What is the most effective way to make teachers understand?

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DenvrDave, I find it at once beautiful and enraging to hear that you paid for the education of your son's educators. If you were a teacher, would you not WANT to learn this stuff? Would you not WANT to know how best to support the children with AS in your class?

I think that is what disheartens me the most. I just don't see the initiative being taken at the school level and I can't fathom why they would want to go on stumbling around in the dark, hurting the education and self-esteem of our kids as they go.

Caitlin:

Thanks for sending the link. I share your anger that your child was put through the "no one likes you meeting" and I'm sorry that someone used inappropriate language when talking about your son to you. I find no indication of two staff people being removed, as you claim. If you'd like to explain what happened there (as you said you would happily do) I'd still be interested.

I'll also point out to you that you claimed that you would happily tell me the story, and then went into attack mode when I asked. After I acknowledged my own autism. I'm not especially impacted by overly literal thinking now that I'm an adult, but enough that it would not occur to me that people would tantrum when taken up an on offer.

That indicates to me that you may not understand what autism as well as you think you do or that you can't be bothered to put that knowledge to use when dealing with people outside your family. If that's the case, you have no right to ask that anyone extend themselves on your son's part, do you?

You are furious that your teacher is not teaching as though she has completely mastered the mountain of material you sent her. You are also furious with me for asking you to look at the work of one author. That's not rational.

Everyone expects a mother to act as though her child is the center of the world. No one tolerates a mother who expects everyone else to act as though he is. And it's genuinely hard to like a child whose mother has taught him to act like people are being horribly unfair if they don't act like he's the center of the world.

You have, as you acknowledge in the piece you sent me, serious issues with self-confidence and unrealistic, "black and white" expectations are evident in the entry you wrote about your Halloween party. I think your son may be internalizing those things. I really do think you would benefit from getting some counseling to deal with your own stress. Getting overwrought at people is rarely a successful strategy.

Caitlin, I can empathize with your situation. Last year after fighting and fighting and getting nowhere, my daughter had such clinical levels of anxiety just from going to school that we made the painful decision to put her on anxiety meds. She was on meds from Christmas last year until the end of school, at which time her anxiety was so bad that she was literally pulling her eyelashes and hair out, having daily meltdowns, was violent with a peer (after a field trip they encouraged me to let her go on against my parental intuition NOT to do), wasn't sleeping at all, etc. It was such a nightmare I thought we were going to have to go to antipsychotic meds. A summer of decompression and a better school has emilinated most all of the above UNMEDICATED. An unsupported educational atmosphere can create lasting damage and must be avoided and fought at all costs. Not all children are this sensitive but some ARE and if your son is then continue to fight to have him properly supported.

If your child is depressed at the moment and things are not going well for him in regards to his autism and his surroundings, instead of primarily walking up to his teachers and the school for a change (apparantly they are not into it when i read your story) go seek a professional therapist or social worker who is indeed specialised in ASD to help him get over this current depression and to make him less vulnerable in this unstable situation. Currently it's not only about regular autistic traits anymore (the kind of stuff alot of teachers are trained in) but it sounds that he has developed extra psychological trauma aswell because of not being understood. A teacher is NOT qualified nor educated in dealing with psychological trauma and if you want your child to feel right again you'll have to work on this aswell, but you cannot ask this of his teachers because they are primarily there to educate, not to coach or be therapist. (they dont have the experience, nor the diploma) That is a strong advise that i have for you. I dont know if theres a school therapist that you trust or if there are specialised institutes or individuals in your neighbourhood, but try it! Your son might need alot extra at this moment than just the regular school ASD support.

You and your son require both help AND understanding to go forward in life. If school cannot give that to you, seek help somewhere else!

I agree on your idea that schools should do the utmost best at teaching ASD children and i am sorry to hear that your concerns arent taken seriously at your kids school. Perhaps if you can get extra external help your school will be more willing to listen and be open to any advice.
Perhaps you can speak with his teacher, tell him/her your deeply concerned and really stressed out. Make an appointment and sit down with his teacher and look for options for your sons problems relating to autism together. I know its hard at this point but try to trust your teachers competence and knowledge on education, it makes them more willing to work along because then they feel they are being taken serious. Try to write down a few (small) goals together that you both agree on, write down how to work on those goals and how to evaluate them. Plan a new appointment with your teacher to evaluate the goals and work from there.

