• Replies 2 replies
  • Subscribers 69 subscribers
  • Views 1048 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Autistic child’s favourite toy was taken away at nursery

NAS86437

Hi there,

I was wondering if I could get your thoughts.

My 3 year old who is currently being diagnosed for autism had a soft toy that he takes everywhere. I’m sure it’s a form of security for him. He doesn’t even get in the bath without having him in clear view.

My little one is currently becoming very frustrated and the way he’s dealing with it is pure lashing out - screaming, pushing, pulling hair. At home we try and deal with this in a very calm loving manner with positive reinforcements, sticker charts and putting him in a quiet place with a distraction to calm down and explaining the right course of action rather than telling him off. 

At nursery yesterday it obviously became too much for him and he started lashing out at other children (absolutely not acceptable but it’s how he’s currently reacting when he’s frustrated or overwhelmed). The teacher pulled me over at the end of the day and said the way she was sanctioning his behaviour was taking away his favourite soft toy, causing a complete melt down but she had to show the other children that there are sanctions in place.

Now that sent all sorts of red flags to me and made me feel that there is a lack of understanding there. I don’t think this was the right way to go about it.

what are your thoughts? Sorry for the waffling.

  • That's would be pulling a safety net out from under someone who already feels incredibly unsafe and extremely vulnerable. Can you pull him out of the nursery until he's assessed? 

    At this age they cannot communicate the physics of a problem creating stress. They don't know how to explain the psychology when feeling a sense of injustice or know how to reason through a problem to find the root cause (like an LED flickering at a rate we can see, a volatile organic compound they can sense in their gut (certain artificial scents give me indigestion), an overwhelm of sound reflections from an untreated room and so on. Children respond as best they can to communicate sensory assault or internal frustration from perceiving something beyond their years without the education and internal vocabulary to take command of their space. This is always "responsive". It might be he's an introvert and a space to himself IS the distraction/breathing room needed.

    A toy then becomes a locked grounding mechanism to serve as something stable in an unstable environment. The world is a bit of chaos and the nature of autistic traits desire environmental order, which serve to help us become Ontologists, Librarians, Engineers and other roles society would be lost without. We can help advance technology and education and run well-indexed museums and so forth. When young, obviously, we will find the world overwhelming and social systems deeply confusing if not disturbing. 

    Sorry if I'm a bit of an encylcopeadia. The nature of NT connexion is based on social systems, involving a flexibility with nuances and language for the sake of togetherness. So when something valuable is removed, a child learned to cooperate. Autistic instinct doesn't work this same way, as we're more 'wired' toward the laws of nature. If you take a thing of value away we learn you are not to be trusted. Cause and effect. If you take something you are immediately deemed a thief and if it's someone in Authority the world quickly becomes a system of deep injustice. 

    We are wired to use our brains to think, experience and understand different. We'll put more effort into social graces while our NT peers may have to put more effort in to learning a skill. 

  • Yes, total lack of understanding there. They obviously want to help children regulate emotion, but depriving them of their primary prop to do that isn't the way to go about it. They are only going to make matters worse.

    I hope you manage to re-education them and agree a more sensible approach.