• Replies 3 replies
  • Subscribers 65 subscribers
  • Views 1020 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

Problems at school.

Dipperdoo

Hi guys,

I'm completely new to this (in more ways than one) so excuse me if I ramble!

I am a mum to an amazing six year old boy, who has recently been diagnosed as being on the Autistic Spectrum. He is incredibly clever and is in year 2 of a mainstream school.

There were issues with his behaviour last year (not listening, shouting and running off) This year is proving more problematic. He is becoming much more violent towards his teachers and classmates (hitting, head butting, spitting and kicking).

The school want to help and they involved the help of an Ed Psych and a local special school the specialises is ASC. The two specialists came up with (different) suggestions and school chose strategies that they thought might work. These strategies included loss of privaledges for what we consider 'autistic outbursts' and taking away previously earned golden time. This led to my son becoming even more frustrated in school and his behaviours escalated.

Purely by chance, a different Ed Psych was in school and staff asked for a meeting to discuss my son and his strategies. This EP was disgusted in some of the strategies put in place and gave some AMAZING advice and strategies to reduce his anxieties and outbursts (including ear defenders, twiddlers, positive behaviour rewards,and a safe space to go to when things got too much. This worked AMAZINGLY. There were only one or two outbursts. Last week was a little more rocky, almost like my son was testing the boundaries so there were a few more outbursts.

I am sure the new strategies put in place will work if school just continue to stick to them (we have adopted the same strategies at home and have noticed a marked improvement in his outbursts).

But

School have had some autism training this week and when dropping my son off at school today was told quite sternly "we've had autism training, things with your son are going to be changing. The head will be in touch."

so here's my predicament. I know my son can control his temper and outbursts with consistency and a little empathy. How can we get this from school if they keep changing the goal posts for him every week and never give a strategy long enough to see if it's working?

please help, I feel so frustrated, helpless and let down. What should I do?

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Hi MOASB,

    Perhaps you should not try and take on a battle to fix a school that can't cope with your boy?

    It seems that they don't know how to manage him properly. They may or may not be able to manage him. It depends on the head, the teacher, the TAs, the intake of the school, the physical environment (enough space to let children be separate, sound absorption measures) etc etc. Not forgetting your son who may be managable at home but who may be different in a school setting.

    I'll put another point of view too.

    A mainstream school won't cope with a 6 year old that breaks windows and doesn't understand that this is bad. Regardless of whose fault it was in the first place, he has to know that breaking windows is bad and danfgerous particularly if you consider the other children in the vicinity. Equally, teachers in a mainstream school may not think that it is their job to tame a boy who bites and kicks them. This will be very difficult for them as they have a full time job trying to do their job, i.e. teach, and it will unsettle the other children. They can't let that sort of behaviour continue.

    The question is, how to proceed from here? Perhaps there is another mainstream school that you could try that is just better at dealing with children like him?

    I hope you manage to sort something out but I would hope that you can move forward without turning it into a fight. The only one that needs to be considered is your son. Try and do what is best for him.

  • Hi Dipperdoo and recombinantsocks,

    My son is also 6 and was diagnosed with high functioning ASD last May. He has been issued a SEN Statement of Special Educational Needs in January of this year. He is in Year 2 at a mainstream school as well and has been exhibiting the same aggressive behaviours as Dipperdoo's son whenever he gets upset or when his anxieties get so much that they trigger a meltdown.

    He has been excluded for three consecutive weeks now, for a total of 11 days exclusion this term! This last exclusion, which resulted from events that no one in the school least of all the headteacher or my son's Teaching Assistant one to one has explained to me despite me demanding to know the details of what had happened to lead to the  incidents that made my son break a glass piece in a door at the school.

    We have just had an annual review meeting of his SEN this Monday and in that Monday, my husband and I more or less let the professionals present namely the SENCo, the headteacher, my son's year 2 teacher, a START caseworker, and a Specialist School Teacher, that we believe the school staff want our son out of their school and they are expediting the process by excluding him more and more frequently, like I said, three weeks in a row!

    This last one this week he has been excluded for 4 days and the  headteacher wrote he is still deciding whether to permanently exclude him or not.

    Needless to say my husband and I are not happy. An understatement! Especially when we know that my son's school do not accept that the outbursts of my son were due to his autism! They claim that my son knew what he was doing and that he intended to harm the school members of staff! They complained that my son, my 6 yr old autistic son, had no remorse for what he has done to them! That they were getting headbutted, bitten, scratched, etc, but he never says SORRY! Why does my son need to say sorry for something that wasn't his choosing!?? He never asked to be autistic! He shouldn't be punished for the autistic behaviours he exhibits when the very people who were supposed to be preventing the outbursts provoke them!

    My son's SENCo, in her report post the annual SEN review wrote that they believe that their school is no longer an appropriate setting for my son and that a SPECIAL SCHOOL is more appropriate for my son's needs.

    What do you think? With them having said that how can we believe that they will not sabotage my son's potential future in this school if they have as much as admitted that he doesn't belong there anymore? Will they just keep causing him to have outbursts and meltdowns until he is permanently excluded?

    Any thoughts and comments will be greatly appreciated as I have been losing sleep over this injustice to my sweet bright boy.

     

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Don't panic.

    The new ep is actually spot on. Your child needs consistency in knowing where the boundaries but he won't really understand punishment. It just tends to make situations escalate. His outbursts aren't naughtiness they are the accumulation of frustration and sensory overload that will have been building for a while before he explodes. First step is to avoid the situations in the first place. If he then does boil over then he needs to be taken to a quiet place to calm down but this should be a very neutral situation - don't reward him for this but don't punish him either.

    Can you find out more about the training that they have received? Where did they get it from? You need to know as you should be singing from the same song sheet as the school so they should understand that it is in their interests to try and be consistent between home and school.

    It may be that they have had good training and that things will get better rather than worse! So when they say things will change it may be that things will get even better.