First time on forum. having a VERY bad day

Dubz - I am one of the moderators here and would like to welcome you to the Community. Sorry your first post hasn't gone well but please don't let that stop you from asking for advice here.

You are definitely not alone in your experience with your son and his school. We would would advise finding out as much information as you can and our website is a good starting point. One of the big reasons for setting this Community up was to give people like you a place where they can get advice and feel supported. It is a concerning situation if people don't feel like they can do this.

I personally hope you will give it another go and share your thoughts and request advice. Don't forget you can also contact us on our helpline for more specific issues.

Longman - Thanks for providing a comprehensive response as always, however, please try and stay away from language that can be construed as judging others. Keep the tone positive and supportive. 

Dubz,

Firstly, welcome to the forum! I'm sorry that your first venture onto the forum didn't go too well. Hopefully, things can only get better :-)

Your description of your son's emotional immaturity may be better phrased as his inability to interpret and respond to other people's emotions and his inability to express his own emotions. This combination of an inability to send and receive emotional signals doesn't mean that he is emotionally immature as he clearly gets upset and feels emotions internally just like everyone else.

His inabiility in this regards will set him apart from his peers and this will lead them to challenge or provoke him, he will not respond very robustly and the situation descends into bullying. The majority of people on the spectrum suffer bullying and I don't know that it helps to lay blame on the bullies. Everyone concerned needs to recognise that it is happening and positive steps need to be taken on all sides to stop it and move everyone to an adult-adult relationship. Children become bullies because they are not very mature and these problems become less acute (but still occasionally happen) in adulthood in my experience.

As a late diagnosed Aspie, I suffered bullying at school and in the workplace so he has my utmost sympathy. He needs help from you and his school to grapple with the bullying issue and somehow the bullies need to be educated and turned into allies and hopefully your son can learn better strategies for dealing with this situation as it is a theme that will occur over and again in his life.

I do so agree with crystal12 about the bullyuing factor. Everything I read on the original posting suggested bullying to me.

I do go on about my own experience on other threads but I feel it is apt again here - I got bullied basically because my reactions were entertaining.

I'm sensitive to sudden noise and sudden movements and complex movements/noise, especially in the peripery of my field of view. I reacted by ducking and flinching, and if it was prolonged I got more and more stressed until I had a meltdown.

My peers found they could time my reactions to when a teacher appeared or when there was a public audience.

I do wonder that the likely explanation for dubz' son hitting out is bullying. But it does need the parents to recognise the possibility, and pursue the matter with the school. Whether I expressed it well or not, I did feel that dubz saw her son's behaviour as his responsibility and an embarrassment, and was having to apologise for him. That lets the bullies win.

Hi, I'm sorry there is so much heightened emotion amongst some of the posts because it isn't helping anyone.  The important thing is to try + make suggestions that will help this young man at his school.  Whether these suggestions come across as blunt or tactful will depend on the poster, but all suggestions should be considered.   I'm unclear whether this young man has a TA at his present school.  Sorry if I've missed something there.  If he hasn't then his parents need to keep on fighting to get 1 who's well trained in autism.  Lots of info on this via the home page + also the ipsea site.  It appears that the school isn't doing enough for this young man.  It appears that some of his classmates are adept at winding him up so he gets into trouble.  He appears to be getting bullied.  What are the Head + others at the school saying in relation to supporting him against the bullies.  Bullying saps self confidence terribly.  As our children get older + have to cope within a mainstream setting, they need support from TAs, teachers, other staff.  Really all the adults need to be autism aware.  I hope this young man with the help of his parents can finish his education + move on with his life.  It would be awful if he had to leave because the necessary support services were lacking.

I don't want to take sides here, and Longman generally speaks a lot of sense, but I think Longman was a bit too harsh in his original reply to Dubz. Having re-read Dubz's original post, I do not see anything in it that suggests a lack of understanding, and I think the subsequent posts descended into  an argument where not so nice words were used. Longman, however, does have Asperger's, and Dubz should understand his direct, and possibly literal, communication style in light of his Asperger's.

I also have Asperger's and was not offended by the original post.

My apologies, I obviously had completely the wrong idea about what a 'community ' forum was about. as I said it was my first time on a forum, and I was in a terrible state, feeling very alone, and that nobody understood. I was hoping for some responses from those who had maybe had to deal with something similar and to maybe feel that we weren't quite all alone in having to deal with mainstream schools and their mishandling of difficult situations. I really wasn't prepared to be villified on here as well so I'll  just go back to trying to cope on my own thanks, because I really don't need this on top of everything else. They may well have been some good advice among the insults that I was too upset to take in so, yeah , thanks. Please feel free to carry on this thread without me but I won't be stupid enough to reach out again.

PS: me and electra posted about the same time, so I am not answering her.

