BIG problem! Need some advice... sorry for length.

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Hello everyone,

Long story please bear with me....

Wednesday I went to pick my sons up from school and a girl that is in my aspie sons class came up to me and told me that a group of boys were being "really mean to ds. The boys were putting thumb tacks on his seat, and throwing things at him." I asked the girl if my son had done anything and she said "no, he was just trying to defend himself." My son came out and started to cry the mintute he got up to me, he has never cried when he has been picked on, so I knew it was pretty bad.

I called the principal the minute we got home and left a message, and videotaped the scratches and marks that were on my son's face, chest, arms, and back. The principal called back and said that there was another parent that was in the her office when I had called saying that my son had done something to her son. I told the principal what I had been told by the girl that was in class, and the principal said she had already talked to this girl and that what she told me was not what she had heard from her but that she would investigate and call me back the next day.

I lady I know who has a son in my sons class had gone in to the building prior to school letting out so I called her to ask if it had been her son to find out what had happend if it were him, she said that it had not been her son involved but that she would call me back after she questioned her son.

An hour later she called and she was upset and told me that her son had told her and her husband that 4 boys had been throwing things at my son and had been putting tacks on his seat and then the one boy that has bullied my son since day one had also pushed my son into the coat closet and had been punching and kicking my son.

The lady was upset and told me that her husband would go in the next day and tell the teacher what they had been told so that they would know that something had happened to my son and that we were not making it up.

After I was told this I finally broke down and filed a police report because this boy is one of 3 boys that has continued to bully my son and every time we complain and ask to have something done~ nothing is done. It has not helped that these boys wait for when no adult is watching to go after my son.

The next day I talked with our advocate who advised me to call the area director of the schools to complain and make them aware of the situation. The principal called yesterday afternoon and told me that there was going to be a meeting between her and the parents of all the kids involved and I told her that I had been told some more things that had happened and she told me she already knew and that what I was telling her was not consistant with what she had been told.

My advocate and a friend of mine that is an advocate told me that the meeting was againest my sons civil rights and that they were crossing the line, the principal was not following the proper guidelines so therefore I should not go to the meeting. Principal called back today very annoyed that I had involved the area administrator and also the head of the schools special ed department.
The principal had me on speaker phone while talking to me because the head of the special ed department was there as well, the principal informed me that she did not understand why special ed was being involved since it was had nothing to do with what happened. I told her that yes it does involve special ed due to my son has aspergers and it affects how he respondes to stress and with what was going on.

The principal then said that my son had a hand in what happened and I had asked her the day before to tell me what exactly he had done wrong and she refused to tell me saying that it would not be fair to tell me until we were all together with the other parents. I told her again that I have been going on with what I had been told and that she has refused to inform me of what exactly my son supposedly did so therefore I had no clue as to what was really going on, yet it seems like everyone else knew what had happened. The principal became very upset and told me that I was more than welcomed to come to the meeting or she would meet with me another time in private to discuss the matter and that was the end of the conversation.

I picked my son up today from school and he said "I am sorry mom I just went along with it" I asked him what he meant and he said that he had been called down to the principal's office and she had another person in there taking notes and she asked him what happened he told her but when he was done she asked him about how one of the boys had been hit or poked with a pencil... my son told her that he might have accidentaly poked him when he was trying to get out of the way from being hit, or the boy might have been hit with something that was being thrown. The principal told him "No, that is not what I have heard from 18 other students, what did you do?" My son told her the same thing that he did not know what really happened because things were being thrown at him and he could have done it but he did not know~ the principal kept telling my son "No, thats not what happened" She also told him that he was not going anywhere until he told her the truth (she wanted to hear what she wanted to hear period) my son said it was almost time to go so he just said fine I hit him. My son was late getting out to the car, and I know she did this because this is what she has done to me the past 2 days saying "No that is not what happened" The principal said that my son getting pushed into the coat closet and being punched never happened. She said this after she had said that I was not there and neither was she so we did not know what really took place.

