Hi
This is my first post!
My 12year old son has high functioning Aspergers and I (we) realise that my husband is probably the same, though less affected. I have non-spectrum 8year old daughter as well.
My son loves his school. He thinks the teachers are great and is full of enthusiasm about the lesson content. He is at a single sex grammar school and despite struggling with revision ( he can't see the point as he's already been through it on class) he did fairly well in school exams. So the academic side is fine.
The problem, I suspect you can see this coming, is with friendships and interactions with the other boys. Basically someone starts larking about, my son joins in, not necessarily invited, when the other guys stop he keeps on going. As a result he got into 2 fights at the end of last term and got an external exclusion. This week, second day back, he and some 'friends' were messing about.This resulted in my son being pushed into the boy he had his last fight with. This boy jumped on my son who fought back. This has resulted in another external exclusion and the threat of expulsion (managed transfer to another school).
I am not complaining about the school, they have to think of all the other boys and have tried to help my son. My son realises that he is in trouble and that he is responsible for this. He is not a naturally aggressive chap, each fight has involved him upsetting someone who then attacks him and he fights back.
My son and I both think that his main problem is that he does not recognise when to stop larking about, my husband calls it 'being silly'. He gets excited and then looses the ability tonremain in control. We need to find a way to help him to stop himself before things overwhelm him. We have tried scoring systems, this works in retrospect of when calm, or when I remind him.
I am going to try to get him to join every lunchtime club going so that he does not have time to mess about. His friends all seem to be at the immature end of the normal range, nice boys, but not able to help him, not able to think about consequences, keen to mess about and able to recognise when to stop.
Until summer term the school allowed the boys to play games on theirphone. I feel that my son has had more problems since this was banned. It was banned suddenly which was a really big issue. He accepts this now, but the chap he has had fights with (also at risk of expulsion) apparently has used his which upsets my son too.
My son loves computer games. My husband, see previous comment, is obsessed with our children not having too much screen time as he has readthat this will effect their long term health/education.
Has anyone got experience of techniques that my son could use to help?
Should we give him something to fiddle with that he could keep in his pocket, small Rubik's cube or similar? The aim being to calm him down.
Should I suggest that he uses the school computers to play games at lunchtime? This will upset my husband, but might help my son.
I am also worried about the effect this has on my daughter.
Not having a relaxing weekend!
I hope someone can advise.
Thanks
Gasgirl
