New Poster: Livid at school, right now---VENT

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Thank you everyone, for your helpful comments. There is a special ed classroom. The problem is that if I put him in there I can pretty much forget about academics for him, and that it what he likes and where his aptitudes lay. So I have to mainsteam him or basically pull him out and homeschool him. This may be what eventually happens, but I am trying to give the school district a chance because there are not many socialization options here for a little boy who is completely uninterested in athletics or outdoorsy things. Also I think the speech services he is getting at the school is helpful.

He has an IEP and a BIP, but there is not anything in there that specifically informs her how to deal with him. I probably need new language added. I just have to be careful, because I am afraid if I add language about giving him a break they will use it as an excuse to remove him for large parts of the day.

DW, I am in total agreement with you about the meds. I know they are helpful for some, and I am not completely close-minded about it, but I really don't want to medicate him for the school's convenience. It isn't that we never have rough moments, but we have no real problems with him at home that would require this. We can take him out to stores and restaurants without serious problems. Is he quirky? Sure. But nothing I would medicate for.

I have told the teacher how upset and stressed he is, and that has not moved her in the slightest. She seems happy to see he can display human emotions!! !! She said something to that effect when I was trying to explain how stressed he is. I may have to do recon somehow and find out if any of the teachers might be better. I don't want to remove him, then have be put in a worse situation and then have the school say that it has to be him.

Right now I am waiting to see what the experts say when they come in to observe him. She is apt to listen to them more so than to me. When he comes home I tell him not to worry about the demerits (She'd love knowing that, I am sure) and he seems to be calming down a little bit. I think his stress peaked about a week ago, and maybe he is learning to not take the criticism to heart, so much.

I really don't know how to deal with her. The aspie in me does not understand why she constantly complains to me about his behavior, even though she clearly doesn't like what I have to say in response. Does she think I am going to change what I say? Is she expecting me to constantly reassure her that I know how hard it is for her? Is she just wanting to vent, and not understanding that any sympathy I originally had, is gone because of her attitude toward my son? I talk to him about his demerits, I try to give him coping strategies, I write social stories...I do what I can on my end. Does she want me to punish him even though he is already upset, and has already been punished? I really do not understand what she wants from me.

Have you thought about asking her point blank, "I don't know what exactly it is that you want from me. Can you tell me?"

You can even expand it (to help her, sometimes you can get a neurotypical who is a passive-aggressive person who won't come right out and tell you how she feels but will dig and dig until it becomes obvious) --

Does she:

Want to complain and vent? OK -- you'll listen and set a time limit. (Even though technically this is her therapist's job.) But -- you also get her to agree to the condition that once venting is over and the timer beeps, she's responsible for coming up with 1 or 2 solutions to improve the conditions.

Want to change your son to "feel" on her terms? That's not possible, he is who he is, like you're not looking to change her -- so how to work this out? This is where you get an impasse.

Want to genuinely solve the problem? I don't sense this is her agenda right now, but you can always offer it and then collaborate on a solution.

By law, teachers who have special ed classes are required to be qualified ("trained"). Part of that aptitude and training is knowing how to manage situations like this. She does not appear to be appropriately trained. The school's responsibility is not ensure that its teachers are trained for the type of classes they teach, and the students they get in those classes.

I think you did the right thing to tell you son that for the time being, not to worry about the demerits.

I also think you are right about this teacher being more willing to listen to "experts" (obviously not parents). As long as she doesn't take this opportunity as additional venting sessions to the experts.

I think somethng similar happened to my son some too! His whole desk was still in the room, but he had a "special chair" in the back of the room and he was singled out and the only person to be sent back there. I so wish I had made a big deal about that now. I was caught by such surprise that year. We always knew he acted more immature, but his Kindergarten teacher never seemed to be very worried and always told us some kids mature slower than others. I was always the one to ask his Kindergarten teacher if he was okay. She never brought any probems to my attention. Then we had nothing but problems from day one in 1st grade. I asked his 1st grade teacher if she had ever spoken to his Kindy teacher because she hadn't thought he was as awful as she did. She acted completly shocked and never once bothered to go speak to his Kindergarten teacher down the hall. Some teachers don't want to help a child. They can't think beyond what has always worked for them. If I knew then what I know now. His 1st grade would have been completely different. Please, fix this before your son hates school.

I wanted to add, my son's break are very short in nature. He hates missing classwork. They are only about 5 minutes and 2 are scheduled during transition times like either going or leaving specials and before/after lunch. He usually goes to the resource room and they say he jumps on the trampoline for a sensory break. I think he jumps seldom. I think most of the time, he just goes for a quiet place. An aide he likes in there is a much older man. Knowing my son, he probably talks his head off because the man just asked my permision for him to give my son a fossil he had in there because my son talked to him about it all the time. I think one aide played basketball with him sometimes for 5 minutes during his breaks last year. The point of the breaks aren't for him to be taken out of the class. They want to minimize that. They are trying to see what little he needs to be able to handle staying in class and not being on overload. That should be the goal for your school too. In 1st grade, he might need more time than he will need as he ages, but that shouldn't translate into him being pulled from the class.

I had a productive (I think) meeting with the school, and they are going to give him OT. I think the OT report may have been an eye-opener (I hope) for the teacher because it gave a neurological basis from a specialist for the things that I think in her mind sounded like excuses, when they came from me. I won't know for awhile, I think, if she is finally getting it. They are going to try to figure out a sensory diet for him at school, and give him ways to tune out all the excess stimuli. They will also be addressing his fine motor skill issues.

This meeting was much better than the last one because it talked about the things in class that are disrupting/distracting him as opposed to the other meeting which was all about how he was doing the distracting/disrupting.

I will be keeping a very close eyes on things. He seems to have had a lower stress level, now. Not from anything they have done because they haven't had time to institute much change. I am hoping maybe he is teaching himself how to cope better with the criticism, and that if the criticism falls off also, than he wll be in a way better place. I will just have to keep monitoring things.

Thanks, everyone. I am so grateful to be able to benefit from your experiences and advice.

This kind of reminds me of my son's second grade teacher this year. She put emphasis on the most trivial things. "He doesn't put his folder away properly, he chews on his pencils and clothes, he doesn't maintain eye contact, he doesn't track properly when reading, he forgets to push his chair in, he doesn't understand "time to get ready for lunch" or other abstract directions." She didn't follow or seem to understand his IEP at all. She is a first year teacher with no experience with ASD kids.
We finally decided except for his special classes (ex:Music, Art, P.E. etc), he will be in the structured resource room. He is doing so much better! I love picking him up from school now, no more "He had a meltdown over so and so, He kept arguing how to do this correctly, he wouldn't follow directions." Now it's "He had a great day!". He is even ABOVE grade level now in reading. Before he was in the lowest, beginning reading group in his homeroom class. I think teachers make a lot of difference in the school experience. Next year they think they have the 'perfect' teacher picked out for him who has experience with Autism, and hopefully he can go back to being mainstreamed more in 3rd grade.