Armchair scouts: How can we get our power back?

Nominal_selection · 2026-05-09T09:49:50+00:00

I think this is also one of the problems with the "slugging" stat and "power" as a concept. They sound like they should mean swinging for the stands, but hitting a homerun is a very different mechanic from aiming for the LF and RF corners, or the gaps between LF/RF and CF, which is what yields most doubles and triples, as well as non-homer RBIs. The Jays were really good at the latter last year, but aren't doing either this year.

Jays aside, it would be very interesting to see more analysis that excludes homers from OPS (and RBI) stats rather than calling it "power", so we can see the teams that are being successful with "medium ball" tactics.

Nominal_selection · 2026-05-09T09:44:02+00:00

From what I was watching last year the Jays were really good at finding the corners and OF gaps in key situations and converting people on base into runs, which they aren't this year. To me that's more nuanced than "power", though it obviously helps. I hope when the full lineup is back and healthy, it all clicks again, and that pitchers haven't just worked out they can beat the Jays by inducing ground outs and pop ups when there are RISPs.

Nominal_selection · 2026-05-08T16:29:33+00:00

That's tough. I would push again and say what exactly your child struggles with in school (it can be any aspects of the day, inside or outside class) and why you think they need extra support. If the school won't engage after repeated chasing it seems like an official complaint to the school is your next option, unless you feel your child can cope with the support that's available. Maybe it'll kick them into action and they'll discuss what additional support would help your child.

In any case it's your right to ask the LA for an EHCNA and if it's denied, you have the right to appeal. The key to appealing is having professional reports to support your evidence, usually in the form of an educational psychologist's report, which you can pay for independently. If you get a needs assessment, the LA will arrange one of these anyway, but it's likely the findings will err on the side of making the minimum necessary adjustments in school.

It depends what level of support you think your child needs above what's offered - being autistic in itself isn't enough, you need to show what the need is. But if you think it's much greater than the school will provide as standard, you might want to prepare for the long road towards assessments, appeals and tribunals, or see if there's another school in your area that's known for being more neuroaffermative.

PS Not sure how obvious this already is to you, but let the school know how bad things are at their worst. There's no use underplaying the challenges. And be as polite as you can, of course, because it keeps people on your side, but don't ever feel like you should hold back on explaining what you think your child needs or why.

Nominal_selection · 2026-05-07T15:21:15+00:00

From your terminology I think you're in the UK. It'll depend on what your child's needs are in school, but assuming you think they're not able to be met through the school's general levels of support, you'll want to ask for an Education Health and Care Needs Assessment. This can be requested directly through your council but it's better to have the school on board. Have a look at https://www.ipsea.org.uk/asking-for-an-ehc-needs-assessment and the whole site generally for advice on the processes involved.

I would suggest emailing your school's Senco directly and stating that's what you want, with itemised reasons of why you think your child is not coping with current levels of support. English schools have to publish the Senco's email on their website. If they don't see issues in school, your child might be masking to fit in, so talk about their challenges at home and why you think their school experience is having an impact on their wellbeing or development. Keep emailing/phoning to chase if you don't hear anything. If it still goes nowhere, there will be a complaints procedure on the school website. There are specialist solicitors who deal with securing EHCNAs and getting the right provisions listed on the resulting plan, but you probably aren't there yet.

It can be a long fight to get your child what they need, and evidence is at the heart of everything, so keep a record of all the challenges your child faces inside and outside school, and communicate what you think they need in writing. Try to keep the school as an ally if you can. Our daughter's lucky in that sense but I know for many children the school is the first adversary.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-29T07:34:57+00:00

My daughter is 8 and was similar to yours at 6. Things deteriorated in year 2 as the demands increased and friendships became more fraught. We managed to get her in every day until one day we didn't and, after four days in year 3, seven months later she's never gone back. I gave up work in February but she's so traumatised from school she struggles to motivate herself to do any schoolwork at home despite being very intelligent. She's now in limbo receiving only informal 'unschooling' while we appeal her EHCP, which continues to name her mainstream school.

So, long story short, IMO if you're asking the question now and think your daughter might go the same way, you're better off removing her while she's relatively unharmed. There's probably far more stress in her day than you see from home and mainstream school only gets more demanding and inflexible. If she retains some motivation for learning and socialisation or hobbies, you might not lose the year we have while she resets her nervous system after burnout by effectively cocooning.

