schooling woes

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My son is 6yo and was diagnosed with high-functioning autism shortly before his 4th birthday. My biggest worry is that he's gonna end up going through the same sorta stuff I went through in school. I was hoping he wouldn't, but now it looks to be inevitable. Kindergarten was fine--his teacher had experience with twice-exceptional kids (gifted students who are also on the spectrum) and his giftedness was nurtured, and we were all satisfied. But now that he's in first grade, his giftedness is being overshadowed by his autism, and that's the opposite of what we wanted out of school. He's on an Individual Education Plan, which his teachers haven't even seem to have read. He isn't being challenged enough and he doesn't have any close friends yet. I'm more concerned about the social aspect than the academics cuz he's such a bright kid, I'm sure he'd be successful in that regard wherever he went. Socially is where I had most of my problems, and I can see patterns repeating themselves. His school has an anti-bullying policy, but I realize that's not enough when I see him being outcast by the other kids, calling him a weirdo or telling him not to play with them. I feel for him, and don't want him to end up miserable and/or resentful when he gets older. He is a happy kid now, but I know from experience that don't always last.

I am heartened by knowing he has a few advantages that I didn't. I was never diagnosed until I was 32, and I suffered a lot of emotional scars because of what I didn't know. Unlike me, he'll grow up having a sense of why he's different and having understanding parents. He also likes school much more than I did and is much happier in general than I was. I was just an unhappy kid and prolly would have been no matter what school I went to. He isn't like that and I don't want him to get to the point where he is. We're thinking of transferring schools, but we realize there's certain things that won't change no matter what school he's at. I don't want him to have a lonely life. I don't want him to feel like a failure. He has the chance to overcome some of his issues. I want him to succeed and be happy.

I guess I'm just looking for some kind, encouraging words from people who've been through this kinda thing before. Maybe some tips or anecdotes on how you got through it.

Thank you

What therapies is your school offering outside of class? My son got diagnosed with AS in 1st grade, but wasn't offered pragmatic (social) speech therapy until we figured out to ask for it in 4th or 5th grade. That one intervention made a HUGE difference for him, and is one I really regret he didn't have earlier.

When DS was formally diagnosed in 4th grade, he decided he wanted to disclose his diagnosis to the classroom, and he had the teacher read "All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome" to the class. Once the kids had an appropriate frame for his behavior, they were significantly more tolerant of his quirks - kids can surprise you.

The school don't offer much outside of class, but we've been pragmatic in getting him help. He has an ABA therapist (soon to be two) come to the house a couple times a week, goes to a social group for other AS kids, and has taken speech therapy (slated to start again soon). He used to take music therapy. He's also been signed up for many community activities in the past, such as art and swimming lessons. I know he'd be much worse off without his extra services, so I'm thankful for what we do have.

I've heard of that book "All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome." Might be a good one to get, especially if he ends up transferring. The kids he schools with now are used to his quirks, but not always accepting of them if you know what I mean.

The best social help my son got at that age was not from the school, but from me. I was active at the school and knew the other kids and parents. I got "in" with the crowd by volunteering a LOT. We all never became best friends (I'm a little socially awkward myself), but they had to respect someone giving so much to the school and, by extension, their own kids. All those parents became extra eyes and support for my son, and spoke to their kids about him in a positive way, which helped him take on a more positive light with other kids. He still struggled to actually connect with them, but at least he was rarely bullied or called weird; that was not something the "community" would have accepted.

What helped the most with building a real connection was a carpool. My son was in an afterschool class with a very popular boy and so, logically, our families decided to carpool. Since both the other boy's parents worked full time, I did the bringing, and they did the taking home. There was a half hour to kill from the end of school and the start of class, so I would always bring a little picnic for the boys. That turned out to be fun, social time that I was able to channel and monitor. Over the years, the two boys got really, really close and that popular child became a huge defender of my son.

They eventually (starting in middle school) drifted apart as their interests changed, but the other boy will STILL defend my son. He has always genuinely liked my son and sees all his gifts.

Another thing that helped was making and monitoring play dates. Kids would come to me when I was on campus and ask if they could come over to our house. My son would be wary of these solicitations, but we ended up agreeing to some, and my solution was to make outings out of most of the play dates, which kept the divergent interests the boys would often have from creating a problem, given that the biggest problems my son would have with play dates was what to play, when, and with what rules. So *I* set all that before even leaving the door. It takes an investment but it does pay off.

