Should school have an "in-school" suspension for b

Post Reply New Topic

Our grandson has been doing very well in school - except for the last week and a half...We can't figure out what is going on with him, but, he has started becoming aggressive and hitting. The other students' parents want to see Z punished for his behavior. The school wants to punish him with a 3-hour "in-school" suspension. He basically will be put in a room, I'm hoping with his aid, for 3 hours. I believe he will be able to do his school work while there. Is this focusing on his social skills or just a way for the teacher to get him out of her hair??? Anyone know of someone who has knowledge of child advocacy laws in Michigan?

Discipline, Punishment and Autism; I don't understand the circumstances or context for this particular issue. Why would other parents know anything about other children's punishments? That doesn't make sense. Administrative stuff is just between the family and the school.
If this child has an IEP they first need to determine or prove that his behavior did not stem from his disability. If they can't determine that then they need to investigate why he hit and what was going on at the time and how they are going to teach and promote better behavior.

I don't see any benefit from having an "in school" suspension for any length of time. This will be documented as a discipline issue and count against him. A sudden change in behavior likely means something is wrong and it may not be your grandson's fault. What are his comments, does he have anything to say about why he's hitting?

Quite frankly, this reeks of the victim being punished for fighting back. My guess is that your grandson was antagonised. That he had had enough and fought back may be not be unreasonable. While I'm not sure how you should deal with the issue of school discipline, I encourage you to ask him (when you're not mad and assuring him that you are not mad) what others made him do to retaliate. Kids don't usually get into fights for no reason and you probably have less of a chance of this being the case as your grandson is (I assume) an aspie. I then beg you to go to the principal and make it painfully clear that public schools in this country have a zero tolerance policy for bullying, so it is his ethical duty to stop the bullying, no matter how much of it there is. The antagonism against aspies in public schools is beyond appalling. I implore you to help him in any way possible.

before any punishment is considered, they really need to get to the bottom of the reason your grandson has been more aggressive....is he on meds that aren't working anymore ?....is he being antogonised by others ?....is he becoming more anxious ?
it's one thing to punish someone for aggressive behavior who has control over that specific behavior. it's a totally different story to punish someone for aggressive behavior who doesn't have control over the behavior......ie; if my NT son were all of a sudden lash out at a classmate because they were teasing him, then i feel punishment for him would be appropriate~he's 13 & quite capable of self-advocating........however, if this same scenario were to occur to my aspie son~ i would not want to see the same sort of punishment. yes, son knows that lashing out is wrong. but when pushed too much, he simply doesn't have the control that someone else might have.

I completely agree with every word dongiovanni wrote. One of the nice things about people with AS is that (unlike NT children), they rarely are mean just for the sake of being mean. My son has AS and he finds it utterly bizarre that anyone would even want to be mean to another person. So, if your grandson has started hitting people, I think that first and most important question is, "What is being done to him to make him want to hit people?"

Unfortunately, NT bullies are often masters at manipulating conflicts to make it look to the teacher like it was the other guy's fault. Unfortunately, Aspies are usually not good at this, which makes teachers think that the AS child is the troublemaker. Children with AS often don't understand bullying and may have no idea what to do about it. Your grandson may have been bullied mercilessly every day for years without teachers really knowing much about it. He may have simply gotten to the point where he could take no more and wanted to try something new to try to put a stop to it.

If he is just trying to fight back against constant bullying, punishing him won't help. All it will do is make him feel even more trapped and helpless. The message he will get is, "If I don't fight back the bullying just continues endlessly. If I do fight back, I get punished. So, I can't passively take the harassment, and I'm not supposed to fight back." When you make a person feel trapped like that over a long period of time, something very bad is inevitably going to happen -- always.

Find out who is bullying your grandson and put a stop to it. Then, find someone to help your grandson understand bullying and learn how to deal with it in the best possible way.

