Frustrated vent type thing

Post Reply New Topic

Today was the Sprout's preschool day. The director called me thirty minutes before the end of school to tell me that he's had a terrible day. He's been sitting in her office being rude and mouthy and occasionally hitting her most of the day. Every time she sent him back to the classroom, he was hitting his teacher. She was mostly calling to let me know that they feel that he is not going to be a good match to continue in his placement there. That they are trying to get the kids ready academically for Kindergarten and if he's in the office all day he's not learning anything, and if he's acting like that in class then he's teaching the other kids bad habits.

I can't really argue with either statement. I mostly sent him to the preschool to get him around other kids his size more often, as all the neighborhood kids are more than five years older than him. But all it really does is result in these frequent bad days and over-stimulated behaviors from him the rest of the day after he's picked up. They are approaching him as being a behavior problem, because when he gets like that, once they've stopped him from hitting others and himself he runs his mouth. He says things that he knows are shocking. Like he hates people. He likes hurting people. He wants somebody to die. Anything he's ever been told not to say, because people don't like to hear it. And he'll say stuff like He doesn't want to listen, he likes to be bad, he likes to hit.

Or like today, "I'm going to hit my teacher so that you'll send me home. When I hit people I get sent home. I want to go home, because I just like my mom."

His verbal skills are not doing him any favors there. All they see is a smart, manipulative brat who needs more discipline and that magical "structure". They were pressuring me today to send him to public school for Kindergarten. Talking about how they handle this kind of thing with in-school suspension, paddlings, and "alternative" classrooms.

So basically, what I foresee happening in that case is that he goes to school. Makes it about two days before he figures out that we mean for him to go everyday. By day 3, we are in full meltdown mode before we even get his pajamas off. Have to drive to school with him screaming and trying to climb out of his seatbelt, while one of the big kids keeps him from unbuckling and from climbing out. Drag him out of the car. Carry him, still kicking and screaming into the office, because no doubt we are late by this point. Deal with the snooty office workers. Have the principal or nurse or someone drag him off of me. Leave to him hitting and kicking and screaming at that person. Hope all day that they aren't killing him to control him. Go get him. Have him cling like a leech to me the rest of the night, interspersed with meltdown behaviors. Then go do it all again the next morning.

I figure a few days of that and the school is going to have had their fill of dealing with him, label him "emotionally disturbed" and stuff in a classroom with low functioning kids who might someday learn how to count to four, and then proceed to use restraints and holds on him right up until he says something like, "I want my teacher to die! I'm going to kill her with a knife!" Whereupon we'll get a nice three day vacation while he's at one of the in-patient mental health facilities being pumped full of drugs.

Worst case I know, but I don't think I am too far wrong. They are wanting to approach him as a behavior problem.

You know what went wrong today? A guest came into the classroom to read to the kids. (he doesn't like that kind of surprise) The Sprout wasn't sitting still so the teacher grabbed him from behind to move him back to his spot. (he doesn't like being touched like that). He lashed out and hit her after she moved him. She put him in time out. (He has never not ended up in a meltdown over time-outs. He has never not melted down over hearing there is a timer attached to an activity). He had a meltdown and ended up in the office, because he was hitting the teacher and screaming at her while she was trying to hold him into the timeout chair. (Once he's had a meltdown, he's fragile and liable to behave badly the rest of the day). They brought him back and shortly after the class was standing in line to go outside. (He's never done well with being in one of those transition areas or with waiting and often gets in trouble on good days in the hallway).

This is a public school teacher. She works in the special ed and alternative classrooms. This is apparently what I can look forward to with public school. Look how it started. A (to him) surprise guest, grabbing him from behind, using timeout (normal thing I know, but bad with him), and escalating it because he's being "defiant".

Oh and their other big suggestion? Take him to counseling, you know, because he's a behavior problem. I am not going through years of them telling him he's a bad kid and telling me that I am a mediocre mom again. Did that with the middle child. No thanks for this kid.

I am just tired. I don't know what is the best thing to do with him. He can't just stay in the house for the rest of his life, yet every time I try to get him around kids it ends badly

Does he have a diagnoses?

Right now he has only had testing with the public school preschool people. He came out as having social skills at 5th percentile. No other delays.

He has a few specific articulation things, like leaving the letter S off S blends, but that was still within normal range for his age.

