As told by G’s coffee-deprived dad.
“We regularly see G held back in many situations”.
Today we went swimming: new teacher + new class = new people and change. Read here big risks to navigate!
Let me explain, G hates using a noodles and floats. He thinks they are for younger children. This simple thing has held him back already because whilst he is a very strong swimmer, indeed he can swim lengths underwater, over water on his back, whatever, and competently, BUT he will not do the compartmental drills. Therefore, he has always been held back from progressing because in order to move up a stage you have to do a whole load of tick box things like pushing a float with your nose. This is familiar to us, and we regularly see G held back in many situations essentially for not showing his working out, take maths, he can’t be awarded a mark unless they know how he got there, and that ain’t happening, so he doesn’t get the mark. As a neurotypical worker-outerer who rarely got any answer right in maths I fully endorse this, however now with a son who can’t not won’t show their working out it seems harsh and unnecessary.
I digress, back to swimming, now we could just leave it there and not take him for the above reason. But it’s something he enjoys, which is down to the adaptive delivery of some relaxed swim teachers.
“Suddenly, I see G standing, dripping wet, in the middle of a café”.
So, new teacher new class. Swimming lessons are run like a tight ship. Leaving little to no wiggle room to communicate with a new teacher. You must be forceful and concise in what you want to say. I take her to one side. She is young, mid-20s, I’m full of hope. I do the usual, take the adult aside so G can’t hear me – I have this down to a covert art form. “Just want a quick word, G is a little autistic”, I correct myself, why did I say that? Idiot. “Sorry he is autistic, just so you know. And he often doesn’t like to use the noodle, so if this does happen, if you can try and work with it, and maybe let him do some different swimming instead this approach seems to work…” she smiled nodded and walked off, I rushed this through and didn’t plan or rehearse it, but she was young and has been born into a world of BLM, pronouns, and general acceptance of the world. This was going to be fine.
I am so confident that I go sit behind glass along with the other parents, normally I’d loiter by the pool feeling and no doubt looking awkward. I get distracted for a moment, by the younger child wanting to change iPad games or something. Suddenly, I see G standing, dripping wet, in the middle of a café, puddle around him, part tears part swimming pool. “She told me to get out!”. Shock and horror as he then had a total meltdown for all to witness. Ritual humiliation, ticked off for the day then. It had been all of ten minutes, my heart sank, how had it got to that point? He was shadowed by a 16-year-old lifeguard who recounts what happened to me. He threw the floats around and was asked to leave the pool. “But I literally just spoke to her about the floats” I declare in exacerbation. Poor kid. Within moments I spoke to the lovely empathetic receptionist, the less-empathetic Duty Manager, both saying this is not protocol and will be looked in to.
“There is also the resistance to anything they don’t see the point of, which isn’t explained well”.
The lesson ends, I approach my liberal open minded inclusive mid twenty-year-old girl. “So, what happened?” I asked in a hopefully way more casual tone as I could muster. “So, I gave him a float, he threw it away. I gave it to him again, he threw it away again and told me to shut up, so I told him to leave the pool”. I replied, “but I told you about his irrational aversion floats, that’s not acceptable, he is an autistic 7-year-old”. She replied, “I’m actually autistic too, and I have ADHD”. Mic-drop moment. I didn’t know how to respond and wandered off. I spoke with my wife after and I suppose our feeling is this: I can swim, but I can’t teach people how to swim and suspect some training here around how to adapt may be helpful.
As ever, there is not just one thing going on here for G:
- Firstly, there is PDA – being anxious about a command in doing something, he is a perfectionist, if he can’t do it right, it’s not at all. There is also the resistance to anything they don’t see the point of – note to self I need to explain why we break down and practice elements of swimming, to improve.
- Secondly, there is his autism, i.e., black, and white thinking. “Floats are for babies”. Now, other swim teachers have not pushed the float thing, they just let him swim. Others have gently coaxed him into it. They work with him.
“When will I learn not to attempt the dream of sitting in the café enjoying a coffee”
Now, the swimming teacher told me she is autistic. Therefore, it is very possible that she too has quite binary thinking. Her thoughts might be, that he must use the float, there may have been no grey areas or reasonable adjustments – ironic I know! As frustrated as I was with the teacher, if she has autism, had her reasonable adjustments been made? A question we subsequently posed.
To be fair, we had winged it ok over the years with swimming and were probably due a reality check. I could and should have been more specific with my rushed 30 second preamble, “if he has a float and reacts like this…”. It’s a lot to explain in the tiny change over window – teaching someone in 30 seconds how to deal with the triggers of an autistic child. Giving someone half an instruction manual for a child isn’t ideal.
My wife recently penned a blog about where and when we find ourselves advocating for G, and here is the classic situation:
- We primarily followed up for G; he has a new lesson and swim teacher, that is known, next week and we sent over the one-sider that school use for him.
- BUT we will be following up with the swim-manager, and continue to follow up with until it happens, because what we really want as an outcome is that more training and sharing of expertise is put in place for the next PDAer that comes along doesn’t have that experience.
Finally, when will I learn not to attempt the temptingly tangible dream of sitting in the café enjoying a coffee watching G swim with other regular folk. But it’s my dream, like in every other situation as a parent of an autistic child, the reality is to smell that coffee and then walk straight past it towards the pool ready to pre-empt and absorb the next drama – to be hypervigilant at all times. I swear they can sense when your guard is down. My guilt is this, if I had been near the pool, I could have stopped him having this negative experience, but I guess my actual final point is – don’t beat yourself up – we go again next week!
