Angry autistic student

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Hello! My mom has a private school for homeschool kids and recently we got a student that is on the autism spectrum. He expresses most of his emotions aggressively and it has been a bit of a struggle to help him and teach him.
He sometimes gets a little violent and is rude with teachers and other students. Today he pushed and grabbed a child much younger than him (6, and he is 16)
This is something we've never dealt with but we want to help him and understand the best we can. We dont want to have to tell him to go somewhere else.
We just need direction.
Is there any advice you can give us?

It seems like he might need a more "restrictive" environment. I get the feeling that "somewhere else" might be appropriate in this instance. By grabbing a six-year-old, he committed a rather extreme act, in my opinion.

Perhaps he belongs in a special school for autistic people--where he can get more intensive supervision? Hopefully, it's a place which values education, and values the person.

It doesn't seem like the other children would be safe around this person if he acts so impulsively.

No 16-year-old should be grabbing a 6-year old--that's really out of bounds. Even moderately-autistic 16-year-olds should know that.

I agree. Really out of bounds. And you also have to think of what's best for the 6-year-old.

Maybe if he sincerely apologized, and this apology was accepted by the 6-year-old without being pushed to accept it by the school.* if this younger child does not seem afraid, if the parents are okay with the teenager continuing at the school.

* without making too big and heavy a deal out of it too long after the fact, without a bunch of demand characteristics in age inappropriate ways. You're going to have to use your best judgment calls on all of this.

That's a lot of if's. Best case scenario, I'd say there's only a one case out of three of this working out.

The parents of the 6-year-old need to be informed without a lot of window dressing.

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Maybe he has anger because a school is a place where he's told again and again that he's stupid and not good enough? So, explore with different ways of learning, which I'm sure you, your mother, and all the staff does. Generally, I like the approach, don't try harder, try diagonally.

Maybe you could use more exercise as an outlet for excess energy? For example, practice a little basketball, do a few math problems, practice basketball, math problems, etc. I sometimes did this in college.

If that doesn't work, maybe morning and afternoon running for physical fitness? And not as any kind of punishment, but as a positive.

tl:dr version
"just tell him to stop being autistic"
holy s**t lmfao you're deluded

I'm not even going to comment on the previous post.

I guess I would have a talk with him. Tell him that this sort of behavior is unacceptable. Ask him to suggest ways to prevent this sort of behavior in the future. Impart upon him that you want a safe environment for the other students.

This has nothing to with "stifling autism." This has to do with getting the kid to grow up beyond what he is now, so he can function in society. Attacking people at random for no apparent reason just won't get the job done. ''

I would say the same thing if the kid was a "normal" bullying kind of kid; in fact, I would get a lot rougher with the "normal" kid. Talk about how he can get arrested for this sort of behavior, etc.

Um... how is it homeschooling if they are getting sent to school at your place? How is that anything but an unregistered school? I don't know what you mean by that.

Look, if you are on wrongplanet looking as a first reference on how to help a student who is autistic, you don't have the experience to do this. Teaching autistic kids is a specialty. You can get a whole masters degree in it. We are a vulnerable population, and we are more prone to experience abuse than NT kids. We are also very specific in how we need a learning environment to be in order to keep our anxiety down and optimize our learning. We simply can't comment on what that might look like for your student because every autistic person is different like this.

Further more, you've got a 16 year old who HIT a 6 year old. That's beyond not cool. Its not safe. You are liable for anything that happens to that 6 year old. If you, in your inexperience, fail to head off a meltown in your teen-aged student and that little boy gets hurt, that will haunt you for the rest of your life and it will likely end your mother's school as well.

So, my advice would be to either go to university and get a degree in working with autistic kids, or go the informal rout and get yourself mentored by a teacher who is already experienced in working with these kids. I don't mean to imply that formal education is the only way. Some of the best educators I know were trained informally - they learned by working under talented teachers, and by muddling through parenting a kiddo on the autism spectrum. But no-one just does it without any background or experience. Everyone needs to learn somehow. You and your mom are not an exception.

There are literally dozens on books on the market. You can start to educate yourself on autism. All of the things you mention about this student are pretty typical. Most of us learn not to hit by the time we are teen-agers, but its not unheard of. There are dozens of methods in how to help your student learn to express his frustration without hitting. But its not a simple online forum thread conversation. Its a big deal that will likely involve changing the way you structure your entire school, in order to give this student the structure and comfort that he needs to stay calm.

Sorry this message is so harsh. But its one of those crazy unsafe situations where there is no space to potentially get mis-understood because I'm trying to be nice.

And the parents of the 6-year-old, if they feel litigious enough, could conceivably sue your mother's school.

I'd have to agree with Somanyspoons on this one.

Please don't go away. We're not trying to criticize you.

We're trying to tell you the truth.

We don't think you're bad people.

I understand you folks are doing the best you can.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 14 Sep 2016, 8:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I go to a private school for those with autism and all the teachers have had formal training on how to deal with autistic kids. An autistic teen in a school with non-autistic kids as young as 6, and teachers with no training on how to deal with autism, doesn't sound like the best set up.

Not sure if he was on the spectrum or not, but one of my classmates in Special Ed. punched through the door window.

It was pretty scary...

Exactly. Its probably a good impetus that had them take on a kid with disabilities. A desire to be helpful. But in this case, the truth is pretty urgent because there are both the safety of the smaller children and the emotional safety of the autistic teen at stake.

This is a very important set of skills. How to take a potential meltdown situation to the side, so to speak.

And it's a little like percentage baseball. There is no single skill which is a hundred percent. But if you can do several different high percentage skills in a row, that very much gets the odds more in your favor.

These days I lean more toward the informal.

Or, a mix. A little bit of formal (which is mainly about classify and categorizing) and then a lot of informal to learn the actual skills.

The real question is what did the 6 year old do?

It doesn't matter. The kid is MUCH smaller than the 16-year-old.

That doesn't matter, not when you are analyzing why people act the way they do.