I forbid my son to stim - am I bad?

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How does his behaviour affect his school work?

I'm thirteen and I still flap (including apparantley pulling strange faces) and pace up and down when I'm excited or in deep thought. I'm not aware I'm doing it, and If I'm really exited and I try and stop it (once people telll me) I sometimes start twitching and sometimes fidgety legs.

Sometimes I can flap so much that I get out of breath.

Im 17 and i still pace when thinking, so it doesnt go away as such.

I have a slightly similar situation.

chamoisee, I am curious: what exactly did you do with your blanket?? (I ask this because I used to stim with my baby blanket which I used till I was about 11, as I would take one of the corners, fold it over twice, and make a point out of it then run it across the fingers of my left hand).

I still have my yellow "blankie" as a keepsake of course (I can never throw things away) however these days I still do the same stim but with pillow case edges. It is addictive. And I do it whenever I am near one (which in my apartment I am constantly sitting on my couch where I have also my bed clothes, pillows, and covers.)

Asianmom, have you ever considered having your son see a behavioral therapist who works with kids who are on the spectrum??? If you have not and feel totally overwhelmed as to make positive headway with your son so that he will not stim as much but so that this does not create anxiety for him, then a behavioral therapist and possibly an occupatioinal therapist might be other viable options. When feeling overwhelmed, bring in a professional

I'm 23 and still handflap. Some people think I'm wierd, but the people who matter simply accept it.

I think a lot of us need something to help us relax. I don't think it would be beneficial to try to stop your son from stimming, but you could encourage him to try something that is less intrusive.

The stiming is a harmless way to relieve stress and will gain better control of when to do it naturally as he gets older. By preventing him from stimming, the stress could build up until he has an outburst of anger.

AsianMom,

I think it is great that you are trying to help your son fit in with his peers, but by taking away an important coping mechanism, which he uses to reduce anxiety and focus, you are denying him his own way of dealing with stress. I am trying not to judge you, but as a 29 year old, married, mother, I think punishing him for coping the way his brain needs him to is harsh.


I stimmed as a child, by flapping my hands, but my family and friends chalked it up to just a funny thing I did. I would wring my hands when I became excited too. I didn't realize I was doing it until after I had already started and/or someone pointed it out. I eventually stopped doing this in front of other people (by 6th grade), b/c I realized that other people did not do this.

I still stim, but I when I am in public, I carry something soft in my pocket, like my baby's sock and I rub this when I am feeling overwhelmed and am starting to zone out. This usually helps me calm down, without anyone knowing what I am doing. Maybe your son likes soft things and they calm him down. Maybe he could carry a piece of soft cloth in his pocket and he can hold it in his hand when he feels stressed.

You are actually creating more stress for him by not letting him do what his brain is telling him he needs. You are also probably creating a lot of shame for him at the same time. He will resent you for your oppression later when has learned to control the stimming, on his own. Please let him do it in his own home, at the very least, so that your home is a place of acceptance and security for him, coupled by an explanation that stimming in public is okay if he really needs to do it, but that home is a better place.

Also, there are remedies, such as Lemon Balm, which help with anxiety, stress, and focus, and it is also an anti-viral herb without side effects. I wish my Mom would have known about it when I was in school. I found school extremely stressful and I am sure your son does the best he can.

I realize you are NT, so you are not sensitive like your son, but your son will be more apt to take social risks, such as making friends etc., if he knows, no matter what, he is accepted and appreciated at home, stimming and all.

Tallgirl.

When I was in school I carried a 1" diameter ball of candle wax with me everywhere I went. Whenever I started to stress out I would knead it for a while. Sometimes by the end of the day my hand would ache from squeezing the wax all afternoon...

AsianMom:

No, no, no.

Stimming is a way to reduce anxiety, and other people should not think he is weird because he does that. People should not use that as a label for acting strange. We are normal people!

I do a similar thing, I hold the corner of the pillow between my thumb and forefinger and flick it up and down my middle finger.

Another thing I love is to spin on a chair with weight in both and to then pull the weight in. This results in a sudden acceleration in the speed of spinning. But I only ever do this in my flat - not one for the office.


AsianMom; I presume when he is around you it is part of his down time when he does not need to worry about how other people see him, so what is the problem with him Stiming. And when he at school you cant do anything to stop him. I think that helping him with strategies for social interaction might be more useful

I must be misunderstanding something. Would someone please explain this to me?

I think this may be what my son does - stim physically while mentally fantasizing . When I ask him what's in his mind when he stims, he says he thinks about his train set, his racing cars, his dinosaurs etc.

He has other habits like humming to himself, bitting his nails/pencils/ruler, stroking his lips, which I didn't know are stim activities because he is still "conscious". When he flaps (like Sarah said, including pulling strange faces) he is in his own world.

At home, he flaps when left alone to complete his homework. So something that takes 1/2 hour can stretch up to more than 1 hour and it is always full of careless mistakes. My boy is really bright, so I don't think his homework are stressing him out. Moreover, when I sit beside him, he can do them perfectly in a resonable time. Like I said, he seldom flaps when he is alone during his "free time", perhaps sometimes on his bed in the dark before falling asleep (and I leave him alone).

We have been working with behavioral and occupational therapists since he was 4, working on various aspects. But what they told me about stimming is not as useful as what you guys have said. Thank you all for sharing.

I often wonder why NTs are allowed to teacher young ASers/HFAers. (Well, perhaps not "allowed", as that is harsh). But I have wished more ASers/HFAers would get into the fields of teaching these young kids and helping them. I, myself, taught ABA to a 2-3 year old autistic boy and I had more success with him than any other of his therapists. I could help him quell any of his tantrums in under 20 seconds. Every other therapist had frequent sessions which had to be cut short due to a tantrum of his that wouldn't stop (the therapists were all terribly NT). I taught him numbers in a fun excercise with a numbers book he happened to be obsessed with (we had been trying to teach him numbers with cards for month before this lucky stab). And I think NTs tend to look down on these kids for one and treat them as though they are disabled. He and I having things in common, I treated him like he was normal, because in my eyes he was and is. And often these NT therapists and others forget that these kids are kids before they are autistic (40 hours/week of ABA Therapy! My god, I couldn't even handle that now at the age of 23!). I was a "go with the flow and have fun in learning" type of therapist. I still see him and will probably be babysitting him in the future, so his parents (who both happen to be AS) can have an occasional break. He is an awesome kid and really the only child I like (probably one reason is that he doesn't talk much, hehe. Don't much like chattering children-- woulda hated myself when I was a kid, lol).

I'm 16, and still stim. For a while, I had stopped hand flapping, but I started again a few weeks ago. I don't see what's wrong with stimming. Would you rather have us relieve stress through other means, like violence? Stimming is probably one of the healthiest ways to relieve stress. Just some thoughts.