school punishing my child

Post Reply New Topic

My child was out for recess and this other kid she likes was behind this fence and i don't know if my daughter wanted to go by her or what but my daughter ended up lying on the ground and this aide that doesnt know my daughter started telling my daughter to stop and a bunch of other things that set her off. Then my daughter tried to run away and the principle then after the holiday break kept her in today from recess for punishment and for safety. I got in touch with everyone about how unhappy i am. I am in tears thinking about it and how everything is a constant battle and they have no strategy to help my child learn the rules and get her to do what we want. My child has a behavior plan and Elopement should have been placed in it cause i requested it. I don't know how keeping my child in on a beautiful day to punish her is going to do any good. i am just sick of this school she is in 1st grade mainstreamed all day. Do you think i should have a reason to be mad or is the school doing the right thing? i asked for a meeting and the Emotional support teacher is suppose to go over the rules with my daughter tomorrow claiming that she will get it and it will help. My other child has done the same thing but all his therapist does is stay outsdie with him for 5 more minutes so he doesnt get upset and how is that fair treating both my kids different too? I am just not too happy about it and sick of this damn school.

I am sorry things have been difficult.

I have a question: how did your daughter feel about staying inside? I realize she would feel bad about being punished, but is she maybe one of the AS kids that actually would rather be inside by herself at recess so as not to have to deal with unpredictable and hyped up children running around at recess?

I'm not sure I understand exactly what occurred, but was there a gap in time(days?) between this supposed infraction on the playground and the disciplinary action? If so, this "strategy" isn't effective for NT kids, and I dare say it's even more confusing to a child with Autism.

Request another IEP meeting and this time bring an advocate if you feel you need one. I'm not sure about the community that you live in, but we have an organization here that sends advocates to IEPs all the time(free of charge), and they are pit bulls when it comes to fighting for accommodations!! Many times they are also parents who have children with disabilities.

How is lying on the ground a problem?

Does the behavior plan specifically cover what the school should do in cases where your daughter gets "set off"? Did they follow the terms of that behavior plan when dealing with her? Did she act in the way that she did (the reason she was punished) due to issues relating to her diagnosis? Her IEP should stipulate things that she can be disciplined for and specifically outline how they should deal with her when behavior relating to her diagnosis causes her to act out. You need to request an IEP meeting to address this. Disciplining a child for behavior that is not in their control is just wrong and will lead to further behavior problems. If they continue to try to use punishment in this way you can file a Federal OCR complaint against the school.

I was wondering this myself.

So was I! Some "teachers" probably become "teachers" just to act like GOD or something. They make up CRAZY rules, and punish kids hat don't follow them. I WONDER! Is there something we are missing or is that "teacher" just some idiot that wants to have her way?

I think it probably had more to do with the part of the child trying to run away....???

It's not a problem. Apparently it just annoyed this school aide and then the aide became annoyed that she wasn't being obeyed. At least that is what I speculate.

Thanks for all your replies you are all great support! I don't know exactly what happened but i am looking for answers and i am just hearing bits and pieces. We might be having a meeting as early as tomorrow. My daughter didn't mind staying in for recess she wasnt crying or anything, but it bothered me that she wasn't getting the social skills at recess and it was a beautiful day we havent had one in a long time here. My child did this behavior last week the lying on the ground because she was upset then running away and this week she was to stay in on a nice day as the principle wanted. The learning support teacher was suppose to go outside to watch with my child's ABA therapist if my child did it again but the teacher forgot about it cause she had another student that was new and forgot about my daughter so my daughter stayed in. I understand my daughter shouldn't run away and needs to learn safety but she has Autism and it is a part of her disability. She doesn't run unless provoked cause we don't have this issue often. I hear comments that she follows along during school and doing well for the most part. This new principle doesn't care about the students i have heard this from parents of typical kids and i think he wanted to keep her in just to make it easy on them. I need to look over her behavior plan again and request to look at another copy because elopement should be in there and i don't even know if they are working on it. She has a behavior therapist working with her full time but the therapist was busy circling the playground trying to give my child independence i guess and the aide that didn't know my child set her off by telling her not to do something or whatever it was. I heard this girl that my child is friends with or likes was going on the other side of the fence at the playground and my child might have been trying to do that too not realizing safety, but the aide might have approached my child in a certain way about that that set her off. But the principle thinks keeping her in one day is punishing her and for safety and yet she is going outside tomorrow. I keep saying let's see if keeping her in really showed her how wrong she was for acting out because someone set her off due to her disability. Sorry i get so mad sometimes and it is all too much

I think it is a problem because they didn't deal with her in an appropriate matter, which set her off, and then she wanted to run away. If they delt with her appropriatly she wouldn't have over reacted and she wouldn't have ran away.
I can totaly see your frustration and how the staff needs to learn how to deal with her in some situations.

I strongly suggest a school meeting with all who are involved with caring for your daughter, if this is not possible write a letter! You are always better off putting things in writting(keeping a copy for yourself) and giving a copy to everyone directly involved with your child.
I feel your concerns, if people would just take the time to understand our children the issues would be few and far between or not at all.

Just my opinion, but I think you'll hear the same from most of our AS members: social skills are not learned at recess. Too little supervision and too much chaos. We have families here who write out recess in their IEPs it can be so counter productive.

Something to consider when you have your meeting.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 27 Apr 2011, 1:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think she ran away because she didn't like getting yelled at and the aid took that as disobeying.

I agree and want to clarify, since no child likes getting yelled at, that it could be more than not liking but actually being unable to handle and process.

Only good thing about recess is she does socialize with friends from last years class who help her in lots of ways so in my daughters case she does get more interaction at recess but that isn't what i am upset about. I just wish they knew how to handle her better and her behavior therapist should have been right by her i think too because she knows her best. We are having a meeting soon and i send e-mails all the time when something is concerning me and save them and send them to myself so i have a copy so i am doing that for proof if it goes to court and i have dates on all of them. Thanks for being supportive here