I chose chess in particular because there is believed to be a causal link between the ability to play chess well and being on the autistic spectrum, especially Asperger’s. It is a cerebral activity that many autistic people enjoy. Chess also encourages socialization.
What playing chess doesn’t do is provide physical exercise and exercise is also important for your overall well-being. Associating something you love (i.e. chess) with some form of physical activity at an early age (e.g. warming up with calisthenics, or something similar) can result in a win-win situation: a cerebral activity you enjoy/socialization/physical activity.
That’s identical to my nearly 8-yr old granddaughter. I’ve been to her soccer and hoops games, and she really is pretty bad at both. But each season she wants to do another park district program. I think next time around it is gymnastics again. On both soccer and hoops teams, it only seems like a couple of kids really have any idea of what they are supposed to do, and the ability to do it. Consider the possibility that your kid might look worse to you than he really is, because you are focussing on him so much more. I mean, he might very well be the worst - someone has to be. But I bet there are some other kids who are nearly as bad - and are disinterested as well.
My sister and I are biking fiends, and one path runs right near their house. Last summer we started taking the kid along with us, and she can really bike amazingly far and fast for a little kid. And when my other daughter is in town from Denver, she takes the kid rock climbing, which she is quite good at.
In a couple of years, I suspect the teams will start getting more competitive (which I think is unfortunate.) At that point, it might be more socially awkward for a kid to be clearly the worst at a team event. But you’ve got a couple of years before you need to worry about that.
But it DOES seem that your wife and you could Duse a discussion of what you are going to do it it turns out team sports aren’t the thing for your kid. What are her reasons for pushing sports? Does she see your kid as excelling at them? Does she not see other activities as good options?
Ah. That makes sense; and may well work for some people.
I’m just saying – use caution, and watch to be sure that associating calisthenics with chess is resulting in liking calisthenics, rather than in hating chess.
As the father of an autistic child, I completely get where he’s coming from. Recognizing that my kid’s coordination and athletic abilities are well below the average doesn’t mean I’m “embarrassed” by him but it does no one favors to deny that he’s just bad at some things. Fortunately he hasn’t shown any real interest in team sports since, in my experience and observation, being the kid who regularly costs your team points isn’t a way to make lasting friends.
We were having decent luck with swimming up until Covid hit and the pools shut down and I think his exceptional instructor moved on during that period. He wasn’t swimming competitively or anything but he got into the water once a week and got some exercise and a valuable skill (as “not drowning” is pretty valuable). Lately he’s been showing interest in the kids in the karate studio next door to his therapist’s office and watching them through the window as we walk by. So I’m trying to find a place that has some experience in teaching ASD kids and recognizes his basic lack of coordination and muscle. I’d lay money on him never wanting to practice at home, etc but it’s an investment I’m willing to risk to find something that sticks. Anyway, I feel ya (ask us about the piano lessons he wanted!)
Some five or six years back, I read a great book by political journalist Ron Fournier called Love That Boy about his own son being diagnosed with ASD at age 12 and, more broadly, needing to accept that the dreams and expectations you have for your children aren’t going to work out that way but they don’t need to. I’m not really doing it justice but I highly recommend it and got a lot out of it.
Can I just point out how bonkers it is that we actually have to think about games being serious for kids under 10 years old.
I can commiserate with you, though. My son (age 14) was not good at sports, my wife wanted to push lacrosse, and all I thought about was my own HS experience where the LAX guys were really serious, competitive and physical, where my boy is definitely not. As a teen, he’s improving with things like frisbee and basketball, and is an accomplished wood splitter, something he would spend hours doing if I had enough firewood.
And that’s not good either. My sister was mad at me for a long time because of a conversation I had with her son. He was in ninth grade and told me he was going out that night to buy a baseball glove because he was trying out for the high school baseball team the next day. I kept my composure and just said I didn’t know he had continued to play baseball after third grade. He said he hadn’t and asked if he would embarrass himself by trying out and I just told him that most of the others trying out never stopped playing and most of them had played on all-star teams or at least something other than “everybody plays” leagues (which was true). My sister was mad at me for discouraging him - but he was happy I gave him the information his mother didn’t.
My son and I are both level 1 Autistic. I love sports (but suck at them), my son at about the age of 11 realized (or first articulated) that hates organized team sports and goes out of his way now to tell me any chance he gets ( ). At four we signed him up for baseball. He hated it. At seven, we signed him up for a basketball camp. He hated it.