Very true electra, but I still think it's a shame that if everyone starts arguing about how to handle an argument rather than how to help this kid?  Trying to understand each other's viewpoint in this case seems better than trying to decide who's to blame?

Not sure I've managed to put what I want to say very well!

OK, actually now got a couple of books I think are relevant!  Firstly going back to what happened on the cricket pitch...

I think there's some stuff in Tony Atwood's 'The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome' which is useful. In his chapter on bullying, page 103 to 105 he talks about 'equitable justice' and a scales of justice exercise.  Basically in this each participant in an incident has a piece of paper, and there are a supply of blocks available.  You go through the incident in depth, looking at each mistake made, and allocating blocks appropriately.  So in this case the other kids would get some blocks for their teasing. Possibly the teacher would get blocks for not supporting Dubz's son's decisions as scorer/putting him in that situation in the first place.  Dubz's son would get blocks for his actions, and possibly for not choosing to go to the teacher as soon as the other kids started teasing.  The amount of blocks would be proportional to the serousness of each mistake: so (according to Atwood) not going to the teacher at a particular point might score one block, swearing at someone might rate 4, and actually punching someone and causing injury might rate 12.  The idea of doing this is that it can explain why a punishment that seems unfair might actually be fair while still acknowleging everyone's role in what happened.  It can also look at things that can be done to prevent it happening again.

Re my earlier comment about looking at contribution rather than blame: I think Atwood gives a good example of how it can be applied.  But more generaly a good book is 'Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most' by Stone, Patton and Heen.  I think Longman had some really good points.  I think it's a real shame the thread got diverted into an argument about whether his attitude was acceptable or not! And who was to blame for the incident on the cricket pitch, as if only one person should take all the blame and repercussions!

Re whether the boy should have been scorer: while it may have ended up being a contributing factor, on the other hand I think it can be a positive thing to involve a kid by giving them such a role. The teacher's intentions may have been good.  I also don't think we should looks at such roles as 'what the person who can't do anything else is given to do', but as 'roles that only suit some people', which is less negative.  If the boy enjoys being scorer then the mistakes were elsewhere.

Anyone who posts here asking a question  must realise that autistic people may respond and we don't communicate like NT people.This is a place where you need to do some adjusting to our communication style.

And you will get responses from AS people who have had a lifetime of being discriminated against, losing jobs and relationships because no one understood us. We were autistic children ourselves once too. We're not your idea of well-mannered but we know what we're talking about.

If you don't want responses from us please post on the Parents and Carers board which we don't visit much. Or try Mumsnet.

Want to reply to this but I'm going to be late for work: just briefly (from a book I read recently...) how about all trying to stop atributing 'blame' and instead look at the 'contribution' from both sides, both on the cricket pitch and in this thread!

I did consider block capitals appropriate for BETTER INFORMED, because right the way through your original posting it seemed to be about your son being an embarrassment and his fault he was hitting out.

I do think you need to read into this more thoroughly for your son's sake. Whether I'd written it as "better informed" or "BETTER INFORMED" I didn't say that your son "needs better parents". You are "putting words into my mouth".

Regarding the quip "please keep your thoughts to yourself unless you have something useful or helpful to say". You posted "Any advice gratefully received".

I gave you very considered and appropriate advice. Besuides being a lecturer I was a disability coordinator in a university dealing with the interpretation of the social model in practice, and the problems this caused for students with autism.

Far from my advice being "gratefully received", you were the one who put the boot in twice.

I'm trying to be accommodating. You are being very judgemental and being judge and jury over me, and I feel to this site.

The reference to "asperger's crap" (the system will probably blank my use of the word) - strongly conveys you don't take aspergers very seriously.

Your tone is very offensive to me.

I did not say that people with autism/aspergers cant play sport, I said that team sports like cricket are hardly easy environments, and that he was likely to have poor coordination.

I accept coordination isn't always an issue and some people on the spectrum can do team sports. But it is usually reported as a difficult area.

What puzzles me is that dubz's son is doing cricket, but only as the scorer. Now it might be that everyone gets a turn as the scorer, and it was just dubz's son's turn on this occasion. What would worry me uis if he has been placed as scorer because he cannot play and no-one picks him for their team - which is a common ASD situation.

Secondly where were the teachers?  Dubz' son was verbally attacked by the boy he is accused of assaulting and by the rest of the class and the teachers only intervened with dubz' son when he hit out.

It sounds to me like he was being set up to fail.

As to my use of caps, dubz was having a VERY bad day.

