My son seems to have a love / hate relationship with the concept of time. While he thrives on predictibility, and needs to know at all times what will happen when, time is also his worst enemy.
Getting out of the house in the morning for school is hell.
Completing homework is hell.
My son spends so much time worrying about the looming end of the day and bedtime, that he literally freezes trying to get his homework done, panics, and can't make progress.
Moving homework to earlier in the day would seem to be the answer, but it doesn't seem to work. He might work for 10 minutes, and then he needs a break. He'll get involved in something, anything, and by the time he is ready to return to the homework we are backed into the evening, and there is the time pressure again.
This is completely opposite to how I respond to deadlines. I energize as a deadline approaches, and work with a focus that I never have otherwise. True, I'm useless for quite a while afterwards, but I always pull things out of the hat and get it done.
My husband (who has some Aspie traists), though, is more like my son. Too willing to see the impossible as impossible.
I guess my questions are these:
First, is this a common issue among Aspies? Or is it unrelated?
Second, does anyone have suggestions on how I can help my son cope with the reality of the clock, and learn to do what he can, and not fret about what he can't?
Thanks for your ideas.
I have seven antique mantel clocks arranged around my flat, and wind them all up on Sunday evening. Some run fast, and some run slow, as is the way with old clocks, so they must be corrected daily.
Two of the clocks have Westminster chimes, and another Bow Bells. As the clocks are by no means synchronised, the chiming of each quarter hour is staggered over up to five minutes, and there is quite a cacophony when they strike and count out the hour. Sometimes I am amazed that I can live with the constant racket of it all.
At night, I hear them all ticking in the darkness, as the cogs go round and round and round. :smile:
Stella
Completing homework is hell.
My son spends so much time worrying about the looming end of the day and bedtime, that he literally freezes trying to get his homework done, panics, and can't make progress.
Moving homework to earlier in the day would seem to be the answer, but it doesn't seem to work. He might work for 10 minutes, and then he needs a break. He'll get involved in something, anything, and by the time he is ready to return to the homework we are backed into the evening, and there is the time pressure again.
My son had the same issues a few years ago, probably brought on by stress because our family was moving. He complained that it took forever to write the answers to his math homework, why did he have to do it anyway when the homework was so easy that he could see what the answers were just by looking at the questions, et cetera.
I tried making him sit down at his desk after school and do the homework before playing any video games, but he just sat there for hours doodling, lining up his pencils, doing anything but his math homework. Making schedules for afternoon activities didn't work well either because, as you mentioned, that creates more stress about time, and switching attention from one activity to another can be difficult.
At the end of his sixth-grade year, he had a mountain of undone math homework. When summer vacation started, the principal made him come to school and spend every morning in her office until he got it all finished. That was a valuable real-life lesson showing that work doesn't disappear just because it isn't done promptly!
His work habits gradually improved after that. In addition to the discipline from the principal, I think it had a lot to do with becoming more comfortable in the new house and getting over the stress from moving, as well as growing older and developing a more mature outlook on life in general. As a high school student, he is completely self-motivated in doing his work, takes honors classes (now the math homework is challenging, rather than boring), and consistently gets good grades.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel... :smile:
Well, the homework-horros is something well known to me. And it's from my son and from me when I was a kid.
My son always had problems with homework and he always mourned "it takes years to do all the stuff". He had tantrums because of homework! It was pure horror! And: on one side it was, I could believe he meant it would take too much time (in his eyes and emotions) and on the other side he knew (by intellect) that it wasn't true. I don't have a real solution for the problem, for most things did not work out quite well :roll:
One thing that helped was, that I made him do his homework directly after the meal (mid-day) we had when he came home. So the rest of the day would be his. And whenever I made an exception, I regretted it!! When he got too much a tantrum he had to leave the kitchen (where he was allowed to do his duty and could ask me for help if he did not understand something) and do his homework in his room. Usually this helped, he calmed down after a while and started.
He discussed the matter a while with his therapist and it went better with the months, but it took a long long time!
For me, the first years at school I used to forget my homework quite often. And even in 6th grade I almost dayly had to do them in the morning before school. That made me become an almost perfect just-in-time worker ;-) Still I'm quite good when I have to do something shor to the deadline, but it stresses me down when it's something important! So I try to do things in time, but I'm not very good at managing it.
It might help to make a list with the tasks and write on it the estimated time. Maybe...
I made a timetable for my son with his dayly and weekly dates. That helped a bit. It was important, that I had to write down the spare time, too.
Sibylle
Wooo time. it is like an entity of its own. Yes a relationship that is love hate can develop. GRRRR! The best and the worst of times...
Have you and your son read the book * Momo* by Micheal Ende? He was a bit AS. My young cousin is a devil to his parents in the mornings and does not understand the time applies to him as well as other people.
I too , 31 years old,am only just learning Time applies to me. That is, it is linked to me somehow and can affect me personally. This also applies to other things that are abstract, such as maintaing friendship in the world and going to a job.
So if you can help you son to work on a story with Himself and Time as characters maybe that will help. He can describe what happens when time goes fast or slow or it does not go at all. I do this myself to explain why time upsets me and also fascinates me. I learn about the consequences of forgetting I am within time as it is within me. i can prepare in advance for changes that might upset my perception of time.
becca
I've had issues with time since being quite small - would dawdle getting ready for school and now it's the same getting ready for work. If I looked forward to school or work at any time, I would get organised faster but even then was likely to underestimate how much time it would take to get ready.
I wasn't made to do my homework and sometimes got behind with work I found harder eg. maths. I think my parents knew making me sit there for more than a short while would have led to more strife than it was worth. I've managed okay considering.
I think kids are given too much homework these days. If the work is properly taught in the classroom, the main homework that should ever be necessary is assignments and essays and maybe a bit of revision. Kids should be allowed to be kids and not forced to spend hours on boring work after they've put in a full day at school already.
Thanks for the insights, all. I will see if I can find the book, too.