Kindergartener School Trouble- any advice please!

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My son is 5, extraordinarily large (size of a 9 year old), with diagnosed ADHD, sensory processing disorder, and articulation delay (that last just means his speech isn’t crystal clear).

My husband has Aspergers (an alpha aspie type) and I am NT. It’s worth noting that I am sociologist who studies autism from a pro-neurodiversity angle and we interact plainly in our home.

Our son has been getting in a lot of trouble at school lately. A LOT. The problem is, when the misbehavior is described to my husband and me, we don’t think it’s that big a deal. Our son declines work that is “stupid” and he says “stupid” work is either boring or something repetitive that he learned a long time ago. He also will get up and attempt to leave the room himself if he is not provided with a cool down room when he is angry.

He has some accommodations, such as getting to work with the nice sped teacher, and having a weekly social skills lessons with the also nice school counselor. We recently fought them into letting him wear his noise cancelling headphones and letting him have a set of cards to silently express his opinion about work. Both are helping. The grading scale is 1-3 with 3 being the best. He receives all 2s and 3s with the exception of “taking responsibility” and “following directions.”

The principal and main (the non sped) teacher are flipping their sh** over our son “refusing” to do some things and moving around on his own when his requests are denied. We think they are having more of a problem with his personality and are taking it out on him by not acknowledging when he needs accommodations.

The principal seemed ticked off by my husband and I presenting our suggestions in an educated and fair way. I’m not boasting here-we really restrained ourselves. I think she either wanted us to be pushovers or to be unreasonable so she could be right.

Our son’s pediatrician says he is an “uncommon” child with high abilities and unusual ideas, but he said firmly that he “likes” our child, doesn’t think he is outside the “spectrum of normal” and he does not want him to change his uniqueness or feel bad about himself. He said the problem is the school.

What can I do? What kind of person do I take him to in order to get more accommodations or at least to train him into performing at a more socially acceptable level?

We have an appt today at the children’s center and I have another appt next week with a child counselor. But I don’t know what to ask them for. Or if I need to go to more people.

I am at a serious disadvantage here because I have studied the benefits of outliers to society for years and I am well aware that most other people (such as in education) do not agree with me.

Does anyone have any practical advice? Or experience? If this after happened to you as a child, what came of it? Anything would help, guys.

Homeschooling?

Am not familiar with the American Education system, but could an educational psychologists report support the approach that you as parents take?

homeschool if that's possible,
school is not very good for boys these days,
back in the 90s this was already observed as problematic




some books
Sharna Olfman: Drugging Our Children: How Profiteers are Pushing Antipsychotics on Our ......
https://books.google.fr/books?id=LYvOnr ... &q&f=false
https://books.google.fr/books?id=M-X1Bg ... an&f=false

Thank you guys. I do not WANT to homeschool him, but I can admit that may be where we’re at.

An educational psychologist observed his defiance and “unusualness” at his pre-k sped evaluation and noted it. He had an IEP in pre-k saying he had a problem being resistant to instructions, but he “achieved” the IEP with last years teacher so the IEP was removed.

Would an educational psychologist be able to assess his “learning style”?

And update: I had to go get him just now because he slapped at the main teacher when his drawing tools were taken away. On the phone the principal said that at home we seem to be more concerned with “feelings and excuses” than safety.

I am so, so mad.

On my way out I noticed another mom was there for an issue with her barely verbal child. Also some kind of behavior problem.

I might give a suggestion here. When I was young, my speech was poor. I overcame that with a special type of class that probably isn't practiced today.

Some types of special education curriculum have been around for a long time. Sixty years ago when I was in the third grade the teacher saw a problem with the way I spoke. I thought it was due to my two large buckteeth. But anyways, I was sent to Special Class. Three days a week, special students along with myself were collected from their respective classroom and led to a secret hidden room off of the main school cafeteria. This happened while I was in the 3rd & 4th grade. The hidden room had a beautiful conference room table and very nice soft leather chairs. It was such a nice hidden room that I really didn’t mind being there. Our strange assignment during the hour we were in special class was to recite tongue twisters very fast and yet very distinctly. I thought it was a strange thing to do, but who am I to dispute a teacher. I remember the two types of tongue twisters that we recited. These were:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
then how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

Sally sells seashells by the seashore.
The shells Sally sells are surely from the sea.

IMHO, I can speak clearly and distinctly today because of this type of special class.

I was subjected to significant bullying in school. This peaked in my Junior High School years. This caused me to build up a pretty thick hide. It allowed me to transition into becoming a non-conformist. But I still bear the scars a half century later buried deep inside me from those early years.

