Mum of autistic teen marks end of high school in surprising way

My son Giovanni and I have just experienced one of our most difficult years together. This year we completed a full year of home schooling. It was horrible.

Giovanni, 16, has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), a difficult combination that means standard strategies used for autistic kids don't work at all.

It wasn't an easy decision to pull Giovanni out of his fifth school but enough was enough. It was time to take matters into our own hands.

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I enrolled Giovanni into distance education which is online school, and off we went.

We started towards the end of 2023 and while Giovanni's mental health immediately improved now that he wasn't being subjected to inconsistent teaching methods in his support unit at his latest school, we had simply replaced one 'hard' with another.

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I remember sitting down with Giovanni's therapist at the start of the year confessing I didn't think we'd make it through. His therapist suggested a countdown. It was genius.

Each time we met with him for a session we were closer to the end of the school year. Also Giovanni was in Year 10 so once this year was done, he could leave school and we could think, and heal, and plan.

Homeschooling Giovanni almost destroyed my relationship with him. He went from being happy I was home to dreading it because I'd have to check on his school work and get him to do more.

Humour was an important strategy for us and Giovanni and I have very dark, sick senses of humour. The main shows we watch together are South Park and Black Mirror.

It was in around September that I came up with the idea that once school was finished we'd go to a rage room. I'd heard of both escape rooms and rage rooms.

I found a place called Smash Room City in Homebush in Sydney and booked us in. When I told Giovanni and showed him a photo of people dressed in protective gear and holding bats, ready to smash a room up, he thought it was hilarious.

It isn't easy to get Giovanni to do new things but watching him get dressed in stinky and uncomfortable gear ready to smash the room up was so exciting.

We each had on boots, overalls and face masks. Next we chose between a sledge hammer, a bat or a crow bar. Giovanni chose the sledge hammer and I chose the bat, later adding in a crow bar when I needed something smaller to get to a couple of glasses that proved difficult to crack with a bat.

The problem was, by the time we got in there I wasn't angry anymore. In fact, I felt peaceful. We'd done it. It had been so hard. But we successfully completed Year 10, he could legally leave school and we could celebrate.

I had no rage left for the smash room, but we still managed to get through a crate each of glasses and cups and plates.

We spent most of the time perfecting me throwing an item into the air and Giovanni trying to hit it with a sledge hammer and then with a bat. We ended up playing an elaborate version of baseball or cricket.

Which is what I think we'll do next, a series of adventures so he can experience life outside of the classroom.

In place of school work, I am planning out some fun experiences for him, each of which will come with a unique set of challenges.

We've tried travelling, to Bali, and it was difficult but fun. We also went to a wrestling event courtesy of my wresting-mad partner Shamus and are going again in February.

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I took Giovanni to see his first musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, and he manage to sit still and watch Jesus and Mary and all the disciples sing their way all the way to the crucifixion.

We have tickets to Book of Mormon for next year, and I've almost convinced him to fly with me to Melbourne so we can experience Lygon Street where restaurant hosts yell out to entice you to eat at their restaurants.

The loudest one will get our business.

To all the special needs parents and mums and dads struggling through the school year with their kids for any reason, I want to send you love and light and hope. It can be really, really, really hard. But you and your kids are made of tougher stuff.

It would be great if the education system better catered to kids like ours, and some schools try, but they aren't quite where they need to be yet. Hopefully they are one day.

Until then we have countdowns and Smash Rooms and inappropriate TV shows and musicals and each other.

Thank you to all the special needs parents who have read my ranting social media posts and offered their support. Right back at you.

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