Thoughts on this situation please...

Post Reply New Topic

My son is 8 and has Aspergers. They do not allow him to have an aide any longer as he is too high functioning to need one. I disagree but I am just a parent what do I know ( Sarcasm) He went on a field trip to a book store and he got very upset when told he could not have the book he wanted he had to choose from books that were pre picked for the children. Anyway to make a long story short the principal was called away from the school to the book store where she escorted my son son out this made me very upset. She wanted him to get on the bus and wait while the other children were able to pick their books. He did not want to and so she told him he a choice to get on the bus or she would call the police. He is still very upset about this incident. Not one person called me from the school to let me know what happened. The information has come from him. I have a plan but I wanted to see what others would do if faced with this situation. Thanks for any advice!

Have you spoken to the school about this?

Threatening an eight year old with the police is insane and over something that could easily be fixed by adults acting like adults.

I'm not a parent but I wanted to post because I wanted to offer sympathy. I have no advice, I know if I had a child that was treated like this though, I'd be furious. It was very poor judgment on the principal's part (even if the child was NT it would be very poor judgment).

Parents on this site have experienced similar situations and will be able to give good advice on how to deal with the school effectively. You're not alone.

Only advice I can think of is to record everything they say in a diary and keep any documentation (written/email/typed/etc) regarding the school neatly filed (if you have time).

Thank you so much for your quick response. Sympathy is always appreciated. I have not spoken to the school as i have had issues all year long. As I said I have a plan I just want to see what others would do before I say anything. Thanks so much!

Have you verified with the school that your son's story is accurate? (Or with other parents or kids?) I'm not implying that he's lying - but I know with my own son that he frequently has a distorted view of upsetting incidents.

A week ago, my son came to me and said they'd been singing a song in music class that upset him, and the teacher wouldn't let him leave, and he had made a scene in front of everyone. He was clearly upset and distraught over the whole situation...but I know the music teacher pretty well, so I made a point to ask her about it.

She had no idea my son was upset at all, apparently he'd shut down instead of having an outward meltdown. He had never asked to leave the classroom, and had done nothing outward to indicate he was upset - and she said to tell him that in future, if he was upset by class in any way, to raise his hand and he would be allowed to leave the room.

When I went back to my son, he responded "Well, she should have known I was upset, I had my hands over my ears!" His Theory Of Mind skills are so poor, he assumed the teacher knew about his inner turmoil even though he gave almost no outward sign.

I'm not saying that's what happened in this case - I'm just suggesting that you should double-check and make sure, because it's a possibility.

I have a few questions about the whole situation. What kind of issues have you had with the school that makes you not want to contact them? And what is your plan to deal with this?

I know I'm not a parent, but my own parents have insight after raising an Aspie who wasn't diagnosed until age 16. One suggestion my mother had was, regardless of how hard it is to contact the school, at least try before taking any drastic actions, if only because backlash can be nasty.

Eight was an age where my son often misunderstood instructions and misunderstood why he was getting in trouble. I strongly recommend against being confrontational about this, but instead start with a fact finding mission: "my son tells me things did not go well on the field trip and I would like some more details to help us all break down the situation and avoid similar problems in the future.". Once you have ALL the information, you think about the next plan of action.

I can't begin to say how many times I wanted to armor up only to find it was all a misunderstranding. On my child's part. So many teaching moments!

Hopefully there is someone who was there that you can have a factual conversation with. If not ....well, (( ((double hug)) ))

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 27 May 2011, 7:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh good grief... do adult educators have any sense in their heads? It is too much to ask for them to at least TRY to come up with a creative redirection?

He's an 8yo - probably with a maturity level of a younger child (my 9yo is around 6-7 maturity wise) but with a bright mind that probably craves fairness and following rules. (I know those are broad AS generalizations but I'd expect the educators to have at least this sort of basic conception of their AS students)

He wants that specific book. How can we redirect?

~ The other kids are only allowed to pick from this stack of books. It wouldn't be fair for you to get any book while they all must choose from here.
~ Well, this is a class trip and the book store has rules. The rules say kids can only pick from this special pile of books. I'm sorry but it is not my store. I cannot change the rules.
~ I know you are dissappointed. How about I take a picture of the book and we send it to your mom so you and she can discuss it when you get home?

If they just can't find anything to redirect, a phonecall directly to mom should be in the plan. I would only use it as a last resort and make sure that my kidling has had clear expectations going into the trip. If he knows beforehand that a 'call to mom' will mean mom's disappointment, it may act as a derrent as long as the school doesn't use and abuse that strategy at will instead of looking for the redirects first.

I'm sorry but calling the cops?! Seriously?!

These people have chosen a profession that places them in the position to teach children for up to 8 hours a day. If they are looking for a job where no one talks back, everyone does exactly as they are told all of the time and where they can sink into their own comfy little OCD boxes of neatness and orderliness than are in the WRONG profession. Raising kids is messy work - especially when they are not YOUR kids. This sort of intolerance should be criminal.

