Help me handle an issue with a teacher

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A week ago, I got this email from DS's teacher:

Note that it is in DS's IEP that they double-check his assignment notebook and assignments

And then, more worryingly (an ODR is Office Discipline Referral - basically, he gets sent to the Principal's office)



I asked friends how to react and got a lot of varied feedback that didn't make sense to me, so I adopted a wait-and-see approach.

However, today DS came home and said he was given another ODR for forgetting a book in his locker.

I double-checked with DS: the initial ODR was given for him simply speaking out of turn - he didn't raise his hand and wait to be called on - nothing disrespectful or otherwise seriously disruptive.

How do I handle this? My main concern is the "start focusing on his on self-control and listening during our last 10 weeks. My goal is to see him successful and well prepared for seventh grade." Unless this teacher has a 10-week cure for autism, I only see bad things coming out of this. Plus, apparently the ODRs were threats, she hasn't actually sent him to the office (and DS said she "hasn't filled out the paperwork yet") but the 3rd one means a talking-to by the principal (or something.) It's all very vague.

To top it off, we're getting emails every so often from this teacher about missing homework, but I'm not seeing the homework written down in his notebook (which she is supposed to check.)

The friend I talked to said that DS should step up and accept these consequences on his own (she has a kid who she just got out of a self-contained program, whereas DS had almost zero supports until he was awarded an IEP two years ago. I give her that she's got more experience dealing with an "identified" kid.) OTOH, I worry that DS - who's been doing fantastically well so far in middle school, and who just isn't capable of being as in control as this teacher would like - is going to get frustrated and backslide.

I need some help emailing this teacher in a non-confrontational way. Help?

I would try a low key approach. Something like:

Dear Mrs., So and So,

Thank you for informing me about the ODRs. I am glad that you are communicating with me so we can solve these issues together, and so I can help you help my son. I completely agree that my son needs help with listening and self-control. We work a lot on these skills at home, and it is great that they are being reinforced at school.

Unfortunately, I do not think he currently has the skill set to maintain the amount of self-discipline that is currently being demanded of him. I have worked with my son on these things for a long time and he does not have the foundational skills to make this leap, just yet. That is why he has a teacher notebook check {And anything else you want to list that is relevant} in his IEP. I do not think he is ready for this scaffolding to be lifted, and I hope I can count on your assistance in double checking his notebook so I can help you make sure that his homework gets done. If the homework is not written in his notebook, I have no idea what I need to have him do.

The shift in expectations for him and in what earns an ODR is confusing and unsettling to him. Children with Asperger's do not handle unexpected changes well. I appreciate your care in wanting to test him, but I strongly feel we need to go back to the original expectations as written in the IEP. I am very afraid that putting too much pressure on him at the end of the term will have a deleterious effect on his confidence. I was hoping to come off this year on a strong note to better enable him to but his best foot forward next term.

I know that listening and self-discipline are important skills for seventh grade, and I assure you that we will be working throughout the summer to get him as far as we can with them. I very much appreciate the concern and effort you have shown my son, this year, and I hope that we can both help him to a good start next year.

Yours,

momsparky

ASDMommy, you rock. I've been trying to wrap my brain around this for a week now. Thank you!

It is hard to write when you really want to rip them a new one for being so stupid.

I don't have that much self-control!

I would have said:

I am like a lioness with my children, and I am gearing up for a school fight myself, they do say "he who shouts loudest gets heard".

I think too many teachers fob parents off, do not take their responsibilities seriously and I absolutely detest it when anyone does not do their job properly. People these days don't give a damn about shoddy output in every area of society. Your child is precious, don't accept less than perfect for him.

I would definitely say something to the teacher about the homework. They aren't expected to let it slide when your son doesn't do his homework so you shouldn't let it slide when they don't double check like they are supposed to do. I would say something like "Well, everybody makes a mistake now and then and it's not the end of the world but please try to not let it happen again because that can throw everything off track."

