Adaptive Living Skills

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I just found out, through an evaluation by the school district, that my 11 year old son's "adaptive living skills" are at the level of a 3.5 year old. I knew there were a lot of things that he doesn't do that other kids his age do, but I didn't know he was that far behind. My reference point has always been myself. In other words, I look at the things I was doing at the age of 11 as "normal" and consider him just slightly behind that.

I haven't seriously considered getting myself officially diagnosed, but I wonder if I'd get some help with teaching my son certain skills if I was diagnosed. Or would I just be seen as an unfit parent? (I know I'm a good mom, and a very caring one who advocates for my kids. But there are a lot of things I can't do very well, or model very well. Like, for instance, I fall apart with anxiety at the idea of having other kids in our house, or visiting someone else's house. I'm certainly not much of a role model for socializing.)

Today, after having this school meeting, I made a point to give my son a little push towards independence. This evening, he made brownies (a mix) much more independently that ever before. I did the dangerous oven stuff, and got out the hard-to-reach pan, but other than that, he did it. I also gently pushed him to be a little be more independent with his shower. It may not seem like much, but I feel really good about it. I think he does, too.

He says he "doesn't care" about independence and the freedom that comes with being able to do things for yourself, but I'm pretty sure he does care.

I just wanted to share our little success. Now I'm going to go enjoy some of those brownies.

Thanks for sharing that! I'm an adult who has to have that test done soon (adaptive living skills,) so I didn't know it gave age equivalents until I read your post.

I hope all goes well with his continued moves towards independence!

Which skills did they test? If they relied heavily on social skills, then of course he's behind!

I think I did my first bits of cooking when I was eleven, myself. I remember being so unsure of myself about the whole thing that I wouldn't make any tea but the Earl Grey because that one had instructions on the box!

Good on you for starting now. Teaching him explicitly the things he needs to know to take care of himself is very important; you can't just assume he'll pick them up. I'd also recommend that he learn how to do things like finding services he needs--you know, academic support in college, that kind of thing--and learn how to make his own decisions regarding education and finances. I assume you're giving him an allowance; are you giving him the basics of budgeting? I think it'd be cool for him to have his own little savings account too, so he could have the bank book and see how it worked.

I had a bit of trouble with self-care and my eventual solution involved lots of routines. Basically, have a list of steps, do it the same way each time, and have a set time to do it. That takes a lot of guesswork out of the picture. For example, when you teach him to do his laundry, it would make sense--if he thinks like me, anyway--to have a paper with a list of steps posted that would tell him how to do laundry.

Cooking came natural for me. I have been in the kitchen (alone at that) since age 6. I have been cooking at age 6 when my parents were asleep, and making myself stuff based on what I thought was right, and I did a really good job at that. Now self care was something I still haven't picked up, and it was never taught to me either. My parents thought I would learn it by seeing them do it on the occasions I would see them. I still suck when it comes to hygeine, even though I really really want to have good hygeine, I just can't seem to.

I know what I must do to fix this though, and the answer is routine. Once I am past this wretched term I will make a daily routine checklist together, laminate it, and get dry erase markers to work with it. I will check off things when I do them, and try to get a good order going, and if I get a full week of everything done, I will reward myself. Unfortunately, my roommates are horrible, and won't let me sleep (they are really very loud by the standards of someone with hypersensitity to sound, normal by most peoples) and then the lights on top of the sound... I need to have very very very little sensory input to sleep. That includes light and sound mostly, touch I don't mind depending on the touch. Once this term is done, my next term I have a better schedual for classes and can sleep well enough to follow a morning routine. So I plan to start in May.

It was a questionnaire that I filled out, with a huge variety of questions like, "He asks for food when he's hungry: Always, Often, Sometimes, Never." Or "He plays games by the rules: Always, Often, Sometimes, Never." There were all kinds of things, in many different categories. The questionnaire was VERY hard for me to answer, which I'm sure skewed the results a bit, but I think in general it gave an accurate overall picture. The teacher also filled out one, but I think hers may have been different.