Youll have to start together with small or a small amount of goals in regards to your child because its successes will make the three of you stronger, will make your faith stronger and will make you feel more competent and understood. You might experience multiple "yes this is going the right way!" moments instead of waiting and trying to accomplish that one big "everything is alright" moment. Because it doesnt work like that. Start small and as it works out you can always add more goals. You'll have to be patient but faithfull. It wil build strength and character in yourself, your kid and his teacher.

And as a last solution, you can always try to swap schools and take him to a school that is more ASD sensitive.

My advice in short:
1. seek help for the extra problems
2. try to work together 'as a team' with your teacher and set small verifialble goals together and work from there.

Both.
I'm a social pedagogue myself, so i have practical experience in this field. I can only share this much through this medium, so i hope it can be of help.
I wish you all the best either way, i really hope you'll find understanding in this pretty quickly. You and your kid deserve it!

You're right vector. I'm just an irrational mother, tantruming, and I need therapy because I'm damaging my son.

I'll get right on that.

caerulean, I have done exactly as you described. I have attempted to work as a team. My last attempt to share some very important information with his teacher elicited this response from her:

"We are supporting Simon as best we can at the school".

That was the beginning, middle, and end of her response to my request that we work as a team to help Simon.

And my request was NOT for her to act as his therapist. It was for her to stop disciplining him in front of the other kids when he says things that are inherently a part of his Aspergers. THAT doesn't take a therapist to understand or implement.

Yes, hard truths are upsetting.

Obviously, none of this was written for you. You know better than literally everyone else, from Temple Grandin to your son's teacher, and no one who disagrees with you at all could possibly know anything at all. You've made that abundantly clear.

That is unfortunate, I do wonder what her motives are when she acts like that and says those things. But say, what if there's no getting through at this school or this teacher, then what do you forsee? Do you feel like you have options to move forward in a positive sense together with your son? And if you see options, both positive and negative, which are those if you don't mind me asking?

Excuse me for my poor english btw, reading these messages I can hardly believe there was a time when I was fluent at this. ..

We have an interivew with a private school tomorrow, but they may not take a child with an AS dx, we don't know yet.

If all else fails, I homeschool him. We actually had a wonderful year of homeschooling last year, but I don't want him to lose touch with his friends at school, and I only have a few more years of unpaid leave I can take from my career. So it's a balancing act.

Mama to Grace - thank you so much. Some days you just need to know someone else understands your child.

Caitlin, teachers are very sensitive and our psych acctualy gave us a good suggestion: make the teacher feeling accomplished. we noticed that she is frustrated because she doesn't understand my son and her usual methods do not work. try to give her a compliment even if she doesn't deserve , she will be more willing to work and open to suggestions. at least that happened in our case.

Hi Caitlin, I'm not enraged about paying for continuing education classes for teachers, it was the least I could do and, frankly, I was pleased that they were willing to go. Yes, if I were a teacher I would want to continuously improve and would embrace continuing education opportunities. However, I'm not like most people. At this point I try not to get enraged at the public school system, its like getting angry at the division of motor vehicles. My view of public education is that it is woefully underfunded, teachers are under-paid and over-worked, class sizes are increasing, and teachers are being forced to do more with less. Its a tragic statement, really, of the value our society places on education.

What's disheartening to me is that this thread has degenerated as far as it has, I thought it was a good question. Hang in there Caitlin, children are resilient and I'm sure you'll find your way through the maze

Hi Caitlin,
I am sorry if I am being repeating anything that was already said, but I am running out of time and gave up on reading the whole thread.

First off, I am glad that you are not accepting that your son's school situation will inevitably be miserable but can and will (with lots of work and patience) be a positive one. Second, I always give the new teachers info on my sons at the beginning of the year, and have rarely met with resistance, but rather gratitude for handing over "cliff's notes" which give the teachers some insights and strategies to use right off the bat. The only teacher who got a little huffy and dismissive was not a particularly good teacher. The good ones, being educators, tend to welcome a little education! That being said, yes, important not to step on anyone's toes and to be as diplomatic as possible at all times (which I am sure you are).