Have you thought about taking him to a doctor then? You can work with the information you've been given so far and express your concerns. As for preschool, it's a tough environment and I'd suggest to have a gradual entry so he's not thrown into a situation he's clearly struggling with. Unfortunately, he's learned that by hitting, he gets out of something he doesn't want.

Consider on creating an IPP: Individualized Program Plan
It's similar to an IEP but for non-educational environments .. unless, of course, preschools offer IEP's. Then address social issues and triggers.

This teacher sounds like a nightmare. Even more disturbing that she works in the special ed classrooms.

I agree with ASDsmom that you should take him to a doctor. I think it would be really helpful to get him an evaluation outside of the school system. Ridiculous that she is speaking of in school suspensions for a preschooler. If you get a proper diagnosis, you might be able to find an alternative school that the DOE pays for.

I know kids in my kid's school who have similar behavior to your child in Kindergarten. They get counseling at the school and are assigned a para professional.

I'm sorry this is happening.

I am sorry. They are usually more tolerant in pre-k. I can understand how you feel as this is how I felt for the latter part of last year (2nd grade) I wish I had better advice for you, and that I had learned something I could impart to you.

When we put our son in Pre-k, it was in a special-ed environment because of potty issues and it was only a half-day, around just a handful of kids. Our son was below 1 percentile socially. I did all the academics, which was fine b/c at that time he was ahead in that anyway.

Maybe he can only handle a short day with a few kids?

The teacher sounds like a real piece of work. He is so little, yet, and they are so quick to label him with pejoratives.

I'm sorry I made it sound like she is saying in school for him in preschool. She was talking about Kindergarten. He turned 5 in June and should be starting K in about a month, but I signed a waiver. The age of requirement in my state is 6, so parents can sign a Kindergarten Waiver and then the following year when the child is 6 either put the child in Kindergarten or First Grade.

So my plan has been to have him keep going to this preschool (a private not special ed one) one day a week for the being around other children aspect (since everyone keeps telling me that I absolutely have to get him around more kids) while we did our homeschool work at home the other four days. Now, though, the school doesn't want him back this fall, and are strongly encouraging me to take him to counseling and send him to public school.

Bright side of this day? My husband has finally started to admit that the kid requires special handling, and he has FINALLY agreed to let me take him to the one place in the state that does comprehensive evaluations. I will be going tomorrow to the doctor's office to ask for a referral. The waiting list tends to be a few months, but at least it's the start.

Ugh, I would be so frustrated.

My son was pegged as a "problem" by his preschool.

When he went to kindergarten, all the behavior issues evident at the preschool magically disappeared.

Until, at least, new stresses came into play. But the change did make it obvious the preschool had, all along, been the wrong place for him and I could have solved so much a whole lot earlier if I had understood that.

What I want you to take away from my story is that just because your son is struggling in this preschool does not mean he is destined to the fate you worry about. With so many schools being very wrong for our kids, you may have to experiment to find the rare one that is right, but always believe that there will be someplace your son can succeed, if you can only manage to find it. I really believe that. Don't ever settle for anything less.

I don't know if I would trust the pre-K teacher's view of kinder. She may have no clue what your options are. We were fine in public kinder, but our district has multiple Early Childhood Centers and we were in the one where they "got it." When it was time for Elem and we were completely mainstreamed, that was when the issues really came to a head. Last year was bad b/c the one person who "got it" was out for weeks. By the time she got back, the damage was done. In first grade they (finally) gave him an aide. In second, they had some part-time inclusion aide thing which did not work b/c it was not enough, and the "aide" was not well-trained and she made things worse rather than better.

So my advice would be to see what the public school district offers before you decide what to do. With us, if we had a local school that worked, that would be what we would do. It doesn't work, so we are homeschooling, as I absolutely am not willing to put him through more. I suspect, but do not know, that he was trying to be sent home, too.

We have always "opted out" of paddling, which may also be an option. (I would not have been OK with a school that insisted on hitting my child.)

If the public school thinks like last year's pre-k teacher, then you do not want your kid there. The eval will give you the perspective and the ammo you may need, and he may get useful services. School worked for us, until it didn't, if you know what I mean.

Problem is, without a diagnosis and a BIP (Behavior Intervention Plan) that works for a kid on the spectrum - that's how our kids get treated: like smart brats. (Yes, honestly, even sometimes with both of those two.)