I am at my wits end! Every single time we complain about bullying and what has happened to our son the very next day they start complaining about any and every little thing my son does wrong trying to make him look bad and untrustworthy.... every time. You can count on the complaints on my son coming in constantly until we end up dropping the matter.

We have asked our son how things got started Wednesday and he said he does not know and that he really did not mean to hit the other boy if he did, mind you the other boy was supposedly one of the boys that was helping with throwing things at my son. We kept questioning our son about what happened with the other boy being hit or poked and our son said that he honestly does not know how the other boy was poked or hit. You can tell when my son is lying and he is not lying about this.

Any advice I would appriciate. My other question is if it is possible that my son could not really know what happened when the other boy was poked due to things being thrown at my son at the time, and due to stress of what all was going on? Thank you I have recieved some great advice on here from everyone and I appriciate the help everyone!:)
~Kristen

Jesus Christ - a Police report!

-what is wrong with the world today - have the hippie generation really ruined the neo-hippie generations that bad!

--get over it.... all kids did the thumb tack thing, I remmember getting plenty in the arse... yes your kid got a bit of the taste of cave man exclusion.

...I was put into cave man exclusion in my primary years at year 3 for the entire year and some the next year aswell.... imagine having to have to cope with having to go back to school after a years with of being enterily alone and having todo it again the next year. It was all spawned by 1 kid that every sheep child followed. - I never told a single soul, even though I cried myself to sleep.

...It happened again in my formal years... form about day 14 of highscool the exclusion started... luckily I wasn't alone... but I was one of the bullies favourites... imagine being called by your name in a shrill smiling voice by everyone in the room at once,,, over and over again for two years.


....Believe it or not society has a way of helping out the weak - my constant torture taught me the aspects of society and probably did more than anything else to help with any asperger's symptoms that I had.


...Let him be, leave the police out of it, talk to the parents of the bully 'oh well kids will be kids' ... all your really doing is excarbating the problem by keeping the issue alive, let it go, the less input you have over it, the more input your son as, and therfore he will find the solution on his own behalf not
yours. (I actually got a Bully kicked out of Hich School without my parents ever knowing, if my parents were to have butted in throughout my formative years maybe I wouldn't have developed any intelligence to deal/cope with such issues)

Erlyrisa, you might be taken more seriously if you don't resort to name-calling. Or is that valuable wisdom that the Bullies gave you?

Galileostar,
I'd pull my son out of that school immediately. The principal is unwilling to work with you and is behaving in an illegal manner with your son. She is the one who calls the shots in that school, regardless of your son's IEP status. The district will panic when they start losing $$ from your son being absent and the possibility of him being homeschooled.
I did that and all of a sudden the district started to listen. Coincidentally, the principal has left the school.
I have mixed ideas about the police report. We have a definite bias against police and it doesn't sound like your son was seriously assaulted (what grade? if elementary, then those kids don't need the cops). And the tables can be quickly turned, as you're seeing the principal getting your son to testify against himself. That's an old cop trick.

You need to deal with this in a logical way. Make sure you know what happened and keep a log of these events. Make sure you know the principal's stance, the special ed's stance and the teacher's stance. Then go to the district. Otherwise, you'll have to backtrack and have meetings with people and that will take time.

The "who started it" is nearly irrelevant. It's really about how this is being handled in light of the fact that your son's ability to cope is impaired. The teacher and principal are responsible for the children's safety and learning while in school.

Erlyrisa,

I did not want to file a police report, but have been advised to start doing so do to the fact that this has gone on and goes on constantly and the school does nothing. By filing a police report it starts a paper trail that we can fall back on when the school has a complaint filed againest them.

Im sorry but there are too many children these days "snapping" because of constant bullying and it can end with the tormmented child either commiting suicide or taking a gun or knife to school to end the bullying.

Even the police officer who talked with us said that bullying is nothing like it use to be when we were kids (I'm 29, and he was the same age.) The officer even said that the bullying is worse now of days and it is not getting any better.

