Stimming...redirect or not?

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Hi everyone. I'm a parent of a the sweetest 10 yr old boy. He was diagnosed with ASD more indicative of AS 3 yrs ago. He's in 5th grade, mainstreamed, getting an one-on-one aide soon for part of the day, an hour pull out. My son started a complicated stim when he was 3 yrs old. He does this pacing/skipping thing with his head down, holding his hands a certain way, while mumbling to himself. He flaps a little with the skip. ( he also flaps and jumps when excited) We've never stopped him from stimming or worried about it. I know everyone stims in one way or another, including myself. But recently this has become an increasing concern of ours over the past 2 yrs because our son does the pacing stim at school during recess. The other kids notice and tell the teachers about it and tease him sometimes. We've asked the school to redirect him or bring him inside. They've never brought him inside to date. I don't know if I've done the right thing. I'm so conflicted on the subject. I want my son to fit in socially because he's cried to me about the kids thinking he's weird. That breaks my heart. But I know he's doing this stim as a coping mechanism. His body needs it. I'm afraid if he's redirected he'll start having problems in other areas. The counseler who just started working with him said maybe we should just teach him to cope with people thinking he's different/weird. I really don't know what to do here. As a mom I just want to protect my baby. But I know I need to do what's best for him in the long run. But what is that?

Thanks for any advice and input you can give me on this subject.

-S

I have a similar stim. I try to suppress til I get home, but sometimes it comes out in public in one form or another. In fact, Im 22 years old in college, and during a group project a couple of my peers noticed my stim come out in the form of me talking to myself. The two of them started laughing behind my back...

But the thing is I didn't really care all that much cause I like who I am. I like being different rather than being a lemming. You need to teach your son how to put the kids' teasing into perspective. They do it out of ignorance and fear. Many humans fear the unknown, so they react very negatively torwards it. Remind your son of some of his positive qualitites, and have the counselor work on his self esteem so the teasing doesn't bother him. You also might have your son take a martial arts class so he can learn to defend himself. I almost made black belt as a child but backed out cause I lost interest. hope this helps.

Thank you for your reply. It is very helpful. I've thought about martial arts for my son. I need to really go and see a class and talk to an instuctor. My son has large and small motor skills delay as well. So I think martial arts would be very good for him on many levels but I also would need to find just the right class/instructor. Thank you again, Jman.

-S

Perhaps the therapist can help him to alter his stim. It always feels good to stim but I have found that certain stims do make one look incredibly odd and so slowly helping him to switch to a less obvious stim (such as you mentioned one everyone does-- he would just likely do it more) might be an option.

This partnered with helping him to deal with the teasing effectively could help him out.

It just depends how much that particular stim is important to him. If no other stim will do (and I've had plenty of those) then he should do it. But, yes, preparing him to deal with the other children would be good in any case.

And keep after those teachers to let him come inside away from the kids if he needs that larger and more obvious stim.