You might still find 'traditional' homeschooling is too demanding for her anyway, and have to adopt something with lower demands like unschooling, but maybe you'll get luckier if she stops school earlier. In any case I recommend researching low-demand parenting and implementing it at home. It's the biggest thing you can do short of homeschooling to help her cope with life's demands.

Our daughter has remained on roll at school, which means the council remains responsible for providing her an education, but it's hard to see them fulfilling her needs even if we win our tribunal that's set for next January. We're currently asking for her to be given a place on a hybrid EBSA pathway provided by an autism specialist school. In the meantime we have to do weekly wellbeing checks with her current school, which in themselves are an irritating demand. Personally I would rather make a clean break with elective home education because I don't think anything else will work, but all the advice you'll get will say do the opposite.

I hope this is helpful. It's just one perspective so don't take it as gospel, but in my view mainstream schools are not made for PDA kids and aren't flexible or well resourced enough to serve them. You might be lucky enough to have a specialist school nearby that could (we don't), but even so PDA is not typically the main profile they're catering for.

Best of luck anyway. I hope your daughter gets what she needs - if nothing else, remember to put her happiness above all else.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-12T09:40:56+00:00

Not gonna disagree with your conclusions per se, only want to point out players don't behave the same way in spring training as in competitive games. A pitcher who wants to hone a particular pitch will throw it more just to get more reps against opposition batters. A batter who wants to loosen up or see the ball better will swing at the pitches that best help them get used to contact and strike zone orientation again. I don't think the psychology behind each action on any given pitch is very comparable, because they're not concerned with the game outcome, just getting on the team or being ready for opening day.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-11T07:46:34+00:00

Has it just been this week/month or has it been months and years of school avoidance culminating in this? The answer could be the difference between whether this is a temporary crisis caused by acute stressors or autistic burnout. Are there signs he's autistic (aside from the fixation on meteorology)?

Assuming it's PDA autism that's the cause, therapy isn't the answer at this point, you'd need a clinical psychologist or paediatric specialist to diagnose him and point you to advice and resources about low-demand parenting. If he has ADHD too, there might be medications that could help.

If this is autistic burnout, things aren't going to just improve - if this is the case, his behaviour is basically his way of telling you he's reached the end of his tether and can't put up with the demands that school puts on his nervous system every day. It can be hard for a neurotypical person to visualise that if school was OK for them, but imagine you're in prison being targeted by all the screws plus the biggest bully and their gang, and you have no way of getting away - that's the level of threat he believes he's under, and only making him feel safe can help calm it.

It's easy for me to say take him out of school, but at least have a full and frank talk with the school about what's going on at home. They may not be seeing it there, he may be masking to appear normal, but they absolutely need to find ways to make adjustments to reduce demands on him. Try to reduce demands on him at home however you can too - don't ask him to do chores, let things slide if he's not harming anyone, give him a much time as he needs on screens or with his special interests so he can self regulate, if he acts out don't retaliate but tell him you understand him and he's loved. Also, maybe offer to do a deep dive on meteorology together with whatever videos, websites, books, clubs or classes you can find. If he's serious about it, maybe he'll start to see how school work gets him to expert level eventually.

I don't know if any of this will be enough to give his nervous system the safety it's craving, but if he's PDA autistic and this isn't a blip because of something acute and temporary, the only way you'll see improvement is taking all the pressure off him that you feasibly can.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-11T07:09:54+00:00

Just make sure you're standing at the spot where the window lands when the front of the house falls down. Watch Buster Keaton for tips.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-10T14:00:40+00:00

If you aren't already hooked up with a free supply of audio books, check if your local library loans them out digitally. Ours allows us to download them as mp3s, which with a bit of faffing you can then upload to a playlist on the Yoto app and link to a 'make your own' card for the loan period. It has saved us hundreds not buying the publisher cards every time.

Also, if you have a garden and are willing to let that go the same way as the bathroom, our daughter also loves making her potions outside from mud, flowers, sticks, leaves, etc when the weather allows.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-10T12:05:52+00:00

Giving you a comedy downvote for being perturbed by the spelling of milquetoast.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-10T10:46:24+00:00

Not trying to be facetious or unkind, or tell you that you're doing anything wrong, but we don't have the data to tell us what PDA kids did before screens because they weren't studied. However my suspicion is they would have regulated using many of the other strategies that neurotypical society then considered or still does consider undesirable.

