What I’ve learnt about Warhammer from my autistic son.

Have you heard of Warhammer? I tell everyone it’s a bit like Dungeons and Dragons. I noticed several independent schools offer it as a club, normally down in the cellar at break time. These schools tend to be those that take pupils with additional needs and look for ways to provide structure during break times by offering clubs. The children who maybe don’t cope so well in ‘unstructured times’ can go to a club instead. I even found one school where you could collect chickens eggs at break time to avoid coping with unstructured time.

Warhammer is a table top fantasy war game, which is now my eldest son’s new obsession. I had a two hour lecture on the subject whilst hiking through a slot canyon while in Utah this Easter; think of the film ‘127 hours’ and instead of having my arm stuck by a rock I was stuck listening about Warhammer! Harry was introduced to it at his specialist ASD school, although I’m not entirely sure any other pupils attend the club, which means he gets a lot of 1:1 time, which he loves. He takes building the models and battling very seriously. I often get a daily call to tell me how he is progressing with his latest build (this week a tank), or what he needs to buy next (primer paint costing £7.99 apparently).

What I have come to learn about Warhammer, apart from it’s quite expensive, is that there are two games; Age of Sigmar and 40,000. For the uninitiated 40,000 have space marines, robots and tanks, think Star Wars ‘science fiction’, and Age of Sigmar is more mythological creatures, think Lord of the Rings ‘fantasy’. Once you’ve chosen which faction to go with you can get going with a starter pack. You have to build and paint the models. They are very detailed, which I found fun helping my son with. It’s definitely not for young children.

I love nothing more than sitting ‘calmly’ with my boys at the table, all working away with Warhammer. I can’t say there are many things that we do calmly in our family.

My youngest enjoys fishing. Have you ever taken a child with dyspraxia and autism fishing? I have often and believe me I should have the most patient parent prize for the number of times I have untangled his fishing rod (usually within the first 10 minutes). Not only can he not sit still for long, he trips over everything, accidentally stabs you with the hook, but somehow always manages to catch the biggest fish. This boy never ceases to amaze me.

My realisation that Warhammer has many benefits for your ASD child:

- Fine motor skills. My son has dyspraxia, and so he struggles to use his hands for handwriting, tying his shoelaces and opening packets. Warhammer requires fine motor skills. The tiny little pieces need to be glued together to build characters and scenery. What a great way to practice, even if you need help at first.

- Patience, dedication and artistic skill. Like fishing it requires patience. Something many autistic children aren’t good at. Waiting to order food, or waiting for your food to appear in a restaurant springs to mind. The pieces must be painted with a tiny detail brush. Not perfectly, but everything is a process. My son is not so fussed with the painting. It’s all about the battle for him!

- Social skills. You could be at home on your own playing on line games, but there is nothing better than being out the house communicating with other human beings in an analogue world. I went into a Warhammer shop in Utah, USA. It was full of young chaps all beavering away, painting or playing games together. What better way to practice your social skills. They came over, enthusiastically took my boys under their wing and helped them play a game.

- Rules based. There are core rules for moving, shooting, fighting, psychic powers and morale, along with how datasheets work. Autistic children are very rules based and like digesting and memorising all the rules.

- It’s strategic. It's also more complicated than Chess! Players moves are not restricted to defined areas. You can freely manoeuvre your units set distances using a ruler, and shoot and combat by rolling dice. The strategy can appeal to adults as well.

So you can see I’m all for encouraging this new hobby in our house, even if we have to increase the mortgage to accommodate it.

EHCP Schools specialise in helping families navigate special educational needs, including finding suitable schools and assisting with education, health and care plans. We work with pupils who are mainstream cognitively able, whose primary need is ASD, PDA, Aspergers, ADHD, anxiety and depression, Tourette's, Dyslexia, Speech & language, SPD, school refusal and exclusion. Please visit us at: www.ehcpschools.co.uk 

Tamara King is an experienced Educational Consultant for SEN, and an expert by experience as a parent to children who have EHCP's and attended specialist schools. Please contact us at ehcpschools@gmail.com