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.

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.  ☺