Had to remove our son from school today

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He takes Concerta and Tenex. We still see some of these behaviors even when he's on meds, including stimming behaviors, and he can still be quite a handful even on the meds, but it's SO MUCH BETTER than before (before the meds). His dad and I were extremely hesitant to go the drug route, and only relented when we felt we'd tried everything else and were so desperate we nearly split up. I decided finally that if the meds might help him, I should give them a try at least, and if it didn't work or help we'd just take him off immediately. What happened was we saw nearly immediate improvement - but he's still a big handful much of the time, as I said. He's definitely still himself, still the same goofy, silly, delightfully weird little kid he always was - not a "zombie" like I've heard about other kids on Ritalin-like drugs like Concerta. We check in with him often to see how he's feeling. He's always said the meds don't make him feel bad or jittery or stupid or foggy or anything like that. We feel quite fortunate about this.

When he's unmedicated and uberhyper, it's like we're not there at all - my husband says the cats might as well be raising him, for all the good it does. We feel no connection to him at all when he's like this, and it breaks our hearts. It doesn't matter what we say to him, good or bad, even if we're trying to praise him - he just starts screeching and singing and jabbering to himself and dances away from us like we're not there...it does remind me of autism, except he doesn't appear distressed at all (not saying all autistic kids are distressed). Even with the meds, tho, we often have difficulty connecting with him, but it is much better than without. We can take him places and generally (on the meds) he's generally pretty well-behaved, except for arguing a lot about brushing his teeth or doing his chores (which is fairly typical for any kid his age, imo).

I'd never push meds on anyone. It's a highly individualized decision. But I felt it was wrong of me to categorically deny him even the chance to try something that might help him some, just because I was opposed to "drugging" him. And that's certainly not all we've done to help him. At the moment, we're trying to get him into speech and behavioral therapy - but it's a long row to hoe, so far. We finally found a specialist, but he doesn't take insurance, charges over $100 an hour ($325 just for the initial consult) and has a 2-3-month waiting list. *sigh*

P.S. I like your name - we have a tortuga, ourselves. But he's hibernating right now.

My AS Godson was often taken home by his mother because of similar behavior. This was before an official AS dx and he was in a mainstream place. Even though his mom told him he is being evaluated for AS/Autism, they didn't care, they wanted him to go home. Eventually they kicked him out of one school. Now he is in a special ed class and mainstreaming in a public school and he is 100 x better. I hope your sons school gets a clue. I don't know why they need a 2nd opinion, can't they see what is happening? Sheesh!

Thanks for answering the medication question. I've been wondering if we should try something (either prescription or the biomedical stuff). My son seems to have bad reactions to medications. He has allergies and the only allergy medicine he can take is Claritin. We've tried other stuff and he gets all the adverse side effects. I assumed the same would happen with the ADD meds.

I haven't had any luck getting a therapist for him either. No one is available or they say that he's too high functioning. One-on-one, he appears quite normal. Add a couple of more people and he gets loopy.

We don't get the disconnected behavior at home (except when he's really cranked about something). It happens all the time in public. I'm the lady in the grocery store with the 9-yr-old spinning in circles with his eyes rolled into the back of his head. I imagine people think he's like that all the time and I have to tell myself that it doesn't matter what they think.

Best wishes.

Our son has Aspergers, but we had really bad problems earlier this year with him being disruptive, shouting out, not doing as he was told, hiding under tables, running away. The school rang us several times to come and collect him as he was being so disruptive the teacher could not carry on with the rest of the class. Our son had never shown extreme behaviour like this at home. We had always had problems with him at school, but not like this. This behaviour went on for a few months, and it was incredibly stressful!

With time we realised that he was doing it on purpose. He knew that if he was disruptive he got to go home. So in fact the school were in a way rewarding him for his bad behaviour. When he was sent home, we would do school work with him, because we didn't want him to think it was a jolly. He would moan about it, but it was still better in his mind than being at school. We have agreed with the school, that under no circumstances should he be sent home. It has been hard but it didn't take long for him to get used to the idea that he would not go home if he was disruptive. He soon stopped doing it. We also found that the school were not disciplining him. There was never a consequence at school for bad behaviour, so he knew he could get away with it. The class bully left his school in October, and our son was bullied by him quite a lot. Since the bully left our son has been so much calmer and focused. He is like a different child.

