Can a teacher force you to put your child on medication?

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My aspie daughter is 14 and started high school 2 months ago. I thought she was transitioning rather well because she got into the aspergers program (3 regular courses with one class to learn social and coping skills). She also has a van that takes her to and from school. She was really happy to meet other autistic people and enjoys their company a lot. She even has a boyfriend in the program (a guy she knew two years ago from school) and a friend whose a girl with autism too.

So I felt like we had come full circle after a rough year last year getting her diagnosed and getting her into the right high school. I was having a lot of behavioural problems with her too because she was having violent tantrums and being destructive. For the past 4 months, I have had her on 5-HTP which is a natural remedy for anxiety and depression. It has helped me a lot for the same thing, so I thought we would try it. I have noticed that her tantrums are far fewer and way easier to calm (that could be because I am parenting her more like I always have before and not coddling her just because she has autism). She also is separated from her twin now that they are in different schools and the time apart has been good for them, to have their own friends and high school experience. (They were in the same class room all day last year which caused a lot of drama with the teachers and friends.)

I guess the honeymoon of the great new school is wearing off and my daughter is seeing what she can get away with at school. She knows that she has a lot of accomodations, so she refuses to attend class and prefers to do her work in the hallway or in the EAs' office. I think she likes the extra attention with having her favourite EA around because she talks a lot about how great she is.

Her aspergers teacher on the other hand - she finds annoying and gets upset with her for hovering while she is working in the resource room. I got a call last week that even though her progress report showed two classes as progressing excellently and one good, now they think she isn't doing great work and they have to waste a lot of time getting her to go to class and do work and the work she does isn't so great. They want to medicate her and she even asked my daughter "Doesn't your mom have a drug plan?"

So now I am in a panic trying to find out laws in Ontario Canada about schools forcing children on medication. I am really worried about the side effects, so I prefer the natural route that is working pretty good now. I also have no drug plan and am worrying that it will cost me hundreds of dollars to medicate her if we have to go that route.

Is there anyone in Canada that knows the legislation or the school protocol for medicating children? Also, can anyone tell me what an antidepressant typically costs when prescribed? I am panicking at the whole thing because I don't want to go broke medicating my daughter.

I can't answer any of your questions definitively except that to say that I do know anti-depressants don't have to be expensive.

But I'm with you on not thinking drugs have to be the answer. And anti-depressants on teens are a risky business, if that is the category you think they want to push on you.

Have you discussed these issues with your daughter, and asked her if she thinks she could improve her behavior and comply? Can she verbalize why she makes the choices she does? Maybe if she understands the equation she will work harder at it. In the days my son was having a rough time I discovered he would do almost anything to avoid going on medication because he absolutely did not and does not want anyone messing with his brain and moods. Just knowing that medicating him had come up in conversation was enough to push him to work out some of his issues himself; not that is was magic, but he became willing to experiment with a variety of ideas and was actively brainstorming options, as well. And then eventually one stuck.

Yes I did talk to her about the medication and I even asked if she was misbehaving on purpose to get meds like her friends. (Apparently everyone in her aspergers program is on prescription meds and she was thinking her 5-htp that was natural and not prescribed is not as good). We did talk about how french class is at the end of the day and she just feels too stressed to handle it at that time. She mentioned to me about her aspergers teacher is hovering over her and breathing on her and she feels like she is waiting for her to do something bad. I will bring up these points at the meeting I am having at the school soon.

I think it will be antidepressants they want because this teacher mentioned in June that she takes them and so does her husband. She also mentioned how Temple Grandin mentioned wishing someone put her on antidepressents because she felt so much better after taking them.

Both my daughter and I already feel that she is medicated. She realizes that the 5-HTP has really helped her. When we started on it, she was crying that she hated life and felt like all she had to look forward to in life was food or games. On 5-HTP, she only eats when she is hungry. I think her anxiety was making her eat far more or maybe puberty. I just find her so much better than she was when I was posting on here a lot saying what was I going to do with her violent tantrums and her destructive ways. She isn't perfect of course, but way way calmer.

I wonder if I go see my family doctor and explain that they want her on something if he would say that 5-HTP is her antidepressant. I know he has never been one to hand out medications unless necessary. When I had to have sleeping pills a couple of times over the years, he would only give me enough for a few days. And he knows that I have been taking St. John's Wort, another natural antidepressent, for years.

I did ask her if she could tone her behaviour down and try to get along, so when I go to this meeting, they aren't pushing drugs. Unfortunately, my daughter is so impulsive and has a hair trigger temper, so telling her to behave to avoid meds likely won't change her behaviour much.

My coworkers were making me think she could get kicked out of the aspergers program if I don't comply with drugging her and I just feel that they should know how to handle her better. It cannot be surprising that autistic people get upset.