I understand that bullying is a significant problem with Asperger's, at the same time, my own child has slightly different issues with an autism diagnosis. However, we don't know enough about Grandma's "Z" to assume that bullying is the issue. My son, like many autistics and Aspies, has sensory issues and communication delays that interfere all the time. He may have a completely valid reason for tantruming or having meltdowns. However, to the less-informed observer, he appears to "have no reason" for blowing up.
They can mistake tones, context and touching for offenses. They can confuse tattling with bullying. Schools these days openly teach about bullying, yet my son has confused disagreeing and disliking with bullying.
Pop has also lashed out when the noise level or crowding overwhelms him. Pop started hitting, copying and interupting when the class suddenly exploded to 31 kids. The suddenness of "Z's" behavior points to something that "happened" rather than a pattern of behavior in other children.

I'm not dismissing the possibility of bullying. I just want to point out that there are other reasons why autistic kids lash out. I could understand a parent being upset if their child was hit "for no reason".

I would also try to find out if something has changed at school, since your grandson has only recently been displaying aggression.

Does he have a Behavior Intervention Plan in his IEP?

Thanks to all.....he does have an intervention plan - he goes to his time away room until he can control himself.

Today, he was kept home more or less because the parents do not agree with this policy of giving Z a in-school suspension.....I, on the other hand believe that a 3 hr suspension, which should be called something else, could possibly be a good thing for Z. It would almost be like having his 1 on 1 classroom....but it is the whole "discipline" issue that does bother me....hopefully, his parents will find out more about the circumstances of why Z became aggressive. He also hit his aid while she was intervening with his aggression towards another child....I don't believe anything different has changed at home, so, maybe something at school has. His teacher he had last year was great. Perhaps this year's teacher has her own agenda and does not like having someone else point her in another direction other than her "own" way....but, that's just an opinion, nothing more.

the times I subbed for inschool elementary suspension all it consisted of was having the children sit still, quietly in a desk facing the wall. The spent the first 3-4 hours copying the rules for inschool suspension, and when that was done, they could work on the school work that their class was doing that day. If they didn't get the classwork done it became homework.

One thing you'll have to watch is that if his behavioral problems are the result of bullying, he might prefer inschool suspension to being in class. I know my high school guidance counselor once related story about a girl who was always getting in trouble, loved inschool suspension better than out of school etc. So after discovering that she was causing problems to get into inschool suspension they changed her punishment so that everytime she got into trouble she'd have to sit in the cafeteria for all three lunch periods.

when my son was in a regular ed setting, he'd do just about anything to get to the quiet room.........

So many good replies. I started a reply yesterday but lost it and was called away so am going to try again.

Your post struck a chord with me, Grandma, because we also call our son "Z", he has recently been demonstrating agressive behavior (including hitting), and I am convinced his teachers don't have a clue about what is going on.

A brief comment about the parents of the children your Z has hit "wanting Z punished", they need to butt out, it is none of their business how the school deals with Z. In this respect Z is covered by his right to privacy and the school has to maintain that privacy. Unless you, as Grandma are authorized by Z's parents to recieve such infirmation the school cannot give it to you.

We know what is the root of our Z's agressiveness, it is teasing and bullying by some of the NT students. NTs are good at deception and acting innocent, our Aspies are not. Our Z is being taught these "social survival skills" by his NT peers but so far is fortunately not very good at them. His school has a "zero" tolerance policy towards bullying but we don't know if action is being taken against the bullies because of their "right to privacy". We also do not know if they are trying to find out the reasons for his agression or simply taking action against the most obvious rule-breaker.

Our Z's psychiatrist has said the school is going to have to learn how to deal with and teach high functioning Autistics (Asperger's is HFA) which is why I said his school hasn't got a clue about what is going on. I don't know if bullying is your grandson's reason for becoming agressive, but working with him patiently will reveal the reason and the school eeds to do that, not just throw him in a room for three hours.

We've gone through this. If your child has an IEP, then I believe the principle must determine that the inciddnt was not related to the child's disability. I will consider this for next time. My son has been out of the mainstream because I was trying to protect him from further disciplinary actions taken against him. It sounds crazy, but this where I am.

There are too many complexities involved in the situation, and I'm not at the school to oversee. I want him in a new placement where he can get the best ASD staff and support that the district has to offer. Even this, I realize, won't be perfect.