Are you sure it's not the school that is the problem rather than your son?

Not sure at all.

He certainly exhibits some of his behaviors at home, but it's nowhere near what he's like at school, apparently. We think some of this is due to him wanting attention from other kids (who often encourage him to act silly and he just gets carried away), and sometimes we worry he's just bored and not getting challenging enough work (he reads several grade levels higher than his peers, for example).

The consequences usually given to him (that we know of) are being sent to another class room (which he just disrupts as well, even if they make him sit in the back), or sending him to some other area alone to calm down and "think about your behavior" or something. He doesn't like this, he feels he's being punished and also punished for "no reason." He also will grab and hug other kids and hang on them, even when they tell him to stop - he just doesn't understand when people are upset with him, or respect personal space well.

All the kids get "behavior reports" send home every Friday. They're graded numerically, with 1 being worst and 4 being best. He comes home with either all ones, or the occasional two. I've often wondered if the kids in special ed get graded like this on their behavior, and if they are held to the same standard the other "mainstream" kids have. I doubt it. His teachers - ALL OF THEM, every year - are constantly coming to us wanting to know what else to do to make him sit still and be quiet (HAHA not gonna happen).

Mind you, at HOME he's often able to sit and read or play quietly with his toys for up to an hour. In fact, apparently the teacher's had never seen him just reading quietly on his own until we brought him along for the parent-teacher conference. We all spoke for over an hour in that classroom, and the ENTIRE time he sat in the corner, happily reading books and playing with a puzzle. He asked one or two questions, that was it. His teachers just stared, couldn't believe it.

So yes, I do think the school is largely the problem. As parents, we have certainly done everything we can possibly do, while they have done nearly nothing and despite his diagnosis and 504 they continue to treat many of his AS or ADHD behaviors as just "bad behavior." Yet somehow, even though all his teachers have been ready to pull their hair out, the school itself has never deemed his situation serious enough to warrant further testing or accommodations because his grades are so good.

We have a meeting next week to "reevaluate." Wish us luck. The last time we met with anyone other than the teachers, I asked if there was another school in town that might be more appropriate for our son, and instead of a suggestion what I got was a brief lecture about how the school's funding is tied to enrollment, and they "hate" to see any child leave to go somewhere else because they lose that funding (which they've so far been loathe to actually spend on accommodating him!)...GRRRR.

Oh, and for what it's worth, he loves school. But he has said he might like to go somewhere else "where people don't know me."

Our son is high functioning, and I don't think that he is challenged enough at school. The teachers often complain that he calls out the answers and doesn't give the other kids a chance to answer. He gets frustrated that the other kids are so slow! He doesn't notice when other people are getting fed up with him. His school used to remove him from class and he would be sent to sit in another classroom where he would just be disruptive there. He actually enjoyed being in the other classroom more, so it was a reward for him not a punishment. Sending them to another classroom is not going to help! He now just gets sent to a quiet room, and I think actually that is what he needs - some quiet time to calm down. If he is told that he is being sent there to calm down rather than to think about his behaviour it might make him feel better. He wont feel like a naughty boy. If he feels there is an injustice, and is being treated like he is naughty it wont help.

We had trouble with the school basically saying the behaviour was our problem not theirs. The Head would say that she had 100s of other kids to deal with and could not make exceptions just for one child. She would complain about lack of funding. I had to explain that a lot of the problems at school were caused by them, and their reactions to our son's behaviour. They were treating him like a naughty boy, and not a boy with ASD.

They were very defensive at first, but eventually they backed down, and they are a lot more understanding with him now. The teachers have recently had training about ASDs as well, so that's a huge improvement. I think most schools don't understand ASDs, it's just an inconvenience a lot of the time for them. I think the best thing we've done is not go to the school banging our fists on the table. We've been very calm and matter of fact about it all. We have a very good relationship with the Head now. At first she was very defensive, and would not budge, whereas now she will take any suggestions on board. I've told them some things we do at home to tackle difficult behaviour and they are using some of our suggestions at school. One thing is a "Rules" chart. There are only 3 rules for the most problematic behaviour, but this has really helped.

1. No toilet words - wee, poo, bum
2. No hitting
3. No making up silly words

The rules stay on the same wall in the house, and he knows where they are. When he breaks the rules we just say "You are breaking the rules, there they are (point to them), so stop doing it". It works a treat. He can see they are the rules and it works instantly. I only refer to them when he breaks the rules. I'm not suggesting you use this of course as it's probably irrelevant to you, but it is just an example of a strategy that has helped at home, and is now used at school.