Trust me I am FAR from being a hippie mom... this is just one big problem that has happened there have been many many other incidents that have happened but I had just let them slide and told my son to stay away from kids~ guess what it does not work and it has only been getting worse and more out of control. ~Kristen

galileosstar,
I'm so sorry that your son is going through this.
Let your advocate know what the principal put your son through... that sort of behaviour is reprehensible. She should not have called your son into her office in that manner without you being there.

Bullying is a serious matter and I do agree with you on the police issue. There's no way the principal would have taken you seriously without it.

If I were you I'd remove my son from that school. It clearly is not a healthy place for him to be now. The bullies should have been dealt with appropriately but clearly they are being protected by their principal and their parents.

That is a very interesting piont to make - and you are absolutely right.....

In nearly all cases of kids being bullied at one stage you will see that kid repeat the the same techniques on some-one they believe tobe weaker (with it some times backfiring) ...it's called learning.

By padding your children (And I made the hippie remark here, because it's only the parents of today that do the padding, turning the next generation into closet freaks) your actually depriving them of education. Sadly the parent of today thinks that every sinlge moment of their childrens lives have to have thier input.....

Try this. Don't talk to your child for an entire day! - if a parent can handle that, then maybe they can learn to cope with letting thier kids , ride thier bike alone, or cross the street alone.... today you see parents taking control to the extreme where even the backyard has to be supervised.

--It's no wonder that Syndromes like ADD and Aspergers are more prominent : parents take thier kids to the doctor for the slightest of troubles. ...Oh my child has a coff, must be bird flu!

I beleive as a society we will see more and more special case syndromes come to light, to the piont where each individual child on the planet will have thier own syndrone named after them.



---AS an Aspergers sufferer -- your child should be left, even MORE ALONE...... they need to figure things out themselves, spoon feeding an Aspie child is very irritating to the child (unless he/she has learnt that it's ok to be helped - took me 28 years to figure that out)


---Taking the child out of school -- I remember a Kid in primary that was taken out in His first year (Yeah he was teased - a very little bit though, he must of been the mummies boy type) -He still lives in the area. You can see by his facial expression and overall social interaction that he has never developed any social cognitative abilities - why - cause mumy and daddy took care of every little problem he ever had - even his car was bought by them. -this kid will never survive in the real world. The best he can do is nodd, say yes and do what others say.... or he can re-cluse and shun himself fom society.. Maye if he had of stayed, and been teased a little, learnt from the teasing and torture... developed skills to handle such situations..interprete social interaction without his mental ills being the forefront of thought.... he could be a merchant banker (he still delivers pizzas).


--Now I realise my blatant thoughts about parenting are just that blatant (especially considering I don't have kids -- although I was a scout master, but I really didn't care what happens to other peoples kids, so I can't have the feelling of 'oh not my little Johnny!') -I just hate the fact that parents are too involved today... kids used to be able to do things, now they're controlled into doing activities. -I haven't seen kids on the street in near odd ten years now - what happened to them - is everyone born autistic now or what? - or have the generations of bleeding heart parents listening to too much media trend are muffling, stifling and bubble wrapping children un-needlessy. the strangest part is that an Autistic Spectrum kid should be the last to be stifled - maybe I found the cure to autistic syndromes.

Again I apologise if I am being upfront.... just telling the parents from the childs perspective.

Erlyrisa, Riding a bike and crossing the road are life skills. Dealing with being harassed and bullied is not a life skill. if someone beat you up- you would have the choice to go to the police or not. If you don't then it's your choice. When a child is beaten up - even in the context of bullying - it is still assault and a police matter. It's up to the child's parents to call the police.

And not talking to your child for a whole day borders on abuse. Imagine what that will do to your child's self esteem? Learning how to be a bully is a horrible lesson. What ever happened to treating others with respect? Or is that a lesson that doesn't matter anymore?

If the original poster removes her child from that school, that doesn't mean that there isn't a better school out there. A school where the administrators have brains and know how to deal with the problems that arise.