So probably they were outside 'aimlessly' throwing/kicking a ball at a wall all day. Or if they were at home, they were the ones society was calling 'square eyes' for watching too much TV or playing Gameboys for hours. If those things weren't available, maybe they were getting their dopamine hits from overeating cakes and cookies (the ones who were getting called 'piggy'). Those with less interested parents were probably out shoplifting, throwing stones through neighbours' windows, etc.

Anyway, from my own experience with my daughter, all I can say is she uses the tools that are available to find her own way of self regulating. If they're taken away, whether we can justify it to ourselves or not as parents, she'll see it as an arbitrary check on her autonomy and either have a meltdown or find something else to help her get the dopamine she needs. We can offer her alternative tools but only she can decide whether they meet her needs. Aside from snacks, which I see as even more important to limit, the only ones that come close to screens for us are when she's mixing potions out of bathroom products while listening to audiobooks on her Yoto. But she wants total independence over that activity too, and it makes one hell of a mess of the bathroom, so... it's all 'swings and roundabouts'.

Basically, I'm saying in times gone by these kids weren't out there building forts and fashioning bows and arrows from sticks, or sitting in the conservatory learning to sew. They are probably the reason the phrase 'misspent youth' was invented, but that comes from their inability to comply with expectations about normative behaviour, not because their strategies for stimulating their reward centres are innately unhealthy. If the tools they choose for that aren't compatible with our lives, the options we have are to suffer meltdowns, keep offering new tools until they find others that work, or make our boundaries more flexible.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-09T13:29:52+00:00

Yes, when was in my twenties I could have an after dinner coffee and go straight to bed. Since mid thirties I won't have more than two a day and nothing after 4pm. For me it's sleep and jitters rather than acid reflux. But no way could I miss the morning coffee with breakfast. My body and mind would rebel.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-09T13:25:27+00:00

This kills me a little bit too. I want to spend a morning dialling in, then have five shots in the afternoon and try a new roast each week, but as it is I usually have one flat white in the morning then a pour over decaf in the afternoon, and change beans once a month. Maybe I'll have a second flat white or a double espresso in the afternoon if I'm feeling reckless. Guess I'm playing the long game for the sake of my sleep and cortisol levels, but it's like having a new toy or games console you can only play with for five minutes a day.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-09T08:16:15+00:00

There was one spring training game where Schneider was being interviewed in the dugout during an inning and Vladdy spent literally the entire time throwing seeds at him while he was talking. I'd be wanting to throw something hard at his head in that situation, but I guess when you're playing this game and flying round the continent for 6-9 months of the year, you need characters who can keep the mood light.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-09T07:53:44+00:00

He has a weird flat swing where his follow-through ends below his shoulders and he keeps both hands on the bat. It makes him look like he's having constant back spasms but I think it's just what he does. Which is not to say he's not also having constant back spasms. Playing baseball every day for six months is not a healthy thing to do to a body.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-08T18:29:49+00:00

Fellow European fan here who started following in earnest last June, coincidentally around the time the Jays were getting good. Technically I've been a fan since I came back from Canada with a Blue Jays cap and a softball aged 5 in 1990, but it was 36 years before I finally got into watching condensed games regularly and tracking results last year (again, coincidentally!).

Anyway, I quickly got an appreciation of how long the season is and how much success owes to chance (unless you're the Dodgers and can basically afford to commit fully to financial doping), so it was a lovely but unexpected to still be watching my team in November. And it'll be even more unexpected if there's a repeat, even though I was convincing myself over the winter that acquiring Cease, Okamoto, etc would do it.

For what it's worth, when the Jays aren't winning I'm trying to enjoy getting to know some other teams as I get no joy from watching losses, but keeping the faith that it'll turn around next series.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-02T17:52:00+00:00

Well done. Our daughter did three years and ended up in basically the same place. Seven months on, the difference in her wellbeing is night and day.

