Just got called in to see the principal.

Post Reply New Topic

Thank you all for your responses. I have found them helpful to get the perspectives from the inside, as it were, and from parents of children with Asperger's.

I've never had the slightest worry that my son was going to do anything violent. A few more tidbits:

He has a counselor who sits in the room with him (and was supposed to tape him for coaching purposes). Apparently he has been having 2-3 tantrums a day, which we weren't told about, and there hasn't been any mediation that we know of.

Secondly, the bullying, as many of you pointed out, was the source of the problem and despite all the cheerful anti-bullying posters nothing happened there either.

Finally, I asked him where he heard about suicide, and he mentioned a book of "lateral thinking puzzles" that we have read from on road trips. He told me that suicide is found in four of the puzzles (i.e. the man hanging in a windowless, doorless room with a puddle of water at his feet).

We are going to take him to counseling, but also try to get him back in school for a few days before the semester is over. He has actually shown no real distress at being suspended, although my wife says he is embarrassed and not sure how to respond. We want him to reconnect a little with his classmates before he enters the third grade accelerated program at a different school in the Fall. (He is in second grade now--I have been thinking of him being in the third grade since he tested for the gifted program).

It's an understandable over-reaction from the school.

Aspies take lots and lots of information on board. Something that you mention in passing or something they see on TV could surface years later.

Also, Aspies often don't have a great social conscience and don't realise when things are offensive or out of place.

Sometimes, they enjoy the kind of reactions that their "way-out" drawings and writings create.


examples from when I was at school;

I wrote a great nightmare-dream story with some pretty serious imagery and had the writer wake up near the end to find a heroin filled syringe next to him. I even discussed appropriate measurements and injection of the drug etc...

I got the heroin info from a book and have never ever once used a drug (except what doctors gave me).


I often wrote sex scenes into my creative writing at school - sometimes quite graphic.

I got these from reading lot of books, particularly Stephen King, James Herbert and Graham Masterton. I've never been a sex maniac... in fact, so far (and likely forever), my wife is the only one. Also, I didn't have sex until a few years after I left school.

Many of my drawings at school contained graphic or violent images. I found these easier to draw than normal images.

As an adult, I've never been in a fight. In school, I mostly managed to avoid fights. I had my last bad fights in about year 8.

In religion, at my Catholic school, we had to do presentations on other religions. I chose Satanism and did a presentation explaining about them having sex with statues etc... It was all pretty overwhelming for the teachers but they gave me an A for it.

I've never been into anything other than Catholicism.


Hopefully this will give you a good understanding of how and why aspies do these things. It doesn't mean that they are violent etc...

I think that this is fairly typical behaviour for AS kids, as is my experience. It's partially not understanding social norms. We tend to not be able to express ourselves well and thus tend to overexpress sometimes when we can't get people to listen to us or feel like people aren't listening to us. I know NT people think that these expressions are inappropriate. But really I can think of quite a few problems that an axe and a deranged psychopath could very quickly put into perspective. See? It just comes out. Completely uncontrollable.

Don't be worried. However, do be aware that AS boys tend to get a little more agressive as they start to enter puberty. I know that lots of you boys are going to argue with me, but I agree that this is fairly new within the last 10 years. I think that it has a lot to do with how much more distanced we feel from the world in general. As we see that there are people out there like us, it hits home that we aren't alone, except for our immediate environment. There never seems to be anyone like us right next door. We are more aware of ASDs but yet still so far from really understanding it.

My son has had intrusive thoughts that alarmed staff at school and so they called in the psych to tell them he's no threat.

Staff is concerned about safety of other students.

Your son is now pegged. The 5 day suspension will cause irreprable harm to your son and result in further anxiety and fear that he is somehow dangerous or to be feared.

Get a lawyer. It's the only way to protect your eight-year old at this point. The chances are very good that he will draw more picutures because he is on the spectrum. What about if he hits someone? I"m sorry to sound so negative, but I'm speaking from experience. My five-year old was suspended 2 or 3 times in Kindergarten for "aggressive" behavior. This was prediagnosis. They were mishandling him an dhe lashed out.

It was downhill from that point on. The crisis center was on alert. I rushed to school numerous times only to find him surrounded by adults and one time being restrained. It was horrific. It took all this BEFORE they gave him an aide. Then he was fine.

Next school, he had issues with drawing a couple pictures--they were held as evidence (awful) and he was almost suspended once again for saying things to a girl in his class.

Now, he's in a better place with his own aide, but if we head down this road again, I will get a lawyer. My son suffered from his experiences and I'm sure many of his fears about being a criminal are based on previous experiences and the way he was handled so punitively.

That 5 day suspension tells your son he is dangerous and bad. That's it. How do you explain it to him? The school went overboard. Get protection to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Kids on the spectrum worry about things other kids don't. They express these fears. My son says the most outrageous things to me and I tell him it's just a thought and he moves on. Once, I seemed concerned about a thought he told me about, and he broke down, he lost it because he was petrified that his thought was, indeed, something to worry about.


equinn

I also want to say that there is a negative stigma surrounding kids with Aspergers due to new coverage.