There was also a reason for her to feel really upset last week - last Wednesday we had the shooting in Ottawa at the parliament buildings and a soldier and the shooter were killed. They had my office building and many other's on lockdown because they thought there may be another shooter or shooters. My daughter was convinced I had been shot because she knew I like to go run errands on my lunch hour. She really thought something happened to me and was rolling on the floor having a freak out. So the teacher called to have me calm her down and let her know I was safe which of course I did.

The good news, if it comes to that, is that most antidepressants are pretty affordable. However, that doesn't mean I think you should use them. They have a time and a place-- and it's when anxiety is totally paralyzing and suicide is on the horizon, not for the mere convenience of school employees.

I don't know how it works in Canada. In the States they cannot force you to medicate; in my state they aren't even allowed by law to recommend it. Parents have to bring that up.

They CAN label you non-compliant and basically treat you like crap (be a pain in the neck to work with, dismiss everything you say, behave as if there are no other interventions simply because there are no other interventions that don't require them to DO SOMETHING).

If the teacher is standing over her, I don't blame her for preferring to work in the EA's office. I like to work late at night or early in the morning because I can't stand my MIL standing over me while I work. Having people watch me work makes me extremely nervous; unless it's my kids or I'm giving someone a hug, having someone within about 18-36 inches of me raises my blood pressure.

I think that's a pretty common autism thing. Hell, I think that's a pretty common PEOPLE thing. I don't know ANYONE who doesn't get bothered by having someone breathing down their backs.

I hope not, but it's starting to sound like you might be stuck with a teacher who's been listening to Autism Speaks and now thinks it's their mission in life to "help fix those poor children."

And I don't know how to fix that. It's not like regular public school was working swimmingly, or like you have the time and resources to homeschool the child.

I guess a lot of it, once again, will be a question of her realizing that, regardless of what she wants or what works for her, this is the public school system, and her best bet is going to be to grab herself by the shoelaces, bite both lips, and give them what they want to see. Which, frankly, makes me angry for her sake, and the sake of a lot of other "alphabet soup" kids.

Oh I wish they couldn't recommend it. When we went to meet the teacher in June, she didn't even know my daughter at all and was asking me if I was open to seeing my doctor to medicate her. She acted all shocked that I didn't have her on drugs like I was failing her by making her go through life without meds.

Yeah my boss knows not to hover and I have told clients to go sit down because I can't concentrate when I have people overlooking me. The typing goes all gobbledigook. So I can totally understand her. She says her teacher has bad breath too, but I can't exactly hand the teacher mints at the meeting.

I am so disappointed in this school - I just thought they were prepared to handle these kinds of problems. I will try to get my daughter to be more compliant, but I am not there to remind her all day to behave.

Maybe that will really prove to be the core of it all. It is a lot easier to medicate kids than figure out how to handle their quirks. Maybe it isn't the best place for her. Or maybe you all just need more time.

Your post already indicates little things they could do to mitigate your daughter's stress. Demand that they do them. That should always be step one.

Yes I am definately going to take notes about my daughter thinks they could help her - like her teacher offered her a treat of candy if she went to french class willingly all week, but she told me she would prefer pop and I said, well why didn't you tell her and she thought it would be rude to say she would prefer pop.

No one can force you to put your child on medication except a judge.

Up front, I'll tell you this: I teach much younger children and in a public school in the U.S.

I am very suspicious of this teacher's motives, skills, and experience. If all the other students are on meds, is that their parents' choice or is it at this teacher's bequest/insistence? Is it because she can't handle her students any other way? Why is she so persistent about it? What else has she tried, really? Can she document everything else she's tried to help your daughter, and can she prove that it doesn't work? (I doubt it.)

What is it about the EA's approach or demeanor that works well for your daughter, besides the obvious (I assume she doesn't hover, and that your daughter gets more private/serene/1:1 time when she's not with the teacher)? It could be that the EA has some insight that the teacher doesn't, but it may be difficult for the EA to express that without crossing the line with what may be a very controlling, narrow-minded teacher.

Now: WHY in the WORLD would a teacher reveal the medications she AND her husband are taking to someone who is essentially a "client"? Maybe that's a Canadian thing, and if depression isn't stigmatized the way it is here, yay, but really?? That sounds more like peer pressure than a professional recommendation! This brings us back around to: I am very suspicious of this teacher's motives, skills, and experience.

^^^^^

That would be my fear, too.

The only profession I have ever had who revealed to me her medication list was, while ignoring everything I had to say about what was happening to me, basically trying to kill me with drugs (and later lost her license for participating in a massive disability fraud scheme).

