Special Topic: Should kids with #Autism get homework?

This may be sort of a touchy subject for some but it also something that impacts a great many families, especially during the school year.

Should kids with Autism be given homework?

I have mixed feelings on this myself because I don’t want my kids getting out of things because they have Autism.

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At the same time however,  I also recognize that they have very different limits than their neurotypical peers and those limits are quite often reached during the school day alone.

I can only speak to my personal experience with homework in regards to my own children on the Autism Spectrum because every child is different.

My two kiddos in grade school both have Autism, ADHD and significant anxiety.

They are both at the top of or well past most of the kids in their class and know how to do the work.  They aren’t struggling with their grades by any stretch of the imagination and I realize how lucky I am as a result.

That being said,  it takes every ounce of everything they have, just to make it through the school day.

When they leave the building and get in the car to head home, they almost immediately begin to fall apart.

Meltdowns aren’t uncommon before even arriving home from school.

They are quite literally spent and need the time at home to decompress and sorta rebuild so they can make it through the next school day.

Elliott gets what I would consider a pretty heavy homework load for a special needs classroom.  The jury’s still out about Emmett because he not really had any this week.

Trying to get the boys to do their required 20 minutes of reading per night is hard enough.

Trying to get an overstimulation Elliott to calm down long enough to do the rest of his homework is almost impossible.

He gets his homework on Monday and it’s due on Friday,  so when he is too distressed to get things done a little at a time,  we end up having to due everything on Thursday night.

Let me just say without exaggeration,  that I can think of about a million things that I would rather have to do, then try and sit Elliott down and get everything done at once.

He’s way too overwhelmed and it’s not like we aren’t trying throughout the week.

I feel like intellectually he’s more than capable of doing the work, they both are.  The problem is that emotionally they aren’t.

I need to do something about this but I don’t know what that something is just yet.

Let’s talk about this and share our thoughts,  opinions and experiences in a respectful way please.  ☺

Rob Gorski

Full time, work from home single Dad to my 3 amazing boys. Oh...and creator fo this blog. :-)
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I don’t think this can be answered with a simple yes or no. The first question that came to mind for me is whether or not the boys’ classmates are able to handle the homework. I think that is something which needs to be answered to figure out if this is a special needs issue or a ‘Gorski’ issue. Also, if they are both able to make it through the school day without melting down, that tells me that they have some control over their emotions. Maybe not as much as a neurotypical child, but some control nonetheless. The other thing I noticed in your post was that you say you don’t want your kids to get out of things due to their autism, but you do have a habit of explaining away some of their behaviors and saying that they are because of their special needs. I do realize that a lot of the things they do or don’t do can be tied to their autism or ADHD, but there are also problems which can probably be tied to them being 7 and 9 year old boys.

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I don’t think this can be answered with a simple yes or no. The first question that came to mind for me is whether or not the boys’ classmates are able to handle the homework. I think that is something which needs to be answered to figure out if this is a special needs issue or a ‘Gorski’ issue. Also, if they are both able to make it through the school day without melting down, that tells me that they have some control over their emotions. Maybe not as much as a neurotypical child, but some control nonetheless. The other thing I noticed in your post was that you say you don’t want your kids to get out of things due to their autism, but you do have a habit of explaining away some of their behaviors and saying that they are because of their special needs. I do realize that a lot of the things they do or don’t do can be tied to their autism or ADHD, but there are also problems which can probably be tied to them being 7 and 9 year old boys.