ISS, restrictions--all of it is counterproductive and only leaves the child feeling desensititzed, bitter or incapable of reintegrating back into the classroom without further more serious issues. In my experience as a teacher in an inner city school and a parent, I've witnessed this time and time again. It's all the school has, really, Most times, it's to placate the parents of the supposed bullied child. With a child on the spectrum it becomes a question of who is being bullied? Who was the initial perpetrator? In order for it to be a bullying incident, the bullied must not be considered more capable than the bully. A child that is outnumbered and has communciation an dsocial issues to begin with is certainly more vulnerable as far as I'm concerned. This is where the zero tolerance falls apart. It does not consider an incident as situational taking into consideration the individual case, but is a black and white enforcement.

If your chil dhas an IEP, and it comes to hitting and aggression, I would definitely get him out of the mainstream for his own mental well being an dprotection, temporarily, but make sure you explain to your child it's not punitive but rather he needs some special help in dealing with his issues and then try to get at the underlying problems that aren't as noticeable.

This needs to be handled delicately. Otherwise, it will continue and get worse for your son. Your son will not be corrected by the school's traditional punitive measures--we as parents of kids with AS know this to be true. It is much more complex. It is one of the most difficult areas to deal with, I think.

Again, my son is 90% OUT o fthe mainstream per my instructions until we rectify his current situation. Other than getting somewhat bored, he knows he's not being punished. When he WAS on restriction for 3 days, it was AWFUL! He's only eight-years old. He was supposedly "bullying" a classmate by saying negative things to her and not letting it go. It's a longer story--don't feel like explaining. I am seeking a new placement/school for him within the next couple of weeks. I don't like how they have handled a couple of situations that have occured. This one tops them all! This minor incident between my son and this classmate snowballed into major incident and was given unncessary attention. My son fixated on it and couldn't reconcile with the idea that he was to ignore his classmate. She was okay with it. He was not. He wanted to simply "make up" and be friends again. It could have been avoided with the right intervention and supports in place.

best,

equinn

Besides all of that...

He may have hit the aid before he realized she/he was the aid. Just thought I'd throw that in there...

There is nothing about the suddenness of the problem that argues against bullying. Quite the contrary, bullying can suddenly get worse for any of a large number of reasons. There could, for example, be a new child in class that likes to pick on Z. It could also be a group of NT children that have been there all along have suddenly decided that it is fun to pick on Z. Or, the nature of the bullying could have recently changed in a way that Z can no longer tolerate. It could even be that Z has been bullied for a long time and nothing has changed, but Z has just finally gotten to the end of his ability to tolerate it.

I agree that bullying is not the only possible explanation, but it should be the first line of investigation for a lot of reasons:

1. Most children with Asperger syndrome get bullied. In his book, "The Complete Guide to Asperger Syndrome", Tony Attwood devotes an entire chapter to this problem. Attwood reports the results of research studies that indicate that the rate of bullying of children with AS is more than 4 times the rate for typical children. According to another study, more than 90% of parents of children with AS report their child being bullied in the last year. Considering that children with AS don't always realize when they are being victimized and often don't report it even when they do know, these are likely to be conservative estimates.

2. Typical children usually have a network of friends to fall back on for emotional support when they get teased. Many children with AS do not, and this amplifies the damage done by each incident and makes the child feel more alone and helpless.

3. If it is bullying, punishing the victim and not the bully can be particularly emotionally damaging. It effectively sends the message that "it's all your fault". Some children may come to feel that they must have deserved the bullying because the bully wasn't punished and they were. This is particularly true for children with AS, because they may find the complexities of these conflicts and the resulting punishments to be very confusing.

4. Most of the time, if a person suddenly starts lashing out at others, it is because he believes that others have wronged him. So, that is why I emphasize so strongly the need to find out who did what to Z to provoke this. Z's reaction may well be out of proportion to the offense, but you won't know that until you find out what the provoking offense was.

In my opinion, punishing Z is unlikely to help if you don't first understand what is causing the behavior in the first place. Z needs to be taught an acceptable way of handling his problem -- and you can't begin to do that until you find out who or what is provoking his violent behavior in the first place. Z may well feel that hitting is his only acceptable way of solving his problem. Teaching him not to hit without also helping him solve his problem may simply lead him to find another (possibly even more) unacceptable way of dealing with it.