Hello, Dubz

First of all dont blame yourself, ASD traits isnt due to parenting styles/issues

Bad temper can happen in people with ASD, and emotional immatureness isnt his fault either he doesnt do it on purpose, i have Autism and i probably lack it at times dont think i understand what is classed has emotional immatureness to be honest

I remember i had bad time in school used to hit people if something mean was said to me  so im not sure how i can give advice for that cause my punching didnt stop till i finished school (sorry)

is there anywhere else In your area where you can get an officail diagnosis for him? it would be helpful to you because you will get access to a lot more help

since your son is feeling Depressed sit down with him while doing something he enjoys and talk to him about it NOT being his fault him being born this way its no ones fault its just the way the brain developed 

one last thing i think its ridiculous that Long man said people with Autism/Aspergers cant play sport due to coordination, not all kids with ASD has problems with coordination i used to like sport i only have slight coordination problem but i didnt let it stop me

ask your son if he likes sport, if he says yes then try to see if theres a sports club he can attend 

having Autism isnt an horrible condition in my opinion, im used to being that bit different

hopefully i helped a bit and sorry if i missed any of your post

Please don't give me that 'it's not my fault you're offended, ive got Aspergers' crap! And learn the difference between 'advising' and 'judging'. I see from your profile that you are a retired lecturer, not a young man who has not yet learned to think about what they are about to say. You have stated, in capitals, that my son needs better parents, and you think that's advice??? My husband also has Aspergers and wouldn't dream of speaking like this to someone they know nothing about. Please keep your thoughts to yourself unless you have something useful or helpful to say. That is MY, considered, advice.

None of us are very good at social niceties. If you asked other neurotypicals they'd probably be very generous with comforting words and consolations. I judged from the original posting you wanted insight not platitudes. I must profoundly apologise if you wanted platitudes. It's not in my nature...sorry.

Someone will no doubt come on and apologise on my account and give you all the usual platitudes. But it wont change anything for your son.

He is probably much more emotionally mature than you imagine. He may appear to have problems. I suspect like many of us he is very genuinely striving to understand why he cannot fit into the social rules, and why it always ends up like it is his fault.

I'm more inclined to empathise with his predicament. But I don't think you can fairly describe my advice as putting the boot in, as you call it - yes even my last paragraph.

I've seen too many parents groups and parents for whom aspergers is the parents' suffering. Aspergers Syndrome by proxy. Yeah I'm blunt and insensitive. I've got aspergers.

Well now I remember why I never ask for help! Thanks for that 'longman'. I thought I couldnt feel much worse and then you came along and really stuck the boot in. Took a lot for me to reach out there, well more fool me.

I've got to take issue with his "lack of emotional maturity which causes his outbursts". We really need to sit down and discuss this concept.

There are people on the autistic spectrum who become manipulative. Who use physical bullying to get their way, because they see it works. But reading what you say above, I don't think that is what is happening.

Autism affects the ability to take in and process your environment, whether that is environmental (visual, audo or other sensory assaults) or information (written or spoken, but especially aggressively spoken by lots of others).

I suggest that your son is not emotionally immature but suffering great distress and facing very real difficulties. What you see as his temper is a manifestation of acute pain and distress, and a response to a really harsh world that he doesn't seem to fit into.

He was keeping score in a school cricket match - why?  Was the job given to him because he is not considered good enough to play?  Is keeping score something he is naturally good at? Or is keeping score a chore nobody wants to do so give it to the school "idiot" ? (I use idiot carefully and tactfully here).

Score keepers are going to encounter conflict. It is like being the referee in a football match. His decision is likely to be challenged. Indeed he ought to have been backed by the school, endorsing the responsibility - it doesn't sound like that happened. Is it really fair to make the autistic boy the score keeper, and not back him up, knowing conflict was likely to ensue? The school I suggest has behaved foully, and needs to be made accountable.

A boy accused him of cheating and all your son's schoolmates backed his accuser. Hello - sounds like bullying, and the school turning a blind eye....like many schools do.

OK he hasn't got a confirmed diagnosis, but for all intents and purposes he has symptoms consistent with Asperger's Syndrome. It would help to get the diagnosis confirmed.

But team sports like cricket are hardly easy environments for a kid with aspergers - he is likely to have poor coordination, including hand eye coordination. He wont fit into teams well. He may be confused by visual stimuli, and sensitive to sudden loud noises. It will be hard for him to follow the rules of cricket and interpret what is happening at any one moment. Very likely why he has ended up as scorer. I know my cricket skills were hopelessly lacking, when trying to field I mistook every flying bird for the ball and I couldn't catch. Why is an aspergers kid being forced into the cricket team....? Its ludicrous.

So I suspect the reality is the school knows very little about autism. And they do need to account for their behaviour towards him. I'd like to know why he was made scorer.

But having said all that it greatly worries me you keep apologising for him. Autism is a horrible condition to suffer from. Its not his fault (OK its the condition's fault). But I think he deserves more supportive and BETTER INFORMED parents. Read up on aspergers. Try to understand his world.