Rock Bottom

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Hi, I'm new to this forum,

My youngest son Myles, is 9, and we had a formal diagnosis of Asperger's (yes they still call it that here) about 3 years ago. Things have ticked along nicely. We have celebrated his quirkiness, and most of his problems have been at school, during recess and lunch, when he is left to find his own amusement, and has generally been just the throwing of dirt, sand etc.

We had been seeing a child psych for a while, and I didn't feel we were making a great deal of progress, but things were still okay. We made an appt with a well respected educator who deals with problem children, and he basically told us what we already knew, so we didn't see him again, and decide to carry with our own compass guiding us.

Towards the end of the last school year, we met with the principal, as we do every year, to explain our hopes for the new year. When our child was allocated to his class for the next year, we were a little shocked, as we feel they made a poor choice. I met with the principal and asked them to explain their decision, which they do, and I just say "if there are any problems, we'll deal with them as they happen". We never make demands about teachers. It doesn't work at this school.

Around 2 months ago, during the long summer holidays, things really started to slide. Myles became extremely defiant, and no amount of positive or negative reinforcement seemed to have any effect, and things just got worse. It would be fair to say that Myles, and our parenting style, don't work together that well.

In the first 3 weeks of the new school year, there have been a few reports of defiance with school staff, but today, he threatened somebody with a pair of scissors, after they blocked his way. The teacher was not in the classroom at the time. My wife is very upset, I am very concerned for all involved. The school have asked that Myles be kept home on Monday, and we will meet with school staff on Monday to try and work this all out. The school are being very supportive, but I'm not sure I know what I can tell them. We are of course willing to make any commitments they ask, as well as returning to the specialized help we sought in the past.

Just wondering if anybody has anything they can offer or add?

Paul

Is he being bullied?

If he's being bullied, it needs to be nipped in the bud immediately. It's hard enough for an NT child to deal with, and it would be very hard for an autistic child to deal with imho.

He might react even worse (behave badly) at home because he feels that there's no where to go or no one who can help.

I wish you luck with it all.

Where I live, there's a charity that offers children a one on one buddy with whom they can spend time with (my daughter has one for a few hours ever week). The girl is a young adult still studying to be a social worker but she's young enough to do fun things like Wii, and so forth. If you could find a similar project for your son, that might help him feel better in general.

Maybe you need to try a different child psychologist, someone with more ASD experience. My kids work with an ABA therapist here in the U.S., who has an M.A. in psychology, experience with ASD kids, and special ed teaching certification. She helps them with fighting and other difficult behaviors.

Some really good suggestions here so far, but please, before you have your meeting with the school staff, ask your son for his side of the story. If he was traumatized during class, he may be very hesitant to talk about it, so you may find when he is a little more information if he is in an exceptionally good mood or preoccupied (while he is playing a video game, for example), or when he is very relaxed (right before bed, etc.).

I was told that 8-9 years old is a time of great change for many kids, ASD kids especially. When our DD, who has Asperger's, was 7, the neuropsych we saw said that we could expect major changes in temperament, particular as it involves school and the doctor was right on the money. Here in the US, there are major changes in expectation for 3rd graders (the level of schooling for 8-9 year olds here). In the classroom, executive function/working memory expectations are much higher and children go from learning how to learn to actually learning (new subjects). Couple that with social pressures (and awareness of individual quirks vs. being part of a group) and it's much more difficult for our children on the spectrum.

Hopefully your son can shed some light on some of the worries or changes he is going through. Good luck to you...

I'm afraid I don't understand the meaning of this - cultural difference I am sure. Are you saying that he had been in a special ed classroom (US term) and is now in a mainstream classroom? If this is the case, I would hope that his aggressive outburst is enough to convince them that they have made a bad decision and that he needs those supports.

I agree with audball on the importance of getting his point of view on the situation. Not just the incident with the scissors but as much as he can teel you about what goes on in the classroom. Behavior is communication, we just have a hard time interpreting it sometimes. Remember, he didn't threaten someone with the scissors because he is a bad kid but because his needs are not being met. It may take some serious detective work to figure out what those needs are but when you do, you will have a better time communicating with him.