As for the office, I'd let him go to the office if he's sent. While speaking out of turn isn't a huge deal it's still something that isn't allowed in class and it's probably not so much that he's being punished for speaking out of turn so much as he's being punished for not following rules in the class. I know that when I was in school, many times what the teacher told me to do and not do I wouldn't remember or I just couldn't stop myself from doing whatever it was that I wasn't supposed to do. I was sent to the principals office and also paddled for things and while those things were not at all pleasant, my "offense" and the punishment were tied together in my mind and I remembered to not do it in class again. I'm not suggesting they spank him, I'm just telling you what my school did with me. I think it's important that kids learn that there are consequences for inappropriate actions and just going to the principal isn't a very big punishment so I'd say that's probably a good one to use. That way it's something other than the teacher telling him not to do it, or being put in time out if they do that in his grade still, but it's not something that would be very upsetting like suspension, etc. There also may be more "infractions" of the rules that he's done that you don't know about because the teacher didn't send you the info. I can't imagine sending a kid to the principals office for one small thing if that was the only thing, sometimes, like with me when I was little, it can be a pattern of really small things and that needs to be addressed.

I love ASDMommy's response.

An approach that has worked well for me in the past goes something like "I would love to have him develop age-appropriate self control and attention skills in the last 10 weeks as well. The truth be told, so would he. The unfortunate reality is that his lack of self-control and lack of attention are not "behaviors" for him, as they often are in typically developing children. They are not things under his control and they are not misbehaviors. His abilities are constrained by his neurology, and asking him to demonstrate a higher level of self-control and attention than he is neurologically capable of is the equivalent of asking a paraplegic to work on his jumping skills over the next 10 weeks. Where these examples differ is that my son has the hope of one day developing past his current level of functioning, whereas a paraplegic doesn't likely have that hope. "Discipline" only works when the person being disciplined has the capacity to comply. At this time, my son does not reliably have this capacity. What he needs is support.

I would be happy to meet with you to work on some ways of helping focus on these skills. I wouldn't be surprised if my son wouldn't also be interested in participating in the discussion. He is a motivated kid and would like nothing more than to "be like everyone else." He also has some pretty amazing insight into the way his brain works and what might help him. When shall we meet?"

The last paragraph would only work if it is true. But my son is usually pretty good at making suggestions that would work for him and will also help in making decisions regarding when he needs discipline and when he needs support.

Good luck.

Totally agree with ASDMommy and InThisTogether and I think they are speaking to the bigger issue. But I wanted to hightlight what OliveOilMom said. The consequence for somebody not writing down the homework is falling on your son. This may or may not be the teacher's fault, but it certainly is not your son's. Why is he paying the price of doubling up on homework in the wrong week?

Thanks everyone for your input!

I have actually contacted the teachers, including this one, about the assignment notebook (this one is not the only one, and I suppose I should be glad she's telling us the homework isn't being done, rather than giving him an F and not telling us which we explicitly stated they were not to do..but which has happened)

It feels like an uphill battle. If I go in loaded for bear, I'm afraid I will destroy the good will we've built up (and have needed) over the course of the year - we came into our first meeting at this school with a lawyer. I didn't want to let it go, either - for the reasons most of you have stated here (although I did wait to see if this was a one-time thing or if she was going to keep up with it.)

I don't mind them sending him to the office generally (and DS doesn't seem upset thus far) especially if he actually did something wrong, but in these cases, it kind of seems disproportionate even for an NT kid. It is always possible I'm not getting the full story from either of them - but talking without raising your hand and forgetting a book aren't exactly on par with, for instance, mouthing off to the teacher directly. That being said, the reason I let the first time go was exactly what Olive Oil Mom describes - if it's a successful strategy (and not abusive - fortunately, they don't paddle kids these days or I wouldn't be able to get DS to go to school at all) then I don't mind it. Obviously, being sent to the office twice in two weeks - or written up, because it looks like he wasn't actually sent - seems to indicate the strategy isn't working.

I think whirlingmind is also right in that, since I'm not hearing this from any of the other teachers, it's that this one either doesn't understand the disability (I hope) or is just taking out her annoyance on my kid. Fortunately, like I said, my son isn't too upset (I didn't even hear about the first ODR from him, and he wasn't concerned when I brought it up so he wasn't trying to hide it.)

OK, rambling. Will stop now. I'm going to work on an email with DH when he gets home, and I'll post it here after I send it tomorrow. I'd like to go up the chain slowly, so I wanted to address her directly before going up the chain (as I did that with his Spanish teacher earlier this year and it seemed like things escalated a bit, though we did work it out well and he's fine now.)

Hi, I'm not a parent. I am a person who lives my life on the Spectrum, and I try and help others as I'm able.

Socially, I have had more success making a conscious decisions to turn down my internal censor and more likely to go ahead and say something. Combined with the skill of, if a person needs space, go ahead and give him or her space, without the intermediary step of asking whether a person 'should' need space.