When our son becomes agitated at school they usually give him 5/10 minutes out of class to calm down, before it escalates! That has helped enourmously. Rather than removing him after he has become a massive problem. Sometimes things can just get too much for them.

This sounds s much like our situation, really it does. I hope we get something done next week when we meet with the school staff. Today I talked to our son about yesterday and not taking his pills, and eventually I got him to talk to me and asked why he looked sad, and he said he was sad because even when he does take his pills, they don't make him behave enough to keep him from being in trouble "every day." And he feels like this is his fault now - he must be a "bad kid" or too stupid to be able to get along like the other kids do. I was devastated to hear this, and you can BET I'll bring this up at the meeting, because this MUST stop. So far, all this has only seemed to affect his father's and my self-esteem, but now it's affecting our son, too. I will not have him thinking he's just damaged or something.

When he's sent to another classroom, he usually disrupts it, too. But he says he doesn't like being sent out to a small table in the hall because he's alone and he feels punished and excluded. Not sure how to remove him from the class without him feeling punished, rather than see he's being given an opportunity to calm down and refocus.

I haven't banged on any desks yet, but my husband is getting so frustrated I'm a little worried he'll say something rude at the meeting and that won't help (lord knows I've THOUGHT a lot of things during meetings that I haven't SAID aloud). I hope he can keep it together. We need to be firm, but being combative and accusing will only cause us (and our son) more problems.

EDIT: Oh and we've tried every kind of chart and rules list you can imagine. Mostly they've been ineffectual. He might follow them for a few days, but in the end he just ignores it. Truly, we don't have issues with him saying bad words or hitting or any of that - it's his difficulty in moderating the volume and pitch of his voice (often sounds like he's yelling even when he's not), his great difficulty having empathy for others, his issues crashing into people or things or not observing other people's personal space, and, when he's not medicated, being so hyperactive he doesn't even seem to be aware of anyone and he just rolls and spins and crashes and falls and bangs into things and throws stuff in the air and is basically uncontrollable. I can't remember the last time he was invited to a birthday party. Luckily, so far, this doesn't seem to bother him. But it might eventually.

Last edited by sinagua on 12 Dec 2007, 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I used to do that ALL the time. In fact every chance I got I would hide them under my tongue. You are very fortunate that he takes them regularly.

Does you kid have a special behavior system? Or is he disciplined like everyone else in the class? Often times regular discipline measures aren't concrete enough for someone with ASD. The ASD kids in our school system use a token or point system. Tokens are squares or whatever velcroed on something (here we velcro them on a strip of old belt), and when they are bad you flip the token to the other side of the strip. Points are numbers on a piece of paper...like 5 points per class (as many as you want for any length of time, but 5 for a class is the most popular) and when they are bad you cross off a point. These systems allow children to see their behavior in a concrete fashion.

maybe you can have a card on his desk that says BREAK or CHILL (if he thinks thats cooler XD) and when he needs a break he can take the card to the break table and "check in." so then it feels less like a timeout.

I also have this book that says al these ways to deal with meltdowns. And instead of having him sit down like a timeout fashion... maybe the teacher can have him do classroom tasks like taking the books back to the library, taking notes to the office, sharpening the pencils, erasing the board, ect... so he feels he's being productive instead of punished.

So far about all they've done is things like having him sit in a corner desk, or facing the wall, or beside the teacher's desk. Or they'll send him to another classroom, or have him sit alone at a desk in the hall for awhile. At worst, he has to go to the office or nurse's office, or they call me to come get him. Yesterday he stayed in a teacher's office until I could come get him. I've never heard of a token system like you describe, but we have tried various behavior charts with magnets at home. Only he got a magnet when he did his chores, instead of having them taken away for bad behavior.

I will write down your suggestion and add it to the list of things to bring up with the school staff at our meeting next week. Thank you for your input.

I'll see about getting him a "CHILL" card - he might like that. Or it might embarrass him - hard to tell until we try. I agree it would be good for him to have ACTIVITIES to do instead of just having him sit somewhere else (not knowing what to do with himself). I also think (and he's asked me) he needs to be given more challenging schoolwork, especially in reading, math, and science.