I must say Thank God parents are being more involved in their child's lives now. For too long we've had latch key kids where the kids were left to raise themselves. We are finally recognizing and dealing with problems as they arise. There's no boom in the prevalence of ADD and Aspergers... we are finally dealing with what has been going on all along.

Why is it that Riding a bike is a life skill and putting up your dukes isn't?

Why is it that parents think that watching their kid ride the bike will protect the child somehow - it's not like you can stop the kid from falling - oh yeah that's right parents of today whatch their kid ride bike to keep reminding the 'Johny don't jump your bike you will fall' - not only are you depriving your child from experiencing a fall, your child will always expect an authority figure around at all times of thier lives - guess who the authority figure becomes when they are adults - THE MEDIA!

-Let your kids get into mischief, let them hurt themselves, let them be bullied and to bully (to an extent, one kid in my primary liked to piss on kids - he had to go to be taught a lesson)

-Now adays parents complain about Mc-Donalds making thier kids fat, they complain about the school making thier kids do things that the parent believes they shouldn't - like camping. It's sad that the next generation will be nothing more than a flight of drones for corporations to control.

-Have any of you read the LORD OF THE FLIES..... piggy dies because he pretends to be an adult in a society of children - let the children be children, don't steal thier childhood for your own peace of mind..... parents should always be on edge, wondering if thier child made it home from school amongst all the boggie men. (oh I forgot you pick up your child in your SUV everyday after school)

I know exactly what happens to undiagnosed Aspies that are left alone, left to fend for themselves, even with brutal physical, sexual and emotional abuse. It's not good.

Agree with you there KimJ!

--I think I turned out OK (albeit I'm not Autistic, it's just mild Asperger's Symptoms - though I guess it could have gone the other way if my parents had have known - maybe they would have started smother - hten again my mum still smothers to this day, you just can't help mum - dad has to be the logical parent)


-For truly hard blown Autistic Symptoms - none of what I have said throughout this post would make any sence - you have to whatch the kid that decides it's a good idea to use a knife as a hair comb.
-But as a tip... for the kids that only have social retardation and the occasional bright idea - a ghost like presence is preferable to the Autority figure.
(My parents were the best ghosts in the world!)
-Next time johnny decides that Sticking a Knife in the toaster is fun (yes it's more of an ADD thing) just whatch untill the last minute- you never know he may just change his mind before acutally going through it. (Yes it's a bad example, But the fire would have never been light in the LORD OF THE FLIES if piggy would of had anything to do with it.)


Brutal-abuse - I think today the relativity of abuse has been twisted. Today male parents are scared to touch thier own duaghters. Grandparents have been scorned for kissing thier grandkids in public. California wants to ban all corporal punishment, inlcuing what a parent should be able to dish out themselves.. the british child services have a say in childrens wheight, taking the child away for apparent neglect. ---where does it stop, as the next generation grows up they will allow chips to be installed upon artificial insemination.

This discussion can't be helping the thread originator. You have taken my comments and put them into your own context and situation. You are also using crude stereotypes to describe what it is to be Aspie or Autistic (I believe they are interchangeable terms, btw). When I use terms like "brutal abuse", I mean coming close to killing a 4 year old in 1972. 1976, letting a 7 year old walk miles to school, alone in East LA. Letting your 3 year old son sit for hours with a broken arm because he can't express himself and when he does, you don't believe him anyways.
You claim to be a child, I'm not. I know adult autistics and adult aspies who went untreated, unhelped, unsupported and unloved. Life existed before 1980 and lots of very brutal things happened. It didn't just toughen them up, it gave them PTSD, depression, it modelled unhealthy lifestyles and killed a couple of them.

Back to the topic at hand. . .

Thank you KimJ,

I am wondering if I made a mistake in posting this for advice.
My problem is that the school has failed to follow my son's IEP. They have failed to address issues that we have brought to them. We have requested multiple times for case conference to handle the problems that are at hand and they have yet to do this~ they have been asked to set up case conferences since November and December and here we are in March and they have yet to provide any help.

The boy that beat my son has been a constant problem since last year and they have had as of yet do much to stop this kid from bullying (my son is not his only target I guess).