My son also loved lunch bunch, which was provided through the school, started by the speech therapist. The group met once a week and played board games. Initially it was just the special needs kids, but as they progressed they were allowed to bring a friend. Somehow that invitation became something the NT kids coveted, which was interesting to see. Regardless, my son enjoyed the lunches and much, much, much preferred being indoors with board games than outdoors without a plan.

All of the above is more difficult when you aren't social at all yourself, I know that. But for your child, you try to step outside of your comfort zone a little bit. The woman who ran our book fair when my son was little was on the spectrum, but she loved that job and the kids loved her; she really knew her children's books! Sometimes members of this forum offer to become photographers for school events, since hiding behind a camera seems to make things easier. You get creative, and find the slot that works for you.

I do volunteer at my son's school library once a week. I love working with books and doing something that the kids appreciate. I don't like volunteering in class cuz frankly I don't like kids that much (except my own of course); I like helping them, but I don't enjoy "swimming" with them, if you know what I mean. I know a lot of the parents, but I don't talk to them much, not because I'm a little socially awkward (though I am), but because many of the parents are pretentious and gossipy. I've taken him to class functions before, and the parents are always sitting around talking about crap I don't care about, and I always end up feeling uncomfortable and wanting to leave. On the bright side, at least the parents all seem to like my son... it's the other kids who don't know what to make of him.

As far as carpooling or playdates, that's a little impractical given our situation. We live in the country and he goes to school in town, 11 miles away. Most of his peers live in town. We used to live in town, but when we moved out here we decided to keep him in the same school cuz he was going through so many transitions already, we didn't wanna add to them by having him change schools on top of everything. If we could find some kids in our neighborhood, that would help, but so far all we've met is old people.

Sorry, I'm being distracted now... I'll come back later

Do you think you could build on the contact and relationships to let the parents know that you would like your son to be able to have some friends at school, and that some kids are being mean to him? They can then choose to gently make themselves part of the solution.

I have technically used up all of my "forum time" for the evening, so I will need to try to be brief (hold the laughter those of you who know me).

A couple of thoughts I had while reading your post: I have 2 kids who fall somewhere on the spectrum. We fully embrace our weirdness. Seriously. We call ourselves weird. Early on, I wanted to own that word and take the sting out of it. If kids call them weird, they really don't care. I am weird. They are weird. We are not like other people, and that is just the way it is. I focus a lot on emphasizing how their "wonky wiring" has conveyed gifts on them that others don't have, just as much as it has conveyed challenges.

There is nothing wrong--at all--with being weird.

Second, one thing I have had to come to terms with is not judging my kids based on me, or what I wanted for them. My son has one true friend and a very small (less than 5) circle of kids he "hangs out with." He is happy, therefore I am happy. I had always hoped and prayed my kids would be popular and well-liked because I never was. I had to let go of that vision of his life and accept the fact that he doesn't need to be popular and well-liked (by well-liked, I mean that everyone knows him and likes him....I think he is probably largely invisible to most kids in his class, so it isn't that people DISlike him, but it's not like kids walk around and talk about how cool he is).

With my daughter, she only has superficial friends. There are very few invitations for play dates and she rarely asks to have anyone over. In fact, her teachers have consistently identified her lack of connection with her peers as something they wished to work on. Again, it's not like kids DISlike her. In fact, teachers say that most seem to like her, but she is rather indifferent if you compare her to other girls her age. She didn't mention a single classmate all summer. While one would perhaps point fingers at "social issues" regarding this, the truth is, from where she sits, she thinks she has great friends and she is happy that she talks to the same girl on the bus every day, even though she doesn't know her name or what grade she is in. Her superficial friendships (compared to usual friendships for girls her age) meet her needs and make her happy. So, really, who am I to judge them as inferior?

I really feel that what would make my kids NOT ok with who they are or what their friendships are like would be for me to focus on it or to try to "fix" it, or to tell them what they "should" be doing. Drawing attention to it would likely alert them to the fact that there is something "wrong." The truth is, from their perspectives, there is nothing wrong, and in this case, their perspectives should be the only ones that matter.

I have said before that I have often wished that someone would have told me that I wasn't like other kids and that I didn't need to try to be like other kids when I was younger. I wasted so much time trying to fit in. I thought if I could just figure out how to be popular, then everything would be "OK." I am focusing very hard on being OK with where my kids are, and letting them know that it's OK to be just the way they are. If my son only needs one friend and my daughter is happy with a handful of acquaintances, then I need to be OK with that.

