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Any ideas on how to stop the pacing?My son is 15 and has never been a pacer until this summer. Some days that is all he seems to want to do at school. The teacher is looking to me for answers and unfortunately I don't know what to tell her. We have a conference tomorrow with her, and I know it's not going to be a pleasant one due to all his puberty issues! Any ideas for me on how to lessen the pacing? Does he have lots of energy that he feels the need to burn off by pacing, or is he using it as a coping mechanism? I would think the reason for his pacing needs to be identified before you can come up with an approach for it. If it is an energy/restless reason, could he start running, lift weights, or participate in some other type of physical activity before school to release some of his energy? If he is pacing as a coping mechanism, you and the teacher may have to try to identify the cause before you can come up with an answer. Taylor and Colin both pace--and Colin will sometimes need to run up and down the hallway, having me stop him to sit. Sometimes it is a stim. Other times, it is overwhelming (mostly with Taylor), and other times, it is on a day where, we havent done much and they have lots of energy built up. It has lessened a bit because it is still warm and they can go out--and Taylor now has respite that keeps her moving but still occurs. I usually bring their attention to it and have them sit down on the couch, if it seems to be a stim/overwhelmed reaction. I give Taylor her stim toy and Colin usually just wants me to sit near him. When it is energy, I try to take them out to the store or even for a ride. It seems to fill the need to move around and see something different. I think because our school is so active, they don't show it as much there. Here, we tend to stay routined or, now with me working weekends, they don't get out as much. Taylor is worse when her routine is broken here and her respite cancels out. My son is and always was a big pacer. That was a big problem at his old school too. We had to fight pulling and tugging him to come inside the building then once in all he wanted to do was walk the halls back and forth. If we even tried to get him to sit in the classroom he became so aggressive they would just make me take him back home.Happy to say at his current school he now remains in his classroom all day. In fact he has a comfort zone there and even though they try they are unsuccessful in getting him to go into the music, or creative arts rooms. When in his classroom he even stays seated and pulls his little desk table right up too him as if to stay no body can come into my space. Again it is his comfort zone. He does however make up for the lack of pacing all day as soon as 3:00 rolls around and he gets outside he just goes!! I pace, I do it as an adult too this day. I do it when I have something I need to focus on in my head, thinking, planning. I also do it MUCH MUCH more when I have ppl over at my house, and dont realize I am doing it till someone tells me to sit the hell down. Thats me anyways... im a pacer and always will be!My child is definitely a pacer, has been since he could crawl. I never thought anything of it since he comes from a long line of them! Harriet i use to pace alot but im on meds so it helps My 12 yr old is a HUGE pacer....anti-anxiety meds help alot...Since he just started the pacing, is there something new or different in his life??? My older brother who was recently diagnosed w/Asperger's (at 37!) has always been a pacer. The only thing that seemed to slow it down was getting involved in martial arts. Because of some medical problems, he can't do the martial arts anymore, so it's back to pacing. He says he just has trouble sitting still, that he has too much energy. I think it's a sensory thing too, though, because when he does sit still, he has a tendency to rock. A lot of physical activity always has helped him, though. That is so interesting to read ... my oldest son is also a pacer and I pinpointed his increase in pacing to "over-stimulating" days. We lead a fairly routine life here: we live on a farm, in the middle of nowhere, so fairly quiet most days. We homeschool too, so our days are structured around teaching and learning (+ daily farm chores) and we receive no in-home help at all, so most days it is just our little family, doing basic stuff. I noticed an increase in his pacing on days where I take him out to various things (he is involved in the Special Olympics bowling league, also attends a weekly music class for adults with special needs). Those evenings, he paces non-stop even though he is more tired than his usual as he has spent the afternoon dealing with others on a social level ... everyone else who has posted here seems to have the opposite reasoning (needing extra exercise to relieve the energy ... mine is at the other end ... interesting how they can all have the same diagnosis yet be so different!) To try to alleviate some of the pacing (can't take it away completely as hubby here is also a pacer and he can not speak on the phone without pacing everywhere!!), I try to take him outside for some fresh air right after an acitivity (we try to walk on the boardwalk on the beach near our place for about 30 minutes, just the 2 of us, without speaking, just to relax a bit) This seems to help bring him back to his "normal" level and he paces less on those evenings ... but he still does a bit. Claire |
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