Tate's a Freshman, Part 2

My son Tate has autism. Tate is a freshman in High School this year, and is just beginning the second quarter. At this point, his teachers have gotten to know him and his quirks, his abilities and his inabilities, some of his anxieties and obsessions, and just how much fun he is to have around.

This is the second in a series of posts about Tate's freshman year of High School. You might like to start with the first. If you haven't already seen it, click here: Transitioning to High School with Autism

Last week I attended parent/teacher conferences. I always go to meetings with new teachers with just a little trepidation, hoping they “get” what autism is and how to best communicate with Tate. 

I got to hear some really fun stories about how Tate is settling in and how his teachers this year have come to enjoy him. And I got to hear the other side of a few of the things Tate has come home and told me about. 

One of my favorite stories was about World History class. Tate really likes his World History class. Or at least he likes the projector that hangs from the ceiling.

And Tate is excelling in math this year.

Although Tate’s math teacher had nice things to say about him, Tate is unsure she really knows much about math at all.

The math teacher is not the only teacher who has given Tate new notions to ponder.

This is the first year Tate has had no organized lunch buddy program. He is doing well on his own. One of the teachers he had in Junior High sat with him while he ate lunch recently.  

Lunch was not the only concern I had about Tate being in High School. I worried about his ability to maneuver through the crowd. Choreographing his movements to those around him is difficult for Tate. They tell me he is colliding with others less frequently now. Tate's size is intimidating enough that he will likely never be hurt, but I do worry about the other guys.

Not many kids like homework, and Tate is no exception. The name “homework” itself annoys him. If it is schoolwork, then it should stay at school. It baffles Tate that schoolwork can be brought home and relabeled as homework. He does not like his two worlds to mix.

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Transitioning to High School with Autism

My son Tate is a freshman in High School this year. We are two weeks in and I am breathing a bit easier now. He’s surviving. Transitions can be hard for people with autism. I worried about everything. How would Tate manage the huge transition to High School? How would he manage all the smaller transitions from one class to the next, in a hall crowded with so many other students? Those kinds of things are so much harder for Tate than they are for you and I. On Tate’s second day of school, his older brother ran into him in the hall. Literally. 

Tate’s brother has since seen Tate in the school halls, and reports that Tate has mastered the skills necessary to dodge most of the other students now. Whew!

That first week was a bit rough on Tate. He was exposed to some ideas he could hardly believe. He came home distressed because his choir teacher mentioned the wearing of robes at the scheduled performances. Luckily, she was most understanding, compassionate and accommodating when I explained Tate’s sensory issues and his anxiety about things like this. 

In addition to the anxiety felt by Tate, and all the new routines to learn, there is also a learning curve for Tate’s new educators. Each year as new teachers get to know Tate and his quirks, I worry that Tate will be misunderstood or even mistreated because of his lack of social awareness and socially acceptable responses. Will his teachers understand autism? Despite my fears, Tate is adjusting marvelously. The High School teachers are proving to be as proficient and as understanding as the teachers we left behind in Junior High.

Working with Tate requires patience and a sense of humor. Luckily, the Physical Education teacher is demonstrating that he has both when he teaches Tate. Despite Tate's awkward gait and limited coordination, P.E. has always been one of Tate's favorite classes at school. I wondered if High School P.E. would be very different. I have always heard that much of the bullying that goes on in a High School is done in gym class. After just these few days I can see that Tate likes his P.E. class very much. The fact that there is never homework, helps!

Tate does not believe homework is ever justifiable. Since he first entered public school he has been adamant that schoolwork should stay at school where it belongs.  

Tate's attempt at his report was his personal best. I read it with mixed feelings. Things like this show me just how far behind Tate is. But they also show me how far he has come. It is true that Tate cannot perform academically at the level of his peers. However, I can honestly say that I am every bit as proud of his efforts as any other parent. Tate works hard and does the best he can in a world he has trouble making sense of. He shows me daily what it means to persevere. It sounds a bit cliché but it is a fact: Tate has taught me far more than I will ever teach him. He makes my heart smile. 

Get to know a child with autism. You will be forever changed in ways you could not have imagined. 

If you liked this post, you might also like: Coffee Tables Aren't Hot

or this one: There is no ham in hamburgers

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Homework

Written April 25, 2012

I know of a few kids with autism that boycott homework. It is not always necessarily the work itself, but the fact that it is SCHOOL work, coming HOME. SCHOOL work belongs at SCHOOL and doesn’t have anything to do with HOME. I heard recently of a mom who disguised homework for her son with autism by calling it a different name and it worked for a while for that family. Tate hates homework. He compartmentalizes everything and cannot stand for anything to be out of place. Bringing school work home breaks his “rules.” He does not often have homework because his teachers know how much he hates it. He does homework when he has it though. It works best to save it until morning, before school, if it is a short assignment. It doesn’t “ruin” his whole evening that way. He protests the loudest if I suggest he do it immediately after school. Of course, that is how my other kids have always done it. They come home, do the homework, and then have the rest of the evening. Not Tate. 

A few days ago, Tate had some homework. His para told me Tate had taken it out of his backpack and tried to leave it at school a couple of times and the para made him put it back in both times. Tate finally said “But if I take it home, my mom will make me DO it.” HA  That IS the idea, kid. 

Tate is in fourth grade but he has math in the resource room and has been doing second grade math this year. Most of his math lessons, for years now, have revolved around coin recognition and counting money. Word problems are out of the question because of the language involved. Processing all that language is impossible for Tate. Figuring out the operation to use, what information is needed and what information is not needed to solve a problem is too much. I hope someday he will be able to sift through all those things.

I am excited though! This week, Tate started doing multiplication. Since he only just began adding two digit numbers and “carrying” from the ones place to the tens, I was amazed. Multiplication? I didn’t think we’d see multiplication for another year or two, at least. Yes, I know, jumping up and down because a ten-year-old mastered zeros and ones on the multiplication table, may seem ridiculous. However, he was only adding single digit numbers without a calculator a few weeks ago; and he doesn’t yet subtract two digit numbers without a calculator. After school this afternoon, I looked in Tate’s backpack and saw he had worked on multiplying by twos today. I asked him to solve a few multiplication problems while we drove home. He did four or five correctly, missed a few, and then said “What’s with the math in the car?” I suppose he thought it was too close to HOME work. I should have called it “car math” and tried to get away with it that way. HA!

Disguising things with a name change won’t be working for us most likely. Tate was recommended for summer school (also called Extended School Year or ESY) for the first time. I knew if I called it summer school he would be horrified so I introduced the idea as a “math camp” at his school this summer. He was still horrified. He’ll be fine…. eventually. Ha

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