I should say (because I've forgotten to thus far) that just in the past three weeks or so, they've been having him go down to the kindergarten classes and helping them with their center activities (whatever that means). He says he likes doing this. I think one of the teachers (who has a son his age with AS) has been "taking him aside for awhile and working with him" a couple days a week, but I don't know any details. When asked, he shrugged and just said they do "different stuff," like reading books, playing games, and talking about appropriate behavior and choices.

But all of this has been done "under the table" - NOT as part of his formalized plan. In fact, there was a meeting about 6 weeks ago WITHOUT US (we were not notified), and allegedly someone there told his teachers that he would "never" qualify for services because they can't prove his learning is affected, since his grades are good.

We do not accept this situation, and are working to advocate for him and change it.

it's good that you add. Thats the one problem I have with tokens and points... some kids get so upset after losing one point/token. I think it's important that the kid gets an opportunity to redeem himself.

I remember a student in addition to tokens he had a fill in chart that when he did good things they would fill in a circle, and when all the circles were filled he got a candy. Then they'd erase all the fill in's and start again. You could make it like if he fill's in all of his circles he can regain his point/token.

We have a problem with this sort of talk like you wouldn't believe (actually, it sounds like you probably would believe me).

I took my 7 year old to the pediatrician yesterday and that was one of the issues I raised. I told him that we'd been ignoring the words in the hope that he'd stop.

The pediatrician said that since he's getting laughs/reactions from kids at school it won't stop without negative reinforcement. He said that we can't just ignore it but have to be actively involved;

- saying - "No, that's not acceptable talk."
- changing the conversation if it's in the gutter

etc.

Sinagua,

your son is sounding like mine. He, too, said he would like to go to a new school "where no one knows me."

I do think it is difficult when a child has such self-awareness. They see what's going on but feel powerless to change it. My son is very high functioning, bright, inquisitive and marches to his own drummer.

I am amazed, honestly, with my son's resilience. He seems to maintain a sense of confidence and single-mindedness despite the many negative experiences he's had in his brief time. He is very suspicious and accused the speech lady of trying to get him expelled when he used the word "jerk" on one of her tests she gave him. What eight-year old knows the word "expelled"????? They shouldn't.

I'd love an alternative school. I'm heading in for another PPT in a week and requesting something new--not sure what. I feel like I'm in perpetual limbo.

Maybe periodic change is good for our kids. 1 year kindergarten. 6 weeks summer camp (didn't make it to the end), 5 months catholic school (they didn't even allow him in the christmas pageant (horrible), and his latest school--going on 2 years--maybe we're overdue.

Change isn't so bad. Fresh starts are always fresh and new. Our kids are challenging and eventually irritating to anyone, I suppose, who is trying to manage a classroom and other responsiblities--I know, I teach. So many issues to be addressed and so little time and energy.

equinn

Your kid sounds pretty smart! Yes, sometimes self-awareness can be a gift as well as a curse.

And I suppose change can be good. I just fear that if there is an alternative school for him in our city, either we won't be able to afford it or the waiting list will be years long. He's been in his current (public) school for going on four years, and we've really wanted to keep him there because it's our neighborhood school, and he rides his bike there and home, and we like that sense of "community school." But I'm not feeling terribly welcome in that "community" at the moment! So far, all I've seen them REALLY care about is their financial bottom line, and they seem unwilling to do anything truly proactive until things have gotten so bad the child is showing signs of depression. Great. Way to be supportive. At this point, I'm already so jaded and disappointed with how this school has handled our son, I'm extremely mistrustful and cynical of anything they say or do. In other words, I've already lost faith in them. I'll still give them a chance to surprise me, and perhaps this upcoming meeting will be it - but I don't think we can handle yet another year of this. I'll even homeschool him, if it's the only alternative.

I'm amazed at how the boys in this thread sound so much like my own. Rewards chart never worked for my son. At the low point, they were grading his behavior in 15 minute increments throughout the day.

My son could not control his behavior at school. No matter what kind of supports they gave him. He felt ashamed about it and got extremely depressed. With homeschooling, he is no longer depressed and that's been the biggest improvement. I take him to a 2-hour homeschooling event once a week and the kids there do not know he's Aspergers. He's just another kid and his behavior is good there. He made some actual friends and he made none in public school even though he spent so much more time around other kids there.