What I would do in your situation is to arrange some times that you can go into the classroom and volunteer. Use these volunteer days as an opportunity to observe your son in the classroom. This may give you some insights as to what exactly is going wrong. When you feel you have a clear picture, arrange a meeting with the teacher, and approach the problems as a team (as in "i notice my son has difficulties with ______, how can we support him on this?"). Maybe choose one or two things at a time to work on. Then follow up with the teacher regularly. In a busy classroom, it will be really easy to lose sight of the goals for your son without regular reminders. And all the while make nice with the teacher, be as friendly and helpful, non-critical and supportive as you can be.

If this gets you nowhere, you can pull in other resources (maybe you are already at this point). The resource teacher, the school speech pathologist, school OT and the school district autism specialist have all been great allies at various times for us. I know you are local to us, and there are also resources through the MATC. Even a school autism specialist who can come in observe, and then present her recommendations to the school (we did this last year). Lots of resources, lots of ways to motivate and educate the school. Don't give up! (but of course you won't, we don't give up on making things better for our kids ever, do we?!)

I wish you the best of luck. This answer was a bit rushed, but I hope there was something helpful in there.

I agree with checking into the gifted and talented program at your son's school. I could have written your posts, Ive been going through the same rediculousness with my son's schools since K. He was also bored in class, completely unchallenged by the work they were doing and told the teacher as much. It was also held against him and was disciplined for it. Luckily a great couple of teachers he has had since then has turned it around until this year of course. Anyway, it was apparent that my son wasnt going to be challenged in class (they told me they would just give him MORE of what they were already doing but couldnt give him more advanced work ) so I insisted he be put into the advanced program. It was a big turning point for him, he was challenged and loved the out of the box thinking and the funny thing is, out of the 8 kids in his advanced class, 4 of them are AS. So, its a two fold benefit, advanced learning/thinking and he gets to interact with other kids like himself which he loves. As a result too, his advanced class teacher has much more experience with AS kids and is much more in tune with his/their needs. Definitely check into it although I would caution you from moving him ahead in grade. I know my son was intellectually intelligent enough but emotionally was nowhere near being able to handle those kids. Good luck with the school, I think you're doing a terrific job advocating for your son!

Caitlin
I feel so sorry for you and the way your son is being treated. It makes me count my lucky stars about the pre-school DS is in now and how thoughtful and supportive they were when it became obvious that my precious beautiful boy had some difficulties that were beyond just adjusting to school. I will remember to thank the director of the school and his teacher, again for their tact in the way they approached that first meeting!

I also volunteer as much time as I can at my NT son's school (public) and recently encountered a reaction similar to the one you got from the teachers. This is not related to AS but the gist is the same. We received a grant to do things to encourage kids to bike and walk to school and 2 of us parents volunteered to implement the grant. We were both new at this. We devised a plan to have the kids keep a braclet sized ring in the classroom and each day when they bike or walk the kid gets to add a bead to the ring. When we presented this to the teachers and asked them to help us implement it, several of them came UNGLUED on us. My friend was in tears and I was embarrassed on many levels. The principal dismissed it all saying that so much was already being asked of the teachers and we should have been more sensitive than to ask them to do anything else.

I understand they have a lot of work and if they didn't want to participate they could have told us so in a professional manner and we could all have moved on. As it was, some of them spent more time complaining and emailing eachother about it than it took them to actually implement the program.

It seems similar to your experience becasue it seems like this knee-jerk reaction of "you can't tell me anything or ask me to do anything differently than I have always done it". I don't like to think that "teachers" are like this but hearing the same sentiment echoed from an entirely different situation makes me fear what is in store for us next year when my ASD son goes into K.

Hi Caitlin-

I read your link about the incident that happened to your son (the meeting with the kids) I was horrified to read that! How could any adult in their right mind (let alone a teacher) think this was beneficial for your son. What class did she learn that in??? I was appalled. I am sorry that you had to endure that.

My son has always been in special ed since he was 3, so they know what is going on with him, so I don't really know what to say. If you stay in public school, do you think that once his IEP is in place, then the teacher will have to stop disciplining him for clearly Asperger behaviors?