many areas it is a matter of delay and not, "this child will never be able to." there are some of those, "never be able to's," with AS kids just as there are with any human being, but there are also many areas where the child may just need more time to either mature or figure out the work around.

I think the approach you've outlined has a lot of merit.

I should add: we ourselves are keeping the half-day school idea as a "plan B."

@momsparky

Yes the problem is that free school is time limited. I have heard that it is possible for pupils to stay at school until they are twenty, and indeed I know that happens at a "special school" within another high school here for mainly autistics with somewhat more problems; however he is currently in a stock standard high school and I think it would be very unusual to stay for an extra year fourteen there, although this is probably possible - but anything more than that has probably not happened before.

The author of "Strange Kid" had kindly posted on a prior forum thread that he considered my son should be taken out of school completely, have some time to get himself together, and then slowly start to build up the basics of executive functioning. While at one level I could understand where he was coming from, it did seem to me to come out of left field and did run into some of the practical issues like limited time free schooling etc.

Looking back my son did however bomb out academically last year (getting only I think about 30 of the bare minimum 60 credits he would need to get his level 2 qualifications (third last year at school is level 1, penultimate year level 2 and final year level 3). And he has not been coping this year either. Last year this might have been blameable also on his mother's erratic behaviour eg taking him away without warning to anyone on two occasions, but this year he has remained at home with me and the problems largely seem to have continued unabated. So there are obviously serious underlying issues.

If I genuinely knew that him doing part time school or even dropping out, and going back to it when he was ready would work I would jump at that - but if he left school now I don't think he could in practice return to his current school and I totally doubt that he would be able to do school eg by correspondence. Also although he has been avoiding going to classes etc, he does seem to want to continue with school and was extremely disappointed about the probability he will need to drop year 13 courses.

@DW_a_mom - thanks for your validation. As regards the developmental delay this could be a good ground for me arguing that my son should be given more time. I am currently reading "Made for Good Purpose" by Michael McMannon Ed. D - about transitioning autistics to working life. It is a good book and eg on p41 (albeit talking about dating) he writes: "The researchers tell us that young adults on the autism spectrum have an emotional age and level of maturity that is 30% less than their chronological age. We know from experience that our students are experiencing junior high (13- to 14-year old) behaviors in 19-to 20-year-old bodies. ... The young person's emotional age and maturity level is at odds with his or her chronological age". If there is a delay in my son's case (which I strongly believe and also hope) then this is a huge argument in giving him more time to come right (by that of course I mean be able to cope in the real world), rather than necessarily pushing him down a particular avenue (eg the trades academy) at this point.

Went to the trades academy today. Actually it seemed pretty good to me. It is part of a polytech (tertiary education below university level) with about 11,000 students but the campus building looked very nice, probably nicer looking than the couple of universities in our city. More to the point, the trades academy creative technologies course was well laid out in some spacious rooms with a lot of computers and there were only about 10 students in the room with one tutor/teacher.

My son does not present properly at interviews like this. The meeting was between me (dad), my son, the dean of the trades academy and the tutor. My son at one point started putting his face right down which certainly does not give people a very good impression. He can also yawn and look bored. When asked questions he answers in generalisations and does not seem to show good insight. Still, I don't think the interview was a disaster and I think they will more likely accept him, although this is also up to them.

My son interestingly could not think readily of things he was good at, although I had previously mentioned that he had been described by an external cartooning teacher as the most talented cartoonist he had ever taught. Perhaps that is a sign of some hopelessness and depression underneath.

He also seemed to have no insight into what he was bad at, in part blaming me as the cause of problems this year, in insisting he do his homework etc. The tutor was quick to point out that she would also have to insist on a good attendance and also would have to insist on work being completed. I think she goes around all the students individually at the beginning of the day and checks where they are at and what they will be completing. The projects are also done in steps and they need to show all of the steps. I asked about whether he would be disadvantaged coming a little late into the course and the dean said they would accommodate that by requiring less standards.

The students do four days a week, normal school hours (about 9am to 3pm) doing their course and then go one day a week and work on numeracy etc (which is however taught in a practical rather than a theoretical way). They also make some visits to local art galleries etc, although there are less that side of town.

It struck me as a nice environment, nicer than school (nicer eating places etc on the campus, nicer sportsfield and facilities) and it is near a quirky, interesting neighbourhood with lots of interesting shops and eating places a few minutes walk down the road (and an okay beach a few minutes further walk away). However that is more likely beside the point for my son - although it might become a factor if he were to continue education there when he is older.

The dean and tutor also said they stress working in teams (as creative groups often work in teams), show how to prepare CVs and stress good presentation. They agreed the certificate could lead to jobs designing websites or in the advertising industry, or could lead to people creating their own jobs, but did also seem to say work there can be variable, and good presentation is very necessary.

If he were to go to the trades academy he could continue on either at the polytech there or at another polytech.

The dean said if my son does go there she would like to see him show fire and spark and get in touch with his real self.

You know ... I was actually quite impressed with the setup there. Before going I said to my son that I was 90% sure it wasn't the best idea and it would need to be really good and he feel comfortable there to reconsider that. But now I am wavering a little.

Still, the disadvantages I'd run through previously remain. I also wonder on reflection whether the tertiary education environment would not be too much freedom for my son. He is at a rather laid back school at present, one of my complaints about them being that they were not sufficiently monitoring his attendance. The tutor at the trades academy did say they (merely) required a minimum of 80% attendance - well that is what might be expected at a tertiary institution but it seems to me way too lax for what is still connected with a high school.

I have not really got a good feel yet as to what my son thinks about this. He is very change averse and I think most likely he will not want to go.

However having inspected the place it does seem more viable than I had thought before, although it is quite a way away by public transport, two separate trains or train and bus or buses would be necessary to get there. Also just because it seems a nice environment to me obviously does not mean that my son will be able to "get it together" there, given his considerable difficulties with school to date.

I am also wondering about applying his benefit towards getting some therapy, to see if that will lead him to some better insights.

I'm still thinking ...

Wow - sounds very interesting!

One of your earlier points about why change wouldn't be good was: "he will bring his autism anywhere he goes".

Was there any discussion about how that would be managed? Presentations and group projects are not typically an area of strength for those on the spectrum, so I'm curious about how that would be managed?

What I have observed in folks on the spectrum, if you find their passion, there isn't a worry about too much freedom, as they give everything they have. The opposite is also true, if it's not their passion, then it can be tough getting them engaged. If this would feed your sons passion, then it could be an excellent opportunity. If not, it's just a far trek across town.

Good luck in your decision making process.

@kailuamom

There probably wasn't as much discussion about coping with autism with the tutor and dean at the Trades Academy as there could have been; however this is moot as my son decided, despite some advantages - eg doing study he was interested in, smaller classes, possibly better overall environment - that he wants to stay in his existing school for now.

The next option raised by the school was downgrading his courses to something easier (mainly by dropping his two level 13 courses, one of which was incidentally previously suggested by the school when the year 12 art course was full).

Our son was very opposed to this, and has said he has recently been making good progress in both.

I advised the Trades Academy and the School accordingly. The dean after trying to railroad me in her preferred direction (Trades Academy) has responded in a more measured tone and accepted the retention of the status quo after I made something of a complaint about her approach, although I thanked her for the Trades Academy idea as it has given some better idea of where my son might go for tertiary study.

The question will be whether my son does actually manage to make some improvements or whether he will slip back. It is slow progress; he is showing some improvements like getting up himself most mornings but he also most times still does not seem to be really getting down to work. I do think though he realises some more that there are consequences to his actions or lack of action, and he has seemed more motivated the past week or so.