What to expect from a 11 1/2 year old?

[faroutbrusselsprout]

DH and I had a really great talk today about his son. (I'm STRUGGLING with the whole step parenting thing but that's a WHOLE nother post!)
I have had a really hard week with SS and DS as DH is back at work and I just find the dynamic really hard work.
My mum who has worked in schools for 20 odd years mentioned something that really struck a cord with me and luckily DH was very open and understanding when I broached it with him.
She spoke to SS on the phone (he always has to speak to her after DS does)
Then when I got back on the phone she asked if he really was going into grade 6...(which he is)
She then mentioned his immaturity which I am FULLY aware of, but actually sounded somewhat concerned.
She has known him for 3 years and thinks that unless there is marked maturity over the next year, we should look at keeping him down (he doesn't live with us full time though.)
I explained to her the tough week we had had and the challenges that both DH and I are facing with trying to parent SS.
She says maybe we aren't taking his immaturiy into account and pushing him with responsibilities that he may not have the maturity to deal with.
He is NEVER malicious or rude, just VERY immature and frustrating
Dhand I both feel he has touble with concentration, forethought, decision making, common sense, conversational/social skills, judgement of simple situations.
IS this ALL to much to expect of an 11 yr old?
Or are we maybe onto something and should maybe look at parenting him differently because he is not meeting the challenges we are setting
He fails, we get frustrated..

geez long post eh! Hope you got my point, just me blabbing on really.
Anyway what goals/challenges is your 11 yr old meeting successfully.
ANY comments welcome, not sure I got my point across really whoops.....:o

[Nomsie]

Can you maybe give a few examples that demonstrate the behaviour (or lack thereof) of your SS?

[faroutbrusselsprout]

Right, sometimes the 7 year age gap between SS and DS seems about 2 years..
SS needs to be reminded about getting himself something to eat, showering, dressing in the morning, pool safety issues, not interrupting people, working out that adults need adult time, repeating questions, not to rev up the dog, listen when DS says NO and STOP, put your clothes away, don't leave things by the pool, eat with your mouth closed, blow your nose, He can never sit still, and is really random with his conversation..
The list goes on and on and on of simple everyday things that just aren't sinking in for him
Like today DH and I wrote out a list of jobs that needed to be done we told the boys that we had to do all this and nothing else would be getting done until we had finished (visitors arriving tomorrow). SS asks five minutes later "Can I go in the pool?"
Ummmm... no, we are to busy to supervise as we have to get these jobs done we just told you about 5 MINUTES AGO! :hair:

We find we are repeating ourselves all the time.
He also can't judge social situations very well, hanign around adults trying to talk and interupting them. The poor kid across the road had to have his mum bring SS back as he just didn't feel like playing and SS couldn't pick up on the social cues. (hmmm, maybe time to go home now, oh looks like J is pretty tired, maybe come back tomorrow etc..)
Annoying DS when he has his girlfriend from next door over wanting to play 4 yr old games etc




Hmmmm, reading back i can see that these sort of these may sound petty! But it's the fact that we are constantly reminding him and it's constantly not sinking in....

[Nomsie]

It may seem petty, but I can understand when you are doing it over and over again.

TBH, I spend 3/4 of last year teaching 11 y/o. Never in my life have I had to repeat things so many times. Even when I had a 2/3 grade they got the messages a lot faster. I still don't know why it was...

Has he always been this way, or you have only just started noticing it? I know its hols at the moment, but is there someone at the school you can talk to about it? His teacher, principal etc... if they agree, they may be able to set up some further testing or if it fits in, to see a visiting psychologist?

[sam's mum]

to be honest you have just listed a lot of the symptoms of asperger's.

If this is 'all' he has and he doesn't have behavioural issues as well he may need therapy to teach him the things that other people learn naturally.

DD1 has asperger's and the therapy helped her a great deal. At the end the therapist (psychologist) said that she could still tell that DD1 was having to intellectually come up with her resonses rather than it being an automatic thing, but that the general population would probably never realise.

