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Meltdowns at School

AutumnRain

Hi everyone!  

Any advice on this one would be gratefully received please!

I have a 10 year old son at mainstream school who has the most awful meltdowns.

The problem is that the school does not seem to be able to cope with it. They seem to be triggered by things that don't go the way he would like, for example not being chosen for something or simply being warned about behaviour... but the meltdowns go on and on and are very disruptive , causing class to be evacuated etc. 

He was even suspended for this recently and they have needed to restrain him and call me to collect several times. They try to encourage him to move to an alternative place but he just remains static, roaring and screaming. It really is awful.

At the age of 10. I am very concerned about his ability to survive at school, socially and emotionally and worry that at secondary he will surely be the target of ridicule if this continues or receive more exclusions.

Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas!!

PS. He is perfectly able academically but seems to have no motivation to attend school or do well in his subjects.

 

Parents

  • Check for bullying. Many children with autism are bullied at school. This is likely not the conventional idea of a few bigger boys extorting money from weaker kids. More usually it is a lot of classmates ganging up on someone on the spectrum for being different. It is often relatively unobtrusive, unseen by teachers, and harder to define, particularly because the individual's perception of what is happening sounds like ordinary teasing.

    However it can be incredibly viscious, increasing anxiety and fear just to see his reaction.

    I am sensitive to sudden noise and sudden movement especially on the periphery of my field of vision. My school contemporaries quickly worked out how to build up my distress and apprehension to breaking point, often a meltdown timed for when teachers appeared and it appeared to be just me making a fuss with no justification. I was deemed over-sensitive. I endured this for many years with no-one in authority every realising what was going on out of sight.

    They may be telling your son that things are going to happen to him in the classroom and they are probably priming him for a reaction. But it will be very difficult to get to the truth because when actually described there won't seem much to it - standard teasing, minor incidents. The problem is it is constant and degrading over time.

    Humans are essentially like communes of monkeys, a weaker member of the pack is a risk to everyone and has to be excluded. Somehow this embedded behaviour comes out very strongly in schoolkids who see a mission to expose the weak member of the pack. So things go on that should be blatent contraventions of human rights, particularly as they play on weakness due to disability, but it is very hard to prove it is going on.

Reply

  • Check for bullying. Many children with autism are bullied at school. This is likely not the conventional idea of a few bigger boys extorting money from weaker kids. More usually it is a lot of classmates ganging up on someone on the spectrum for being different. It is often relatively unobtrusive, unseen by teachers, and harder to define, particularly because the individual's perception of what is happening sounds like ordinary teasing.

    However it can be incredibly viscious, increasing anxiety and fear just to see his reaction.

    I am sensitive to sudden noise and sudden movement especially on the periphery of my field of vision. My school contemporaries quickly worked out how to build up my distress and apprehension to breaking point, often a meltdown timed for when teachers appeared and it appeared to be just me making a fuss with no justification. I was deemed over-sensitive. I endured this for many years with no-one in authority every realising what was going on out of sight.

    They may be telling your son that things are going to happen to him in the classroom and they are probably priming him for a reaction. But it will be very difficult to get to the truth because when actually described there won't seem much to it - standard teasing, minor incidents. The problem is it is constant and degrading over time.

    Humans are essentially like communes of monkeys, a weaker member of the pack is a risk to everyone and has to be excluded. Somehow this embedded behaviour comes out very strongly in schoolkids who see a mission to expose the weak member of the pack. So things go on that should be blatent contraventions of human rights, particularly as they play on weakness due to disability, but it is very hard to prove it is going on.

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