I know this doesn't address many of your concerns and I can tell you that bullying is probably the main thing that I worry about, so it is much more complicated than "embrace your weirdness" and "it's OK if you don't have friendships that look like other kids' friendships if you are happy that way." But I have found that those things help.

Ok, I'm back.

I found out from my wife today that my son is in fact getting in-school speech therapy, and that he also has a social skills class once a week. Apparently, they just changed some things in class, and I'm happy that he has that along with his other services. Also, his ABA therapist is observing him in class for the next two days, and she's gonna have some input (she's been a major blessing). So I'm feeling a bit better now than I was 3 days ago when I first posted this. If we decide to transfer him, it won't be till next semester when things have settled down. We've heard good things about our new neighborhood school and he's cool with the idea (fortunately, he's a pretty easygoing kid when he's not having meltdowns).

I didn't mean to imply they were being "mean" as in bullying or anything. I just meant nobody wants to work with him when it's time to pick a partner, and everybody ignores him at play time and recess. I realize it's common for kids on the Spectrum to not be good at initiating activity, but even I had one or two friends by the time I was his age. But like I said, he's an easygoing kid and he doesn't get too distraught over those things. It seems to bother me more than it bothers him.

And for the record, I've always embraced weirdness. I was bullied for it as a kid, but around 8th grade I discovered I could use it as a strength. Once I did that, I stopped getting picked on so much. We're trying to teach my son to embrace his "weirdness" too. We told him if anyone calls him weird again, to tell them 'You're too normal for me.'

My son has been known to say "thanks for noticing!" or "I do my best!" in a super-chipper tone of voice. He has learned to use humor as a deflection and that has worked well for him.

My daughter usually says "You. are So. Funny." (picture the voice of Raven from Teen Titans Go!) She is not as good at using humor, but she has studied sarcasm and is working on getting better at it. It feels more comfortable to her.

When my son was in first grade, some kids were teasing him and we had worked on numerous strategies and nothing was helping. We finally came up with a very unusual idea: He joined in with their taunting remarks...toward himself. The kids stopped dead in their tracks, stared at him in confusion, and never did it again. Now one of his biggest deficits is his tendency to take things literally and therefore make many social faux pas. He actually has incorporated his "literalness" into his "persona" and sometimes intentionally exaggerates his literal interpretations. I think that even though he is not popular, kids outside of his little "circle" do appreciate his humor, and the better he has gotten at it, the less he seems to be targeted.

Sometimes friendships outside of school can help, even if the friends are family members.

I was pondering starting a new thread, but this sorta relates to what I was writing about in the original post.

So I'm picking my son up from school yesterday, and a girl who looked a couple years older than my son walks by and asks if I'm his dad. I say "yeah," and she says "He called me a b***h in PE today." I ask him if that's true, he denies it. The girl just walks off and doesn't say anything else. If my wife had been the one picking him up, she would've interrogated the girl and got to the bottom of things... but she wasn't. I was there, and I'm on the Spectrum too, and often forget to ask the most obvious questions. But it didn't sound like something he'd say--name calling has never been his thing. So if he says he didn't say it, I was ready to believe him.

When we were driving home, he told me that some kids in PE were teasing him, calling him a little kid and/or toddler, saying he was too little to be at that school. Then he said the same girl who accused him of calling her a b***h threw a ball at his head. I thought, if some girl chucked a ball at my head, I'd probably call her a b***h too. But I still don't know what happened, and he still denies it. As far as him being small, he is the smallest kid in his class, but he's also the youngest, and he was a preemie on top of it. He's always been behind size-wise (plus he's got some slight speech impediments). He's very bright however, and I'd like if he learned to use his wits to stand up for himself, so he needn't stoop to the level of fighting or name calling. I don't know how to foster that in him though--I'm not the wittiest bastard myself.

If I don't hear more about this, I'll prolly let it go. But I wanted to share it cuz it illustrates some of my concerns I had about him and school.

Where was the PE teacher during all of this? That seems like a lot to have happened unsupervised for a group of six/ seven year olds. That's what I would want to find out.

My other thought is that possibly your son either made a sound or said another word that the other kids did not understand and decided it sounded like b***h because they were on the hunt to make him a problem. You said earlier that he has a mild speech impediment, so maybe?