We still have to remind her to shower, wear deodorant, clean her teeth, eat breakfast, dress appropriately.... But she has a good size circle of friends and pretty much has socially appropriate responses to situations these days.

As an example one of the therapies is learning to recognise different facial expressions - what does someone look like who is bored, angry, sad etc. how does their mouth look, what do their eyes do...

another was play therapy practicing taking it in turns to talk about things, seeing that the person is bored and talking about something else and so on.

In the short term I would pick one thing to work on and talk to him about it, concentrate on that one thing until you are seeing improvements, reward for that and add a second thing as well. Write lists for him for what he has to do each morning, after school, before bed so that he has a check list to refer to. Only give him one job at a time, anymore than that can be overwhelming and they will just shut down and forget the lot.

GOOD LUCK

[kezzaskids]

This is my 11yo son to a tee! funnily enough we were luckily enough to have him repeat yr 5 last year 2008 ( we are in wa) as we were scared he wouldnt be mature enough to go to high school. He is now 12 months older thenhis friends but he is thriving. Educationally the extrra year has brought some positive results too.
He is about to turn 12 in a few weeks and is finally starting to slow down and develop socially etc etc.
This solution did help our DS but took a lot of discussion and organising. :)

[faroutbrusselsprout]

Wow, great great great responses.
Thanks so much.
Your replies all had something for me to think about.
In answer to a couple of questions
Yes, we've always noticed it, (me more so than DH but he can see it clearly now too)
We are going to ring his teachers as the start of the year and discuss our concerns.
We always thought he would start to "get" things but so far it hasn't happened.
Anyway we will keep an eye on him see what the school says.
DH is really keen for him to speak to someone, he often says he is worried he is 'depressed' as he can't clearly express his emotions.
He is a very polite, well mannered kid and is rarely in real trouble but something is just not sitting right with his behaviour...
Thanks again girls!

[Loopy Linda]

i think it sounds like my son too. and as for age difference not seeming so great, i believe that sometimes they can act younger so they are treated in that more caring way, that you naturally do with a younger child and a lot of the time it is jsut plain laziness ( my ds is the same with blowing his nose and it drives me insane.. it is gross, blow the ruddy thing!)

[loving6]

Some of his behavior sounds normal and some sounds like they could be aspergers traits. If your worried talk to your hubby about get him assessed. Talk to your Dr about getting a referral to a pead.

[InSaneOne]

to be honest you have just listed a lot of the symptoms of asperger's.

If this is 'all' he has and he doesn't have behavioural issues as well he may need therapy to teach him the things that other people learn naturally.

DD1 has asperger's and the therapy helped her a great deal. At the end the therapist (psychologist) said that she could still tell that DD1 was having to intellectually come up with her resonses rather than it being an automatic thing, but that the general population would probably never realise.

We still have to remind her to shower, wear deodorant, clean her teeth, eat breakfast, dress appropriately.... But she has a good size circle of friends and pretty much has socially appropriate responses to situations these days.

As an example one of the therapies is learning to recognise different facial expressions - what does someone look like who is bored, angry, sad etc. how does their mouth look, what do their eyes do...

another was play therapy practicing taking it in turns to talk about things, seeing that the person is bored and talking about something else and so on.

In the short term I would pick one thing to work on and talk to him about it, concentrate on that one thing until you are seeing improvements, reward for that and add a second thing as well. Write lists for him for what he has to do each morning, after school, before bed so that he has a check list to refer to. Only give him one job at a time, anymore than that can be overwhelming and they will just shut down and forget the lot.

GOOD LUCK

:iagree: with the aspergers. my 16 year old sdd is the same. we tell her so many times how to do something and she often walks around in a complete daze. she also hates changes - so we try to give her plenty of notice and repeat ourselves often.

the checklists are also a good idea. you can do them as a reward type chart too. might help to motivate him.

[jag5000]

my 10 yr old DD is like this.. and she's perfectly normal. I think it's just a 9 - 13 yr old thing. but who knows? I'd put my money on it being normal tho' (not that that makes it less frustrating!)