He has joined after school clubs before, but because J doesn't enjoy waiting for a turn, or understand why he cannot just sit or bounce on the trampoline for an hour (whilst other children sit waiting), it becomes very un-enjoyable for him. He will say "goodbye bounce" (or whatever activity it is), and try to walk out of the building.
We have tried attending groups that are only for children with a learning difficulty, and have staff either trained or have experience in this area, but he still doesn't want to stay and join in, even if they have activities he would like. He may sit for a few seconds, complete what is at the table, and walk away, making tracks for the door. He used to enjoy attending a weekly, two hour session group, a few years ago, but as he got older, he backed off from it. I did try and persist, but in the end I wanted him to be happy.
Making / forcing him attend a session or activity is not the way I want to parent. He may be a child, but he also has likes and dislikes, and I respect that, and don't push boundaries - which will always result in a meltdown - and that is something I work hard to avoid.
I know ( as is shown in this blog a lot ) that he has a passion for art and craft work. He does like to stick to specific colours for his work (unless it is on his magnetic drawing board), and so we either get a beautiful rainbow of colour, such as with this piece ;
where I gave the children coloured lolly sticks, glue, and card, to create a collage or picture, or his regular choice of four colours - red, purple, green, and yellow (the colour of the Teletubbies!).
Then there is his copying of images from another TV favourite of his, Bear in the Big Blue House. He usually draws the character 'Shadow', who as the name suggests, is a shadow, and so is in black, against a white background. I have shown his Shadow drawings on the blog before, and this next drawing he made the other day, using just a white piece of paper and a black felt pen. It is of one of the shadow sketches that has Shadow singing along to. He drew this picture from memory, and didn't use a ruler or template.
So as you can see, art and creativity of craft pieces, are something he really enjoys.
There are not many out of school clubs that offer something like this, and of the one that I am aware of, that can cater for young people with a learning difficulty, I still find that he doesn't settle or enjoy it, as he doesn't have the freedom of being at home, and has to adhere to rules, which he finds very hard, mainly because he doesn't understand. No amount of teaching or drilling into him will ever get him to understand. He just thinks it's restrictive, and so acts out against it. As his mum, I won't put this stress on to him. If I can provide this activity at home, then that's good enough for me.
The other great passion of his, is nature. He adores being outside ; raining, sunny, windy, hailstones, snow, he loves it. Now summer is only a few months away, and spring is here, the garden is more accessible to us all, and he's in and out of the house, wandering around singing to himself.
I take him and his brothers to the beach a fair bit, and to forests, open spaces, greens, etc.
I know what he enjoys to do when at these places - throw stones into the sea, dig with a spade, hug trees, dance around in a circle with his arms outstretched saying "whhheeeeee", or sit and recline back, looking up to the sky.
The other day it was a lovely mild day, and I took all three boys down to the beach, but we stayed up on the grassy green area, as the other two were riding their bikes, (J doesn't like riding a bike or even a scooter now) and J walked off from where we were based, sat down, and proceeded to pick tufts of grass and sprinkle them over himself.
I took this photo of him, and as it shows, he is perfectly happy, by himself (if others came over to him he would get up and move away). He spent a good hour sitting there. Sometimes lying back, but just in that spot.
He has very simple pleasures in life, and I try to allow him the freedom and capacity to enjoy these as much as possible, with little or no pressure, or external influences that can cause him stress.
I understand that there are some 'experts' who will tell me that I should be more forceful and make him attend social activities, but his happiness is my focus, and as he cannot communicate to me verbally how he feels, I take cues from noises, flapping, telling me "goodbye" and followed by whatever it is he doesn't like (if he can't say the word, he will just scream "goodbye" over and over again).
His happiness is paramount to me.
He's happy - I'm happy. Simple!