I had to deal with my daughter being violent at school once. Well...twice really as it happened a first time and she was given a warning that next time she'd be sent home. I work at the school where she attended at the time, so I knew the teacher. When the teacher came to me and asked what to do after she hit another student (in the 3rd grade), I said no question, send her home for a day....she'll hate it and it won't happen again. With her there are real boundary issues, but if she knows a rule (no hitting or you go home), and it's enforced, she can do okay. So I kept her home for the day, no TV or anything....just quiet all day. She actually prefers the schedule/structure of school to being home, so it was torturous and the message got across. End of problem.

Don't know if it would be that easy....it helps if your child loves school.

One of the most noted experts on Aspergers, Tony Attwood, is in Australia. Perhaps you can find out if his office will refer you to an expert in your part of the country?

Reading your whole post thoroughly again though, it does sound like this is more than a school issue...he's having issues across the board. Generally with us, my daughter is either having problems at school and doing fine with me at home, or having lots of trouble at home, but managing things well at school...she can't seem to make both tires stay on the road...just one or the other. But if he's having issues both at home or at school...I would definitely suggest outside help. That's when I've gotten 3rd and 4th (sometimes 5th) parties involved...when things aren't going well anywhere, and I can't manage it myself....and she's realllly struggling.

B

I don't know that he is being bullied, but he is certainly aware of his differences, as are his classmates.



She is the psych who made the diagnosis, but I still feel we will try another one.



I was able to get that out of him, so I was happy just to have that happen.



My son has always been a mainstream class. We outlined the sort of qualities Myles' teacher would need to be successful with him, and they picked a teacher that possessed none of those qualities. They justified there choice, and I was happy with that. Yet "here we are".

Thanks for all other replies, and I can see that this is only a small part of a much bigger picture, however, when I drop it off at school, there is only so much I can do after that. The rest is up to them.

There is a developmental leap in social language between the ages of 9 and 11 that puts kids on the spectrum (who often don't make that leap, either ever - some kids start out with adult language and stay there - or until much later) This is a common place to hit rock bottom, we'd hit it too.

We experienced a horrible year last year (4th grade, DS was 10.) We had the label of Aspergers, but not the appropriate tools to deal with it, and in the middle of the year we had a full assessment done (an ADOS) by a multi-disciplinary medical center specializing in developmental delays. They discovered a large difference between my son's semantic speech (the actual words; he was using college-level vocabulary comfortably) and his pragmatics (social speech, e.g. tone, body language, etc.) The practical upshot of this difference was that DS went from being relatively able to understand what was going on around him, to communicating and understanding maybe about 70% of what was going on. He could not express what was happening to him, and became frustrated, confused, violent, withdrawn, and dangerously explosive. My heart was breaking for him.

The diagnosticians got him into speech therapy and social skills classes, and that combined with other therapies, accommodations at the school, him learning about his deficit and disclosing it to key people he trusted, have made an almost 180 degree change. We've had only one violent incident in the past year, and we were able to handle it quickly and move on - and, more importantly, his teacher realized that the incident might well have been prevented (hindsight is 20/20, right?)

If your son's speech hasn't been tested, that's a place to start. Keep in mind that many traditional therapies don't do well for kids with a language deficit, because they rely on the child's ability to communicate, so finding and addressing this issue first can be important.

Read up on autism. There's a sticky on the top of this board with lots of good suggestions; Tony Attwood was very helpful to us. You are right, you may have to re-think your parenting style: once you have a better idea of what's going on, it will be much easier to do. (I know that we were thinking it would be impossible to keep our tempers and stop yelling. We are by no means perfect now - but having a better understanding has made a HUGE difference.)

Many posters here, including myself, recommend an ebook written by one of our members available at www.asdstuff.com

I have also tried to compile an index of posts here, also stickied at the top; it is far from comprehensive, but checking information by topic may be helpful to you. http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt166142.html

Find out your rights in your school system. In the US, you need to get the school to document your child's disability under IDEA, and provide him with either a 504 (not great, but at least the teacher requests could be made legally binding) or an IEP (stronger and followed more closely by the school.) Most other countries have some version of this; kids with disabilities are protected by law.

I dont like the principal's attitude of we will deal with it as it comes, then he crashes. Sounds like some planning and teacher training could have prevented this, Is there a way to get another teacher. 3rd-4th grade teachers are notrious for being amazingly inflexible and plain abusive. I dont know why this is.
But it seems it is a problem created by the school, therefore it needs to be addressed with the school.
Dont try to make it work with a bad teacher....much goes on behind closed classroom doors that can really cause him to decompensate.
Instead ask for another teacher, if that doesnt work, take the legal route.