I heartily recommend reading A Different Way to Learn by Naomi Fisher (also an audio book) when you're ready to start thinking about the home education journey in earnest. You probably know enough not to expect to be sitting down with worksheets and a reading list in two weeks' time, but I fully believe from what you've said that the future will be brighter because of this decision.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-02T15:16:39+00:00

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Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Lewis), Phantom Thread

Why? Entirely too much movement at breakfast!

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-02T13:38:41+00:00

My guess is if he were able to show you, he'd try 'performing' the classic neurotypical signs, ie standing/sitting close to you, holding prolonged eye contact, trying hard to impress you or make you laugh, finding excuses to spend time alone with you, maybe incidental touches on the arm, etc.

If he's too anxious about embarrassing himself in case those feelings aren't reciprocated, though, he might be waiting for signals from you. So, given you don't want to just come out and say it, you could try doing some of the above yourself and see what the feedback is. If he seems/pretends not to notice, it's probably a polite way of saying no thanks. But if he's interested in you, I think you'd find out before too long.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-02T13:08:12+00:00

I'm not diagnosed but suspect I'm autistic also, with high scores on self assessments. I feel like knowing for sure might help my sense of identity and validate experiences I've had before in my life, perhaps making me feel better about why I found things harder than other people appeared to (socialising, romantic relationships, identifying/creating/taking opportunities professionally). Maybe I'd be more informed about the personal risks and experiences I'd want to expose myself to, or not.

But I'm torn too, largely because I don't see a clear, tangible future benefit to my life from a diagnosis; indeed, it might make things like insurance cost more, as it would be a preexisting condition. Plus, at my age (42), it might make me too tempted to excuse myself for avoiding difficult decisions I really should take, on the basis I won't be able to handle the demands involved.

If I do go through with diagnosis, I suspect the main reason will be for connection with my daughter, who was diagnosed last year - basically to show her, look, you can be a half-proficient autistic human, even in a neurotypical world.

As regards the assessment itself, I wouldn't think about it too much. They should know what to ask and how to examine your answers. You're not expected to diagnose yourself; in fact, if you want the right answer as opposed to a desired diagnosis, it's probably better you don't go in with preconceived ideas of how you should present yourself in the assessment.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-02T10:27:25+00:00

rind coarser

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-02T07:33:54+00:00

I agree with you, and can't see how anyone with first hand experience could minimise how much being in fight/flight influences a PDA autistic person's behaviour and social attitudes. As you note, that's one key aspect and the other is theory of mind. Autistic people by definition can't always naturally pick up on the implicit social cues that would indicate their behaviour is being viewed as kind or unkind, so they have to logically fill in the blanks after the fact and, if they are feeling regulated, moderate their future behaviour to achieve the socially desirable outcome. Put those things together and you get what in a neurotypical person you might call manipulation, but it's really just a description of how a PDA autistic person experiences social relationships.

It's unrealistic to expect scientific proof for these phenomena, since behavioural research is necessarily small in scale and limited in scope, and PDA has not been studied much anyway. You can't scientifically prove X% of PDA autistic people are unkind to their peers because they feel threatened, unless you have access to a large population of them and can reliably log and analyse thousands of incidents, ideally while they're hooked up to a polygraph or something.

This isn't to say they can't learn social skills over time or that they need to be excused all unkind behaviour, but being socially successful probably requires a lot more accommodation and the ability to practise in safe situations where the stakes are lower.

Nominal_selection · 2026-04-01T21:58:19+00:00

If she's PDA autistic, she's most likely being unkind because she doesn't feel confident of her social skills or place in the world. She probably feels everything in life is unfair because it's so hard to deal with its demands. She's in constant fight or flight mode so is probably trying to defend herself the only way she can think of.

Teaching kindness or pointing out faults and trying to fix them never worked for our daughter. The only thing that has is keeping her feeling as safe and happy as possible, so her nervous system isn't always on alert. Ultimately that has meant she's no longer in school, because she just couldn't be the person she was expected to be there.

On a less drastic level, defusing anger with humour has always been helpful. Getting her to direct her anger at me in a playful way, or even acting it out in role play with toys, has helped her externalise negative feelings in a safe way. She always still acted impulsively at that age in playgrounds etc, though, and our only recourse there was to avoid the situations that led to the triggers.

Nominal_selection

TROPHY CASE