The two things he did love: gymnastics and Tae Kwon Do. He kinda grew out of gymnastics (he liked the little kid tumbling stuff, had no interest in the competitive stuff). When Covid hit, that ended his Tae Kwon Do. He talks about sort of wanting to go back-- he made it up to Blue Belt-- but hasn’t yet.
When it comes to things like shooting hoops, throwing a ball, playing soccer, he just can’t make it happen. In sports where things happen in an instant, his brain can’t process fast enough what’s happening and what he needs to do next. Mine never could either, which is why I sucked at the sports I loved watching. But for things like tumbling and Taw Kwon Do, it’s all about memorizing forms and a routine. He was stellar at those things.
And regarding the OP’s use of “embarrassingly bad,” I see nothing wrong with that description. You can feel embarrassed of things your kids do and still be proud of them. Watching my son at that basketball camp looking like a fish out of water around those other boys looking like mini-Lebrons was a little embarrassing-- cringey, maybe is the better word-- but I was still proud as fuck of him for going out there and making it through an entire session. Having kids means you learn how to cringe and be proud all at the same time. It’s a very strange feeling that’s hard to describe. It often involves a bit lip, hot cheeks, watery eyes and a bursting heart.
A great point! Parents do tend to focus on their own. I think it’s important to recognize that you may feel your kid is embarrassingly bad, but if they are enjoying it and want to go back, you should let them. Likewise, if at some point they have had enough, you need to respect that, too.
As a parent of (at one time) two kids on competitive teams, I endorse this statement. Sometimes it was me that felt embarrassed that I was not as into the kids’ sport as some of the other parents. Sheesh!
He doesn’t like the part where his parents make him practice.
Why not keep at #1 and drop #2? So he “looks ridiculous” and makes you think “what the fuck is wrong with this kid”–who cares?
You know “what the fuck is wrong with this kid”: he’s autistic and not especially coordinated. That doesn’t matter in this decision. If he’s still getting something out of the experience of playing with his peers, and not getting something out of doing reps with his parents, let him keep doing the first and stop doing the second.
Yes, he’ll keep looking ridiculous. That doesn’t matter.
Edit: the other thing is, when you take the time to practice with him, what if instead you took the time just to play with him? Instead of focusing on improving his skills, focus like a laser on making it an enjoyable, pleasurable time for him. If he looks like Mr. Bean while he plays, but he’s laughing, that’s golden.
Anecdote/datum: Can you have your son’s vision checked for his eyes pointing the same way? I’ve worn glasses since I was eight. In my fifties, I had a bout of double vision while driving in heavy traffic after a long day. The panic was not fun! My regular eye doctor found nothing, so I went to another. He diagnosed me as needing prism correction - my eyes naturally pointed in different directions, messing up my depth perception. “Normally this is detected during childhood. Did you have trouble playing sports?” Um, HELLS YEAH! You just explained my childhood in one sentence.
I’m really thinking ahead. As I said, the teams are pretty mixed in terms of ability right now. But I can already identify which kids are the ones who probably have been playing since birth and will probably be big stars in a few years.
I’m kind of sensitive to pushing my kids into sports they don’t want to do. My dad was a multi-sport Division I athlete in college. Sports are really the only recreational activity he is in to see he sometimes has a bit of trouble conceiving of a social life that doesn’t revolve around sports. I wasn’t so much “pushed” into sports as a kid, but it was always just sort of there. I tried baseball, basketball, soccer, and tennis at various times, but I never really had his passion or ability so I just sort of stopped as I got older. It always felt sort of awkward and boring to me. And I always felt like my dad was frustrated that I didn’t take to it as much.
Although later in high school I got into ice hockey and track (middle distance running mostly). That was something I developed a passion for on my own where I was willing to go to hockey clinics several times a week or go to the rink on Friday nights or play pond hockey with my friends. I wasn’t awesome, but I was good enough to be able to go out and enjoy myself and make some friends and whatnot.
The point being, I want to find the right mix of exposing him to different things to see what he likes without trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.
Some things he will need to do regardless, like swim lessons. We have a swimming pool so that’s just a safety issue. Plus everyone should at least know how to swim IMHO.
I’m not sure I agree that him looking ridiculous doesn’t matter at all. It depends on what other kids are like in his peer group - are they the type where they don’t care if one player is significantly worse than the others? In that case, it shouldn’t be a problem. However, having one player who is significantly worse than everyone else could breed resentment among their teammates, or could make him a bigger target for teasing or bullying. It’s not a given that the enjoyment that he gets out of playing a team sport is a net benefit if it makes him less liked by his peers overall.