I would definitely ask for a sit down meeting with all involved and ask for an accounting of the event and what redirect strategies they employed before calling the principle. If the teacher is out of her element in handling a child with AS, it needs to be said. Suggestions and redirect strategies can be offered. And I think it needs to be clear that as long as your son wasn't posing an immediate physical threat, threatening your 8year old with police intervention is completely unacceptable. If he has an IEP it needs to be rewritten to include off campus behavioral strategies preferably written with the school's special education director. I wouldn't say go in with guns blazing but I would definitely let it be known that you are locked and loaded....

Draelynn, I can say with certainty that if that story had come from my son at that age (1) there would have been plenty of redirection that he ignored (2) the police threat would have been either a fabrication or radically missunderstood (if this was private property the owners would have every right to insist he be removed so that he could not do physical damage) and (3) the principal arrived from next door not school.

As hard as it is not to be upset for our kids when things go wrong, we have to recognize that they often have a radically distorted view of events, and fault may not be as obvious as we'd like.

And ... Next time, mom should go on the field trip if its at all possible. I did that a lot when my son was younger; its just part of the job.

I could be totally wrong, of course. I'm talking about how to have a productive starting point. If the fact finding shows they really did all that and they have no half way satisfying explanations for why, then I'd pull the child from the school. But .....from information here alone, I'm not there yet.

I don't think it was appropriate that they threatened to call the police and didn't call you and I would take issue with this if I were you.

Children with AS usually can't accept answers as to why they can't do something without reasons. He should have been told why he couldn't have the book he wanted, for example, the teacher could have said "The employees are only allowed to give you one of these books, otherwise they'll get in trouble with their boss and they might get fired. But why don't we write down the name so you can tell your parents you want it and maybe they'll come back and buy it for you."

See. Explanation, solution.

When children with AS are told "just because" or "because you can't" it leaves a big nagging question mark for them and makes the world seem arbitrary and can actually cause a lot of anxiety. Imagine living in a world where there was no consistency and didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to anything. You would not be able to calibrate yourself to appropriate social interactions.

Thank you all for your incredible advice. I of course have had enough with the nonsense this year at school and this was the last straw. This principal has been upset with me since I demanded they keep my son in Spec ed and give him an IEP she formally wrote a letter of dissension and has had other issues with other parents as well. My sons teacher is passive aggressive and reminds me of the fireman who starts a fire just to be the first one there to put it out. My immediate reaction was to call a hard core advocate i know who gets things done! She is gung ho on this and wants to take it to the top, after cooling down some I feel I want to discuss this with the principal. My son has never lied to me, not to say this cannot be the case or it could not be a misunderstanding. I have asked him several times and he is adamant that this is what was said.
At this point i believe I am going to speak with the principal and see what she says about this, then I will re-evaluate the situation and decide if i should take further action.

Again, thank you all so much! I am so glad I asked this question.

Coming from her son there definitely needs to be a conversation with the teachers involved. If it is all a lie, then that can be dealt with seperately at home. If it is a partial truth with some embellishment - there needs to be a strategy to help prevent further incidents. If it did happen as reported... there is a major issue.

Mom mentioned that her son no longer had an aide where he used to previously. My daughters teacher has a very limited knowledge in working with AS kids...because they have specialists in the school that do that. It is worth the conversation to find out what they tried and see if there is an opportunity to teach them more effective methods.



The principle left the school to go deal with her son. Again, that is an awfully specific and highly unusual lie for an 8 year old. If it did happen - something went very wrong. If he WAS violent - that needs to be addressed. If her son is that upset - something happened even if he misinterpreted the details. If he FELT threatened by the people he is supposed to be trusting - that's an issue.

It in not my first instinct to assume a kid is lying. That AS perspective in interpretting events isn't necessarily a lie - but it does need clarification so he can learn a big social story from this if he did get it very wrong. If he is a known liar - then I'm inclined to believe that mom would already be aware of that by now and wouldn't be asking for advice here. I KNOW when my kid 'embellishes' the truth - she is REALLY bad it. No poker face AT ALL.

First and foremost - get both sides of the story and deconstruct it from there.

I believe we need to take the word "lying" out of the conversation. I have not suggested the child might be lying. I have suggested he may have an inaccurate understanding of what happened. When I moderated here there were times I had trouble getting adults to understand accurately what was happening, depending on the severity of their AS, and with kids it can be much worse. My son never lied to me at that age, but he DID mistakenly read between lines, he DID hear sentences wrong and take things out of context, and he DID fail to make note of very important factors in the situation. That is NOT lying, and to use that term, to me, tries to force a right or wrong mold onto nuanced communication skills that need to be autopsied and taught to even kids with the best of intentions.