But, I would take issue with the fact that so much teasing/ bullying was happening in a class that is supposedly monitored/ taught by an adult and want to check into that.

That's exactly what my wife wanted to know. (My Aspergian brain didn't flash on that till later). Apparently, it's a big group of mixed classes, and the teacher/student ratio is low... budget cuts or something. Frankly, we don't think it's such a good idea mixing first through third grades in PE. The rest of the classes, like math and reading, they try to group based on skill level. But PE they seem to mix all the kids regardless of development, physical or otherwise. That doesn't seem right to us.

And the idea that they might've misheard him did cross our minds. He's always noticing how big people are, and these were bigger kids, it's possible he said "you're big," and this girl misheard it as "you're a b***h." Or maybe that's why they were picking on him for his size. Or maybe both. But I'll probably never know what happened for certain without any adult witnesses.

Yes, that does not seem like a reasonable situation, especially when the kids are having opportunities to hit kids much smaller and younger than them in the head on purpose. And, even more inappropriate for a very small child on the spectrum. This, in my opinion, would be worthy of going to the administration about. In my kid's school, they have something called "Adaptive PE" for kids with disabilities, but we are in a large city with a lot of resources. But, I would not feel that was a safe situation for my (also very small) child on the spectrum unless the school could assure me that that was an isolated incident and be able to provide more supervision.

We ran into this with DS as well: he had said "shoot" and was accused of saying a curse word. We did have a long talk with him about making sure he didn't make any exclamations that might be misheard as curse words, and brainstormed a few.

Not the same as your situation, but worth explaining to a kid on the spectrum, who might not have the concept of being misheard or misunderstood on their radar.

Sorry I have not had time to read all the replies which I am sure are full of great advice and supprt but we were in the exact same boat a few years back.

Our lovely boy (9) was not diagnosed until he was 4 becuase he is high functioning, bright, talkative and affectionate. Bascially, he went under the radar for a long time.

The general school issues particularly bullying and exclusion came up pretty fast. They always do. The biggest problem was that his hardedst times were not during class but rather during lunch and recess when he was overloaded with stimuli and people in the yard. Who could watch out for him? How you police all the kids who were giving him a hard time? Too many incidents to recount. Things are better these days because we, not the school, but my wife and I suggested, insisited and put in these strategies:

1. A Daily Communication book for his teacher so we can send short messages to each other about his day and what we need to work on and vice versa. Does not have to be War and Peace, just a short message like 'Ben has a sniffle and did not sleep well last night" or "Ben had a great day and shared his pokemon cards with kids in class" or "Ben was very restless today, could not focus after lunch" etc. It is very good way of keeping each other updated from day to day without monopolising the teachers time at the expense of others.

2. Write a letter to all the parents in your childs class intoducing yourself and your family and explaining your personal journey and that of your child, eductate them about ASD, tell them what you are doing to help your child and that you are happy to speak to them if they have any questions or if their child has made a comment about the "weird" kid in class. The responses we got were generally great. It serves a few purposes for you:

First, you eductate the ignorant.

Second, you will quickly identify the parents and children who will be kind and understanding and those who will not be as tolerant so you know exactly where you stand and can plan accordingly. Some people will also pleasantly surprise you. We know of certain parents, and one child in particular who always clashed with our son, who sat their children down and explained what ASD was all about after getting our letter. Not only did it help their understanding but our son gained some friends, real friends, who understood him and accepted him for who he is. We also forged friendships with some of the parents. The parents who were less receptive were far outnumbered and we just don't bother with them any more. Why? Because we do not have to.

Third, If your child is being subjected to bulling and ridicule, you take away any possible excuse that might be offered by way of "Little Jonny/Cindy had no idea little Charlie/Jane was different and was only having a little fun". We all know that excuse is BS. Bullying is and always has been a scourge and is completely unacceptable. It is even worse when the victim is more vulnerable. The difference with our lovely kids is that you cannot see their vulnerability, they have no wheel chair, no hearing aid and no cane which immediately flags what is different about them.

There are more ideas and strategies that worked for us and I am happy to discuss/email with you but it is now 10:00am in Sydney Australia where I live and I have done Sweet FA work since getting to the office. Must dash.

Good luck and have a very, very happy Christmas to you and all ASD Families out in there in the Planet.

Also look up my posting on Autism: Twas the night before Christmas for a bit of Christmas cheer.

DUB76