15 yr old stepson with NVLD emailed bomb threat

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Actually I think they are the meanest by then because by 6th grade, the bullying got so bad I had a nervous breakdown. I bet it would have gotten worse if my family didn't move to a small town in another state. There things were better and kids do not pick on kids who are in special ed. I hear large schools are very bad for kids with disabilities. But I am only talking about public school here. I have no experience with private school. But from my husband's experience, they couldn't help him due to his disability so he was back in public school again and he started to get help after that when they realize he would not outgrow his learning problems.

regarding the above post - you said "when they realized he would not outgrow his problems..."

That really hit home because both his mom and dad have been assuming he would outgrow his problems, start to fit it because he would just learn how to...

well good news - the only good news so far is that he has a shadow day at another small private school...

I hope the shadowday goes well.

Well just found out the public school system won't even take him. They said they have zero tolerance for bomb threats and said he would need to go to school at juvenile hall

so a private school is the only option at this point

Is homeschooling an option?

How come alternative school isn't the option? Why do you think he wouldn't last there?

the alternative school is run by the public school system - they said he would first need to go to school at juvenille hall and if he behaves and does well - he can then be sent to the alternative school

This is over the top in my opinion. We are in a similar situation with my son, and I know he would not have carried out the threat he made. I don't understand why some schools make such a hard stance on mere words somebody says, but disregard the environment that creates such chaos for autistic/asperger kids. The other kids in the school may be able to choose their words wiser, but does the school monitor every text, twitter, Facebook post made? I hope the other private school works out. Good luck!

You know, his parents are doing him a huge disservice there. HUGE.

Did they ever tell him about his possible diagnosis? After you mentioned remembering me, I read back on some of your older posts and found one about how they had never even mentioned to him that he might have unique neurology.

If he doesn't know who he is, or why he is different, he will jump to his own, very wrong conclusions. I've seen it over and over. Those wrong conclusions can lead to inappropriate actions.

Issues don't go away by ignoring them, and I would think that this bomb threat ought to be the wake up call to the parents: something is WRONG!

My son is in public school, high school, and it is going really well. He hasn't been bullied at all, and he has received solid support from the teachers and administration. He is in a speech class with three other children with various spectrum and related conditions, and all those kids are flourishing. I hear stories like yours and my first thought is, "it doesn't have to be that way."

I recently read an article that talked about how "parent training" is proving to be one of the more effective "treatments" for children on the spectrum. That may be true for all similar conditions. What they talked about there really isn't that different from what we do here: learning to identify triggers and patterns, meeting needs, really knowing your child. Special needs children are just that: special needs, and parents need to adapt accordingly if their kids are going to flourish.

I could have gone a few ways when I discovered my son was special needs: increased my work hours so I could pay for a smaller and fancier school, and more therapies, or cut my work hours so I could invest more time one on one with my child. I've done the later, and now that my son is in high school I am seeing the pay off. My instinct - and I could be totally off base, this is just posts on a message board, after all - is your husband and his ex need to stop burying their heads in the sand and, instead, be there in a more positive and hands on way for their child.

Neither did I when I was being bullied. Communication issues and all...

Having NVLD in no way means he did not know what he was doing. He didn't know what he was doing because he is 15.

What he thinks he did
Sent a bomb threat to the school because he was mad and thought this would resolve his issue even though he trusts they know he won't actually bomb the school.

What he actually did
Screwed himself, because they will take his threat seriously.

His parents need to establish that he's not actually a threat and the issue which provoked him to send the e-mail needs to be addressed.

Same here.

He is almost 100% for a fact being bullied. Basically everyone in highschool is bullied at one or time or another - people with autism and particularly overweight people with autism are going to be subjected more to bullying than even the average person.

The fact that he hasn't said anything about it doesn't mean s**t. Obviously, he is very angry about something. Autistic people are not generally violent for no reason.

I was bullied in highschool and never said a word to either my parents or my counselor. Silence doesn't mean anything.

How does communication issues (no speech delay) keep you from telling people you are being bullied? How hard would it be to say "Kids at school think I am stupid?"

My son wasn't able to articulate what was happening to him. He knew kids were mistreating him, but they never did it in such a way that he could define it accurately or call it out (for instance, they would "trip" and "bump into him" and then say sorry - he was in some way aware sometimes this was on purpose, but he then would get in trouble for overreacting when the same scenario was, in fact, an accident.)

Not different when a blind kid is being bullied, right? They may have a sense that obstacles are being deliberately put in their path to make them trip, or that they're tripping more often than is reasonable - but how can they tell what's deliberate and what's just about being blind? How would they explain that to someone who doesn't believe them "This box shouldn't be there. I tripped on it. Kids are bullying me, they put it there on purpose." is an allegation that requires evidence and support from a seeing person.

Temple Grandin talks about this happening to her in the cattle industry: some of her designs just stopped working. She finally had to use statistics to get evidence that it wasn't a problem with her design, it was someone implementing it who was deliberately sabotaging her, but hiding the evidence.

I'm going to adress both comments. What mom sparky says hits home, especially on my side. People never believed me because the majority of the kids sticking up for the person I claimed to hit me, were people who bullied me.

After a while you just give up. No one is going to believe you and you become so frustrated. And thus you try to handle your situation on your own. See my parents were not the type not to believe me, however, they believed that I would "get over it". I don't know why, or what made them think this. But no one was helping me. So I stopped ever discussing being bullied because no one helped and no one believed.

It's actually very hard to admit that kind of problem with the anxiety and fears that no one will care. And the truth of the case is that most of the time no one will.