It seems to me we're in agreement on step one, but I am worried that the semantics can get in the way. Words like lying force sides; there may not BE a right or wrong side. As one of our kids' books artistically points out, there are two sides to every story, and both can be true ... Depending on the angle from which you are lookiing at it.

Hi, My first reaction to this thread was WTF .
Then reality kicked in and I compared it to what may and still often happens with my own kiddo.
Yes he may very well have been upset about not getting his book of choice (why weren't all the kids pre- warned about the selection first? They have an aspie in the mix, makes sense to me)

The principle may have been on his/her way to the book store anyway, or he may have been called, understandable if the child was having a very vocal or physical meltdown.

He may have been told to get on the bus because he was causing a scene (he's an aspie these things happen, they should have had a back up plan) Putting him on the bus may have been their effort to try and regain some control and to help calm him down.

He may have been told to calm down or someone might call the police, or he may have assumed that because he was carrying on, or because he thought he had upset everyone and been "bad" that the police would be called.

I have no doubt that even if he miss understood this was/is his reality and school need to take some responsibility for it. My kiddo doesn't lie, but his reality can and is often very distorted.

You certainly need to be talking to the teachers and the principle, either way I would be very annoyed. Either way my son felt threatened, either way I wasn't told either immediately or at school pick up.

More effort should have been taken on the schools part to accommodate your child's very real very unique needs.

I agree with DW, wholeheartedly - and also agree that lying is not an appropriate word. For instance, when he's upset, my own son often assumes that the next logical step is calling the police, and has often added this assumption when describing upsetting interactions at school (there was a time when police were actually called...for something entirely different...but DS reported they had been called on him.)

I am not saying the school is behaving in a stellar manner, either - but it is critical that you get as many facts as you can before you make a decision as to what to do - and an eight-year-old with AS; heck, even an NT eight-year-old, even though he may BELIEVE he is reporting facts - does not necessarily have a perspective on what is factual and what is not. If you don't trust the teachers or the principal, see if there were parent chaperons there that you could ask.

I have often gone to the school loaded for bear, and found that I've received an extremely distorted picture of what actually happened, and that while the school probably could have done better, they did as well as anyone would expect given the information they had. Sorting through the information and clearing up any misunderstandings has been a valuable tool in making things easier for everyone.

Again thank you all for your responses. My son has never been a liar he is actually very honest and prides himself in that. I will not say that he has not misunderstood something or someones intentions. I spoke with him again today and his story stayed the same except for some added details, some of then I can see being his perception and not necessarily what actually happened. He said the principal told him he had two choices one to get on the bus or two she could call the police to have him taken back to school. So he did get on the bus. He said when he got on the bus he said he did not see her until he got back to school. He said he was put on the bus with just the bus driver. This again is unacceptable to me. What does the bus driver know of my son and how to handle a situation. What if my son was so scared he ran off the bus into traffic. My son has never been violent he cries very loudly, I can understand them wanting to get him out of the building my problem is with the way things went down. He has had more meltdowns with this teacher than ever some of the time I even think she causes them so she can send him to the office or to the spec ed room.
In light of the new information and past experiences of this year i am going to take this straight to the school board and leave it in their hands. The principal and I have been in a heated situation at the IEP meeting when she wanted him switched to a 504 since then I have not felt I could discuss anything with her without it being an issue.
His teacher plays both sides of the fence and has been caught in lies before. I have no actual proof it is a she said she said situation.
I am sorry if this sounds confusing it has been a long year and I am really over this nonsense. My son is really not that difficult to deal with, it is a known fact he has trouble with transitions and things that do not make sense logically.

There is no excuse for what happened

I am so glad I was able to vent and get some great advice here.

I can completely empathize with what you are going through. Luckily my issues don't extend as deeply into my daughters education as yours seem to. But my main contact in managing my daughter's IEP is through the school councellor and I have also had to deal with condescension, bullying and outright lying. I couldn't go over her head because - even well meaning educators - still seem to all stick together. When I recognized it - (it took me nearly three years ) - I simply went around her - straight to the special education team which is managed by a central administrator. Her special education team is stellar, her regular teacher is an incredibly nice guy but I think he is a bit clueless about managing kids with AS. He responds well to parent input though. My only nightmare is that one woman.

My only piece of advice is to not confront the people you and your son are having so much trouble with alone. Request it as an IEP meeting - you can clear up the incident while writing a plan to deal with such eventualities in the future. Any one on one conversation you have with this teacher or principle, I would definitely record. That councellor of mine had me sign an incomplete IEP with the 'understanding' that the changes we discussed would be made in the final. They were not and my daughter lost OT services because of it. When she asked me to do the same this year - I laughed at her. She noted that other parents had that level of trust with her which opened the floor for me to totally recount my experience the year before in a room full of her superiors and peers. Witnesses are your friend and when they are not available - record. It's extremely disturbing that anyone would need to CYA this badly but better safe than sorry.

Best of luck to you aimsy13 - I'd love an update to hear how things went for you.