skipping school

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My 11 aspie decided he doesn't like an elective cooking up history class that he picked out. He talked about the class as if he enjoyed it, and is getting an A in the class. The last 2 classes he decided he doesn't like the class and went to the library instead. When a teacher asked him why he was there he said he just lied about it, and the teacher figured everything out. He never mentioned to anyone he stopped liking the class. And I asked him over and over but he denies anything negative going on in the class to make him change his mind, like a bully or something. He just said its too hard, I dont like the class anymore. So now the principle and his case manager are scrambling to find another class for him, and he will have some kind of consequence at school, which I fully support. He is grounded at home for awhile too. My attempts to tell him to come to us next time and or one of the teachers about his problem have gone nowhere. He can not wait for the second I stop speaking about it, and I do try to keep it short and sweet. I think he realized it was wrong but just figured it was better than going to the class. Im so stressed out about it waiting for the principle to email me with whatever punishment they will do for him, and if he can even switch classes at this point in the trimester. Guess Im just in shock that a 6th grader would skip class, and I feel like I don't know how to make him understand its unacceptable.

LOL - we had exactly this same scenario with band this year. What's worse, since it was outside of school hours, DS just left the school and called me to come pick him up (I was terrified, but it turned out not to have been as big of a deal as it sounded like when I was on the other end of the phone.)

Basically, his team and I and him all got together and wrote up a contract that, for leaving without telling anyone, he forfeited the right to drop the class immediately. I made him go to three more classes and then I said we could discuss dropping the class (which he did.) We didn't make it optional, and fortunately since he saw the logic of it being wrong for him to leave class without permission, he went along with us.

It's tricky, because I didn't want him to get the idea that it was acceptable to just quit in the middle of something, even if it was an elective. I think our kids have difficulty with the concept of "elective" in general (DS nearly failed Spanish this semester because he decided it was an "extra" class he didn't have to do well in. THAT we didn't let go, he's doing well now.)

So, whatever you do in the short term - I'd come up with a long-term strategy for electives and optional afterschool programs. For now, DS will have to sign a contract (we do contracts for anything we might fight over, just because DS needs the written reference) saying he will attend for X amount of time, whatever is expected of him, before he can change his mind/drop the class, etc.

My then 5 yo did something similar last year. He was supposed to be attending an afterschool activity one day a week. He had decided, unbeknownst to us, that he did not like going to the activity so one day he snuck past the person in charge and was found on the playground playing by himself about an hour later. Just a 5 yo who was supposed to be in the school's supervision, playing by himself, no one knew where he was...

The only consolation I could find was that at least he didn't actually leave the school grounds. He stayed inside the fenced in playground area. Needless to say, that was the end of him participating in any afterschool activities unless I am there.

I guess I share that story in part because in our case DS wasn't able to verbalize WHY he didn't want to participate in the class, he just couldn't do it and no amount of knowing that he was going to get in trouble, which he did know, made any difference. He simply could not do it. In other areas I have pushed him a bit not to give up on things at the first sign of adversity but in this case, since it was obvious I couldn't trust the supervision situation, we just opted out.

I like the contract idea, my kid is such a visual guy, and usually for the most part a rule follower. I might run that by his case worker and see if they will work with us on it. Today the caseworker let my kid go to his office durning the hour he usually has the cooking class. That seems way too leaniant to me, so Im hoping that its the truth. It would freak me out too if my kid called after regular school hours to come pick him up early...they have no idea how much we have to worry about them lol.

We had something similar happen to that when ds was about 6. He was at the summer school program and decided to leave and just walk home. We live very close to the school, but there are a couple busy roads that we would never let him walk alone on that he had to take. When he showed up at home I was floored. It did bother me alot about supervision but I guess with so many kids its hard to keep track of them all. Plus some 6yr olds get to walk on their own, and maybe they are ready to do that but we were so not ready lol.