There is a lot of ignorance out there, and a lot of people who think that, if we all take our pills, we can all smile and be compliant all the time, and Stepford will be a much better place for it.

If you've got one of those, honestly, there probably isn't a whole lot of reasoning with her.

I don't know how it works in Canada. You can talk to other parents and try to organize to file some kind of group complaint, but in the States, if she's got seniority you're pretty much stuck with her. The best you would be able to hope for is to bring enough pressure to bear that she decided to transfer to another school or district to get the hell away from you.

I ended up emailing the teacher and said this:

"Also, I would prefer it you did not discuss medicating her and asking her if I have a drug plan. I actually do not have one and we like 5-HTP. Rudy Simone even recommends it as a helpful treatment in her book Aspergirls. My daughter used to be very sad easily and very anxious before starting these natural antidepressents. She was also kind of violent and destructive at home. You would not believe how much they have helped her and I don't want to lose the progress we have made by trying something else that would likely include negative side effects."

The teacher replied and said she and my daughter actually had a positive conversation about 5-HTP, so maybe I there is hope for her yet. I realize my daughter has her all this year, so I will try to keep good communication with her and provide her with suggestions on how to best help her.

I really hope that we are just in transition and things will work out positively in the end. I guess after the awful school experience my daughter had in grade 7 and 8, I get really panicky when I think it could be more of the same. I really don't want to go back to constant school meetings being scheduled and phone calls to pick her up and all the stress it brings me at work.

To me it feels like she was diagnosed, we got her into the right program with the suitably trained people, so it is up to them to make it work at school. It is the aspergers program and they are paid to do this, so why disrupt my day? They have a whole team to help her, so sometimes I wonder what they expect out of me. Maybe I am wrong to see it that way, but it is how I feel. I have to deal with crazy and yelling clients as part of my job and we laugh and vent about it, but really I don't expect them to totally change with meds. Actually most of them on are on meds and it's probably why I don't see them as the cure all.

This struck me as oversharing, as well. The teacher seems to have a very casual attitude towards prescription meds, which is probably why she doesn't think it's inappropriate to suggest them to everyone.

They're NEVER going to handle it all. There is a HUGE amount of ignorance (a lot of it in the fields of mental health and education) and a HUGE amount of stupid and a HUGE amount of lazy.

You will ALWAYS have to be involved-- teaching the kid, teaching the teacher, dealing with communications, dealing with social engineering, dealing with dumb. If you're really, really lucky, you're staring down another five or six years of this.

Lucky for my dad, I was able to stay out of trouble at school after 8th grade. Also lucky for my dad, he was an underground coal miner. Short of a life-is-at-stake-here emergency, there was no way in the nine hells that the school could get ahold of him during anything vaguely resembling business hours, Monday through Saturday. If they could have, they probably would have.

Hopefully, you won't have to keep getting her out of school (hopefully the EAs at least are well-trained enough to deal with what comes up during the day, short of fever and vomiting anyway). But yes, you will be fighting stupid BS until she graduates...

...and then you will probably be fielding phone calls from her about dealing with stupid BS.

There is in all this world apparently no end to stupid BS.

Yes I do realize BuyerBeware that there is no end to stupid BS. I just thought people who chose this as a profession would have been better trained and have more experience. I would think that they would have a whole bag of tricks that regular teachers don't have because they are familiar with autistic people and how they behave.

I also think that because my daughter can be very pleasant, very well spoken and smart that they expect too much out of her. Her assessment said her coping skills were that of a two year old, so her being upset at times during the day doesn't seem that shocking to me.

Kim D - I think my daughter likes the EA better because she has been told that she is the EA's favourite student in the aspergers program. She really listens to her and sometimes sneaks her to do her work in a hidden office, so she doesn't have to go to class and the teacher won't know. I think she likes the attention and who wouldn't? Her teacher has asked me to go over her behaviour plan with her to show her that she is to stay in class in the afternoon and that the EAs have other people to help during this time and can't spent it all with her. I think this particular EA is like a friend to her and from the stories I hear, they talk about how another EA wasn't as patient as she could have been with or they talk about how the teacher is annoying. I am not sure what to do about it because I am glad that someone likes my daughter and wants to help her, but I don't think badmouthing other EAs and teachers is the way to do it.

My daughter is quite charming and I think gets away with stuff she shouldn't. When she was driven to an alternative school in grade 7, she had the driver take her to drive thrus to get treats and she would even go on long drives with the driver to drop off other students. The driver was finally changed when my daughter and the other students got mad at the driver one day and the police were called.

Last year, her EA was also treating her as a favourite. It was so apparent because they had a weekly raffle and my daughter always seemed to win the prize.

I don't want to alarm you, but was the driver male or female? If it was a male he could possibly have been grooming her.