What stopped it for us? We reframed the issue as a legal one at school: it was his right under IDEA to receive services and treatment that addressed his needs. When DS acted out because the school wasn't doing their job, we made sure we had paperwork to show what was supposed to happen and emailed somebody in authority (politely) with expressly how the BIP plan wasn't followed.

Sadly, schools are hypersensitive to the idea of legal intervention. We did finally bring a lawyer to one meeting (that is a giant, expensive pain in the ass if you can avoid it) and that may well have helped, too. The sad truth is also that you can't talk about legal rights unless you get a diagnosis that defines your child as being disabled. (Which makes me really, really angry as there are tons of kids with social and pragmatic deficits that have them because of their environment and therefore are treated just as badly or worse than AS kids, but whose needs will go unmet because they don't qualify as disabled. We have an exceptionally messed-up system for outliers.)

The good news: I think once the school realized that DS did fine when offered all the supports we suggested (which were not in any way unreasonable) they stopped being idiots about it.

Kind of to piggy-back a little on what Momsparky said, I think one of our problems was even though we had a BIP, there was really nothing in it but goals for him because at that time he was "fine." So until things really bothered them nothing was really being handled. So it is not just about getting a BIP. You have to plan for future issues down the line, which they do not want to do. They will want to be reactive and not proactive, which for us was a big problem. Then when things got bad, they had no clue what to do. As per the good advice on the board I got them to finally do a functional behavior analysis, but at that time they showed they had no idea what they were doing and I decided I spent enough time with them, and he was better off not dealing with them.

So so so hard. I started homeschooling in late fourth grade (he's now going into 7th.) My son was in special ed for preschool and kinder and it was OK. He was more of a non-starter then, absolutely no behavior trouble whatsoever. It helped a bit as he got OT and speech (he was non verbal until he was 3.) But he's so smart, so he came out of special ed and was in the regular classroom, and then he was tested and was gifted, but then his attention issues got really really bad, and then he had a couple minor behavioral incidents and then I pulled him out.

It has been AMAZING. I was extremely successful in academics, so it was hard for me to feel like I was doing enough actual teaching of actual content from actual subjects, but I got over that as I started to see that there is so much learning going on in other realms. We live on a ranch so that helps - chickens, horses, cats, dogs, and of course we could garden but I'm very lazy about that although I do have a lovely flower bed that he helps me with. Also I had to spend so much time with OT type stuff and basic life skills type stuff - no way I had time for that when he was in actual school. Recycling, vacuuming, doing dishes, building with legos, watching educational stuff on Netflix... Tying shoes, buttoning jeans, modeling social interactions - all important and all stuff we have time for now.

We had a really great income for a while so he went to art class and math tutoring and karate and soccer and day camp type things, both to fill in what I was not doing and for the social interaction. We have a terrible income situation now but I signed up with a charter school for homeschooling families, and since they don't provide any curriculum, they instead give us about $600 per semester for classes or materials.

Having the ability to change plans, to not do much if necessary, to not have to rush around and not have to deal with other people's inept attempts at managing my son has been just the best thing ever.

So probably from my experience you can tell that I'd say it's not important for your son to be in preschool for the social aspect. You can provide that in smaller doses. If you can't homeschool, or don't want to, I'd for sure see about getting some sort of diagnosis so you can hurry and get an IEP. It's supposedly not required but it sure helps speed things along. I would share a lot of your concern about your son being labeled a "bad kid" who can't behave. If there is a realm in which he's better behaved, I'd try to keep him mostly in that realm, not only so his incidents of bad behavior are lessened but also so he doesn't come to see himself as a certain way. Keep in mind that homeschooling doesn't have to take place during certain hours - if I ever had to go back to work outside the home, I would attempt to cobble together relatives and paid people to watch and maybe tutor my son while I worked, and then I'd pick up the slack when I had time, before I'd send him back to a traditional school.

As for behavior modification, none of the usual stuff worked on either of my kids either. I can't give time outs as they won't take them, and then I have to come up with a punishment for not doing the time out. My daughter had the "take your time out and until you do, no privileges" deal, and she'd go for days with no privileges to avoid sitting in a chair for five minutes. I instead reframed them as comforting and discussion sessions, and that goes over a bit better. The only thing that works for my son is earning computer/video game time or earning money. At your son's age, both my kids tore up more star charts than I can remember, as the whole concept of stars or smiley faces on a chart just really pissed them off. It's hard. Keep us posted and good luck.