Jojo

Is he on any medication. Some SSRI class medications can make children act in aggressive ways that they normally wouldn't.

You will have to be more specific about what things he is being defiant about. Frequently children on the spectrum are accused of being manipulative or purposely defiant when they are not intending to be, and they are actually being asked to do something that they cannot do for one reason or another.

That a child was blocking his path long enough for him to pull scissors and make a threat indicates to me that perhaps he was being bullied and was attempting to defend himself. Children on the spectrum often end up being the "underdog" in the class room. They don't have any allies to stand up for them and the teachers have a tendency to minimize their complaints and accuse them of being whiners or tattle tales. I would ask him how he is treated in the class by the other children and how the teacher handles it when he comes to her about a problem he is having with them.

I agree with Jojobean, but even stronger. BeanerSA, I'm afraid you are taking this too lightly. Your child could suffer long term damage if no one at school has a clue about Aspergers. I would not let the school wait for it to happen, and it could be happening now. My aspie suffers a tremdous amount before he says anything. He simply does not understand what is happening around him. Your son needs protection at least - he cannot protect himself. I would take him out of school until they accomodate all his specific needs.

I have found that the lack of structure and the transition from school to no school, during summer, can make my kids extra obsessive thus more difficult, selective hearing and slow processing are also a factor. A timer and many reminders help with managing their obsessions, chores, and hw. They also get really anxious if they do not KNOW or have CONTROL over what happens on a daily schedule. My advice is create structure, let him help with creating a schedule, make a calendar, something that he can look at and try using a timer. My DD always asks about tomorrow's schedule before bedtime, that way she can prepare herself because if anything unexpected happens it causes her anxiety...and lots of anxiety leads to a meltdown.

My DS is a rule boy, so he finds structure in following directions. If your son is a rule boy, you can make it a rule that if he feels anxious/angry he can (insert something that calms him down here, example draw a picture or rip up a paper or squeeze a sensory ball or scribble angrily on a whiteboard). Also, clearly explain the consequences to breaking any rules ahead of time, not spur of the moment.

Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That is a definition that I seem to see in my life and in the lives of many around me. Regarding parenting, I know that certain things work with my son but not my daughter, or sometimes what worked in the past just doesn't anymore. Years ago, instead of getting angry or upset with my DD, I started asking her if she needed a hug when she was having a meltdown, she was surprised but took me up on the offer. Now she tells me when she needs a hug and it calms her down when angry, sad, or anxious. This has also worked with my son, and I model it by asking them for a hug when I burn breakfast or get scratched by thorns when gardening. Loosing control of your emotions is a scary thing, learning to control our emotions and appropriate outlets for anger is a must, as is recognizing what we feel and being able to let negative things go. I know it isn't easy but through modeling, speech groups, social stories, movies that show appropriate expressions of anger, an outlet for his stress (behavior modification, drawing, jumping on trampoline, tae kwon do, yoga, meditation, classical music, ear plugs, reading books about emotions, etc,..) you'll figure out what works for YOUR son. My DD tried neurofeedback, it was pricey and it is controversial but it really helped with her anxiety. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Faber & Mazlish was a helpful book that gave me many alternatives to yelling, nagging, threatening and criticizing. Sometimes it takes lots of searching and trial and error but keep being your child's great advocate because you are ALL he's got.



Your son felt threatened, he felt that he needed to defend himself, there was no authority figure supervising......sounds like he was being bullied or at least thought he was. What is your son's side of the story? My DD has a difficult time communicating, slow processing, so she would stumble with words esp. when agitated, thus the teacher wouldn't get her side of the story. My DS has no trouble explaining his actions but is a rule boy, and literal, so at times takes things the wrong way. I would try to figure out what happened, who was involved, why there was no supervision, and how to prevent it from happening in the future.

Best wishes to you and yours Paul.

I am wary of this quote in most situations, but with children on the spectrum in particular: while I wouldn't advocate continuing with a parenting style that goes clearly and spectacularly wrong, it's important to remember that no matter what you do, it can take some time to see improvement. There are even situations where things get considerably worse before they get better.