I second the suggestion from other posters to explore a few more activities that might allow your kid to get both physical exercise and social interaction without necessarily needing it to be a team sport. Martial arts and gymnastics were good suggestions, but if I could suggest one more to try would be climbing - there’s a big problem-solving aspect to the sport and some people on the autistic spectrum seem to really be drawn to it. I’ve also found that the climbing community (at least where I live) is very supporting and cheers people on to succeed on their climbs no matter their skill level, so even though it is largely an individual sport there is a decent amount of positive social interaction.
Yeah, my older son(11) is very high functioning and is like @msmith537 says, uncoordinated, gawky, uncontrolled, and just peculiar to watch do athletic stuff. The main difference is that my son loved basketball even though he was atrocious at it. Never wanted to play baseball or soccer.
We’ve had him in private OT and PT for years and he’s finally not looking quite so strange when he runs and jumps.
One thing you might try if you’re intent on having him do sports is to find one that plays to his strengths. Our boys do Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is a sort of martial art that is common in the MMA world. Both boys enjoy the heck out of it - older kid because he gets some kind of contact-sport style stimulation, and younger kid because unlike his older brother, he’s actually a natural athlete and is good at it. Plus it’s not about speed or coordination in the same ways as other childhood sports.
I also sorta was oriented towards sports. When my kids were young, I still played softball, golfed, and did martial arts. I sorta thought sports would be THE activity to keep my kids busy and out of trouble in HS.
When my eldest was in middle school and in band, her flute lessons were at the local HS. One evening the jazz band was practicing, and in a lightbulb moment, I realized that was every bit of a “TEAM” as any sport.
I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but if this is your oldest, you might be just starting to get to the point where you realize the kid is going to live HIS OWN LIFE, rather than the life you envisioned for him. Whether you thought your kid was going to be football captain/homecoming king, a creative artist, or a tech genius - he has his own say in the matter.
As a parent I found it something I had to adapt to, that I had to be the best parent I could be to THIS kid, rather than figuring out what I needed to do to mold the kid into what I expected.
I agree that it is a shame that too many sports get too competitive at too early an age. Like someone said upthread, you don’t make friends by costing your team points/games. And your kid likely doesn’t want to just sit on the bench. It is good to look into sports where unlimited participants can take part. Like track. You have more runners, just set up another heat.
My granddaughter wants to play tag, or hide and seek, rather than practice any sports. Which is fine - she’s just a kid. But I wonder about these little kids I see out there who seem to be REALLY interested in various sports, with their parents pitching to them, etc. I just never had one of those kids.
Climbing is actually doable. He’s been a few times and his sister (Age 6) LOVES it. And there’s a Gravity Vault a few blocks away. So it’s the sort of thing I can be like “I can’t leave you at home by yourself” sort of thing.
We tried martial arts a few years back, but like everything else, it was “fine”. But I feel like that’s the sort of sport we can send him to whether he likes it or not. Maybe not full contact or anything, but just going through the movements helps build fitness and coordination.
It matters because it can lead to him enjoying the activity less. But nothing @msmith537 wrote suggests that his son enjoys the activity less–only that he’s not competent at it and doesn’t enjoy practicing with his parents.
If resentment from teammates leads to his enjoying the activity less, than by all means let him drop it. But I don’t think that needs to be predicted and proactively avoided. His teammates may be fine with his participation, if they’re not particularly cutthroat about the competition.
My daughter was diagnosed with autism at 5 years old. She is now 8. She is also really bad at sports or anything athletic (though she’s really fast when she wants to be.) When she was diagnosed, they also found that she had profound motor delays. Her badness at sports is related to her gross motor skill delay and she has physical therapy services to help with that. Right now, they are working on ball skills.
I’m sure you’ve probably had your child evaluated but, in case you haven’t, it’s worth looking into. He might be able to get some help for his coordination.
Pretty sure at least some of it is American culture.
It goes along with a fanaticism for “team building” and “group effort” in corporate America.
Unspoken is that being successful in team sports is at least partly about social awareness, networks, and politics - two things I suspect autistic people might struggle with. But that is also why some parents really really really really value team sports for this kids, they see it as being vital to learning the social and political skills to be part of the upper/professional class.
). At four we signed him up for baseball. He hated it. At seven, we signed him up for a basketball camp. He hated it.