I will make a point to contact my son's teacher to see where she stands in this issue and I have already tried to contact son's special ed teacher to get her thoughts on this. I am sure I will hear back from her next week.

This will be the last year our son's attend this school... thank you for the advice on making sure we talk with everyone so we do not have to back track.

--Kim

-Yeah your right I'm off topic....

-It's a shame how America has spiraled into , in many aspects, a decaying society. -your right East LA probably not the best place to raise a child - so why would you live thier. ... I walked 4Km to school everyday (and rode when my bike when it worked - I liked to pull it apart) - today I drive past my primary school... and you can't get past the main entrance... it's clogged with SUV driving soccer moms.

...the topic at hand.... I think I (and the opposing arguments) have helped in maybe 'highlighting' the overly zealous concern a parent can have for thier child....

remember it's just thumb tacks and rocks - geez you think no-one else other than YOUR child has ever had a rock thrown at them.... get a grip. If the bullying is ONLY directed at the one pupil... then yes it is probably a good idea to move schools (as advice, I would do it in a way which doesn't highlight the fact that you switched schools as a result of the bullying-but it's too late for that now ain't it because the parent has already made a big huha about it)

-find out if other kids are being bullied my the same shephard and his flock -- if others are being bullied then I wouldn't worry about it.


-another example from my childhood....

In my second year of highschool was a bully that decided that I would be his punching bag for the year. It took me a while but after a chemistry class about magnesium used as a laxative, I stole some laxative from my parents and sprinkled it on my chips (the bully would always steal my chips) ... in the end the teachers had a good laugh when they found out it - I wonder if the parent of the bully was the bleeding heart type -maybe I would have been kicked out of school. .. amazingly enough the bully stopped bullying me... I think he respected my retaliation. By the time we were in our last year of high school we were sittin next too each other in our english class and could have been mistaken as being long time chums. -oh and yes the laxatives did work, by 3pm everyone who had even tasted the chips was running to the toilet... an the effect lasted all night,,, I was almost a hero the next day. -these are the types of memories that can be stolen by a parent by smothering them.... if my parents had have locked the kitchen up and hidden the laxatives then I would have never been able to do something on my own. (Yes leaving the gun closet unlocked is probably not agood idea - but if you got guns and a family, what kind of person are you anyway - that's right a Texan.)

They are completely out of compliance and you should have pulled him out months ago. They are getting paid for not doing their job. They get extra monies for having special needs kids. They get credit for having "tough", "hard to reach" children. If they don't even conduct a meeting, then they don't care and you should document this and pull him out.
Our district people kept telling us that there were no other alternatives, that our teachers didn't have to improve and that our son required more help than they were required to give him (wrap your brain around that one).
Well, they found alternatives when I pulled him out. BTW, he wasn't the one getting beaten, he was the one hurting others. He was being mishandled and provoked into meltdowns, tantrums and dysfunction. Completely unacceptable. Now he's in a school where he no longer needs 1-1 assistance, he stays in class all day and if he breaks the rules, he accepts the teacher's consequences. The difference is that they understand his special needs and allow him to adjust. They don't expect him to be NT.

Hi Kristen

I am an aspie now in my 20's I had the same problem at school,
I'm sorry to say that other then changing school theres not much that you can do I know tat what is happening to you and your son is probably illegal bit teachers don't often care about us aspie's the princpel sounds like a bully and hed be better some place else,
Im really glad that you care and belive your son becomes life will be hard for him but its much better to having loving parents at least theres somwehere safe for him to go to.
Its likely I think that your son cant rember what happened , heres another example bear with me
to complete an IQ test one of the things you must do is put a set of cards with pictures on in the correct order to tell a story, people with AS find this task diffcult beacuse they only concentrate on small details as opposed to the whole picture, well in the case of this bullying incident your son was probably concentrating on hurting from having stuff thrown at him or on being pisesd off or any other small thing therfore he wouldnt of noticed faces or what he was doing
I hope your son finds a better school,
sorry about my sp.