The psych said he saw NLD in my son more than a spectrum disorder. He said that he would be concerned that a child with PDD-NOS could, in fact, get confused beteen reality and fantasy, but not a child with NLD. This seems inaccurate. IOW, a child on the spectrum is more likely to become psychotic? This was the perspective of this particular psychiatrist.

(scary)

Schools suck. They only want to shirk their responsibilities to provide a safe and productive learning enviroment, and then blame it on the victims. Mainly principals and the important people on the local education board. They want everything to be sugar-glossed, and don't care who's ignored and hurt for their image of a "good school."
Often, the cheerful anti-bullying postrs are but a pleasant facade to hide the apathy of the school administration about actually doing anything about it.

What they're doing is projecting; They're putting the blame onto your son. They failed in their responsibilities; To ensure a safe learning enviroment, to prevent bullying, and to take appropriate action regarding reports of bullying.

They did a piss-poor job of it, and they're scapegoating your son because they found the opportunity; They're making him into a problem, not a victim, and that's how they justify being utter failures in their responsibilities.

When the people in authority were useless, duty-shirking morons, my experiences were hell. The school I attended was run by an idiot principal who was into image more than substance. The teachers were... apathetic. The student body ran wild and free, and devolved into a barbaric tribal state, where the strong ruled, and the weak feared. I was one of the bottom-most people.
And the people who should have been in charge simply felt that it was fine the way it was.
Incompetents.

It's hard, being in public education. What he really needs is for someone his age to have genuine interest in friendship with him. Even the friendship of adults is good to have.

Might I ask something?
Have you told your son that he has Aspergers?

Well, I don't think this is normal or healthy behavior for anyone. Violent drawings are one thing (and a pretty much harmless thing, particularly if inspired by something far removed from reality like a video game) making them about people you actually know starts to spill over into dangerous territory. Not that it means that your son might be potentially violent, but that it means he's dealing with unpleasant emotions.

The school, on the other hand, really has no choice but to take stuff like this deadly serious. A suspension is probably excessive, though. Also, pretty sure you couldn't get away with calling this 'aspie related behavior.' Some aspies might do this but so do a lot of other people; it's more caused by being bullied than anything else, I think.

Update: we talked to the principal and got him unsuspended. We mentioned that she wouldn't have to worry about him because he would be attending the accelerated program at a different school in the Fall. We left town for two days and upon our return received a note that he was being kicked out of the accelerated program because they reread his teacher's comments in light of "the incident" and realized that he "doesn't like change" and some stuff about the learning environment and safety.

We had already set up an appointment with a therapist and done an intake.

I'm furious and we are looking for a disability lawyer.

the school said in the letter they would provide an equivalent curriculum for him at his existing school.

Institutionally, they are just washing their hands and saying they don't want to deal with him.

We're getting him an IEP and unleashing the hounds of hell on these boneheads.

Schools can be so stupid. in one school I was in, this kid was attacking alot of kids such as me, my siblings and best friend, including my sister who was like 6 or 7. the school didnt punish him as they thought punishing a kid whos at war and had ADD would look bad, took 3 parents confronting the princple to punish this kid who enjoyed hurting other people. I am not having a go at your son, friend in highschool once confronted a kid in drama about picking on him and they kicked him out of drama, well he did tell the teacher to f off and was holding scisors. But this is why it is good to be able to comunicate anger in healthy doses, dont tell him to just keep it boiling inside.

Yes.. Get an IEP - it's the only way to go.

BUT...

1. Don't sign for the IEP before you've received it - our school makes us sign a form when we sit down. We thought it was an attendence record but we've only just realised what it really is.

2. Make sure that the IEP covers emotional and social development, not just lessons. After all, that's where aspie children have the worst failings.

Be very careful to get the right IEP... those things seem to be very "LEGAL" and it's difficult to change them once they're accepted. We're still struggling to get my son's IEP changed to something more suitable.

I have done well at accepting private schools without an IEP. This behavior is totally normal, I have said some very violent things in the past and (rightly) been scolded for it, simply because I did not understand behavior standards. I still slip up sometimes, but I am working on it. Yes, the school overreacted.

Well I was told to draw a rainbow in art class I then drew monster resembling something from Goosebumps (one of my now known obsessions as a kid) the teacher gave me a C. I've said alot of wrong things due to not understanding stuff for example saying Bench 3 times fast to my teacher then she took me too the principals office (a female dog for those that don't know). Also sadly someone mentioned a school shooting idea and I said ya going postal (not understanding the term "postal" at the time) and I was suspended from college.

Just want to thank everyone again for the high quality comments in this thread, even those that disagree with my parental outrage! Enormously useful. We drafted an appeals letter and sent it to the local disability parents group for feedback. I quoted the DSM-IV. I agree that violent pictures are not typical, but also feel that my son's inability to express himself productively, as well as understand that those images are words are inappropriate, are closely connected with the Asperger's.

Anyway, at the very least they should have an Asp-familiar therapist talk to him before determining that he is a threat to anyone. I understand that they are worried about liability, etc. I really wish his teacher would have told us that his in-class tantrums had been increasing prior to this incident. Anyway, thanks again.

Yes it could be down to Asperger's, but also schools are guilty of criminalizing childhood in general.

Bullies are smart they know how not to get caught, they can get away with far worse than what your son did.