When I was in junior high, I also benefited that not all my social eggs were in the one basket of school. Just by luck, my boy scout troop was in another school district, and my judo club was kind of in a third school district.

However . . .

School is kind of the opposite. Under-speaking, holding back, questioning oneself, is what is generally rewarded. Maybe you could present the point to your son, for the teacher to get anything done, he or she needs an orderly environment. And/or, it can feel very uncomfortable to the teacher if things seem out of control (particularly if it seems like 'good' kids are rebelling, too).

Do you know what everyone? You all are excellent parents. You all make sure your children get what they need and you all make sure your children do their work and they are learning. Momsparky, I like the fact that you make sure your son knows what he needs to know like long division. You made him do long division without a calculator unless he was using the calculator to check his answer. Because of this, you were able to derive the fact that no one taught him long division through questioning of your son. I commend you on this.

We've been discussing confidence vs. arrogance here.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt228346.html

I am going to ask you all to do me a favor. Will you use my questions and your answers to them to help your children as well? Maybe my questioning of things and you all showing me where my erroneous premises are can help your children as well. I will continue to ask my questions. Please use them not only to help me but to help your children as well. It would mean a lot to me.

Hearing about problems from schools like this, really worries me. My 8yo has been home-educated for 2.5 years and is just about to start going back to school. She was desperately unhappy at school before, (she didn't have her DX then and it was a different school to the one she will be going to this time). But I know from the type of experiences she had and the anxiety it caused her, if that type of thing happened to my daughter she would be very upset.

She was terrified of the head teacher (who was a bit of a dragon anyway, always shouting), even her teacher noticed that she never spoke up when she had problems (which is a very Aspie thing, and I wouldn't presume your son isn't bothered by being sent to the office as a punishment doesn't bother him, unless you have outright asked him about it).

They used to have a football card system when she was last at school, one day she was in the toilet and the classroom assistant decided that the children (5 year olds) hadn't tidied away quickly enough, so gave all the class a red card as a punishment. The cards were put in each child's little named pocket. My daughter wasn't even in the room and she got one. She obsessed about it for a long time, she was so scared, because like a lot of Aspies she is rule-bound and took it really seriously. It was one of the things that contributed to her crying every night before school, losing weight, losing sleep through worry and ultimately I took her out because she was too unhappy.

Many Aspies have co-morbid anxiety, treating at Aspie child this way is unacceptable.

I hate what school generally does to children. It takes away their joy, their inner creativity and their imaginative qualities. It makes them grow up too soon and lose some of their individuality until they are like automatons. If I didn't so desperately need a break from my daughter's meltdowns and difficult behaviour I wouldn't be putting her back in.

I just think what they are doing to your son is incredibly petty and mean, they clearly don't understand his condition and are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

I have had this conversation with my son in the past, and it is probably time to revisit it just to make sure he remembers.

However, since there is only one teacher out of eight presenting this as a problem, I am guessing it's just this one being intolerant (as I can't imagine that the rest of them would let a constant disruption to their class slide by without at least bringing it up during conferences - I think I made a point to ask.)

I did ask DS if he was bothered by the ODR and he isn't - which is sort of further evidence that it's a bad idea in all kinds of ways (I suppose it would be worse if it caused him to fall apart, but I don't like that he's learning that the teacher's discipline efforts don't matter at all.) This one hiccup aside, he's doing really well in school and getting good support from the staff - it is just this one issue. I am guessing if he was actually sent to the principal's office, the principal might actually talk to the teacher on his behalf, and he knows it.

One thing that has just occurred. Does your son have sensory issues? Is it possible that he does little things he has learned may get him sent to the office because he prefers it there (if it is a calmer environment than the classroom)?

My son has a "break" built into his IEP and he isn't using it lately - so he can go to the office whenever he wants without needing to be in trouble.

He didn't actually get sent to the office in these cases. He doesn't have big sensory issues in the classroom (other than sitting in a chair is spectacularly uncomfortable for him and, yes, this could be part of the issue - but we've addressed it to some degree with an elastic band across the legs of the chair as an option for him if he wants it.) His issues are more social/pragmatic - class discussion is difficult for him.

I need better information, so I'm going to start by emailing the teacher. It seems to me like she's either being intolerant, or she has some crazy idea that this is about "discipline." I have no idea why she suddenly got a bug about this 10 weeks before school ends, either.

Let us know how it turns out, Momsparky.