So you might have a conversation with your son. Tell him that some kids will be mean to him. They may call him names and they may fight him. If that happens, he is to report it to you, his parents and no one else. That you may not be able to protect him but you will provide him guidance. [Bullying is a difficult problem to tackle. It is very complex.]

The other thing I would recommend is to teach your son skills. The goal of bullying is to crush a child's self-esteem. To protect my children from bullying I fashioned for each of them a coat of invisible armor. From the time my daughters began to walk and talk, my wife and I relentlessly began to teach them Life Skills.

Consider this, most children start with the same box [Asperger and neurotypical]. But every time an Aspie child is ridiculed, they are told they have no common sense, every time they are told they are stupid or worthless, an idiot, their box gets a little bit smaller. If the box gets compressed too small, the box breaks and explodes. The goal is to help the child expand their box, to be everything possible that they can be. One approach to expand their box is to give them skills, hands on skills, real life skills.

Every time an individual learns a new life task successfully, the individual becomes more confident, feels greater self worth and value, is better able to withstand non-constructive criticism and psychological abuse. Essentially, the individual is expanding their box.

Life tasks are normal tasks that individuals (such as parents) use in their normal life. Life skills can be almost anything. They can be making a scrambled egg, or making a sunny-side-up egg, or driving a nail into a board, changing a flat tire, washing the dishes, balancing a checkbook, using a cookbook, making cherry jubilee, ironing their clothes, fixing a broken dishwasher, answering the phone, unclogging a toilet, changing a light bulb, making a cup of coffee or grinding coffee beans by hand, coloring Easter eggs the old fashion way or finding Easter eggs buried inside or at the end of a movie, grinding grains of wheat to make flour and then using the flour to make a loaf of bread, creating a spreadsheet or sweeping a floor. These life skills can be very mundane or very intricate task. There are millions of life skills that can be learned. They can be outdoor survival skills taught in boy scouts or girl scouts. Every skill makes their armor a little bit stronger against psychological abuse. When my daughters stepped into the classroom for the first time; they had a thousand real life skills under their belt.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply, Jimmy M. It brought tears to my eyes (again).

I do think he has a similar situation. He is hard for people to follow, both in his speech and in his words and ideas. He is popular with the other children, and I think this adds to why some of the adults dislike him.

To be honest, it doesn't seem as if it's all bad.

He's getting mostly 2's and 3's, and very few 1's. Which means he's pretty much following the work. Despite the fact that he doesn't always "behave," he's certainly not "failing."

You also said it was getting "somewhat" better. Maybe the teacher is "learning on the job," so to speak. Maybe she hasn't had a student like your son before. Maybe, as time proceeds, she might be more amenable to talking to you about how to handle him, and how to calm him down and make him feel content and good.

That's the way many teachers and principals are. I think this attitude comes from "pedagogical ego." I'm sure you've had professors with similar attitudes.

I don't know if I would change your school at this point, since he already has people there who are advocating for him, and whom he likes. Finding people he likes and who advocate for him is rather difficult.

Kraftie- Yeah that’s what I think too. But it may be too late at this point. My husband is furious. He says he doesn’t want to leave him there at all. He thinks the principal and do nothing main teacher have it in for our son (and perhaps us too).

Some of you guys who have known me awhile know how I feel about this sort of thing. Kids younger than teens are often too young to diagnose with any “mental” or “emotional” thing, and working with a person’s differences is more fruitful than working against them.

We went to the children’s clinic just now. They set him up for a more complete ADOS, IQ and cognitive testing, and occupational testing. We are trying Buspar over the weekend. Man, I really hate that. I fundamentally disagree with giving someone medication for behavior. Especially a child. But they said he will have to go back on Monday and I don’t have much time to figure things out. If he is less stressed out maybe it’s worth it just for a little while.

I have a call in to an educational advocate.

And I have some various homeschooling options to look over. Many older people here were held back a while and went into school at an older age. Maybe this would replicate that.

Did I say the principal is also try to take away his sped bus? It has nice ladies driving/helping, quiet kids, and comes here fast. She said if he was too big for a harness he will need to ride the regular bus.

I’m just so disappointed.

Yep. Talk to the educational advocate.

One important question: How does your son like the school?

He is fortunate to have such support in his home environment, I would have liked to have the two of you in my corner as a child!

Learning styles are somewhat controversial these days, from what I understand.

From my limited experience of reading reports from educational psychologists there is usually very clear and detailed directions on how to best support the child in the learning environment.

The IEP is then devised collaboratively between the school and parents and reviewed on an ongoing basis.

I think perhaps the systems might be too different.

I like what Jimmy posted, I feel similarly, experiencing success and mastery of personal interests as well as the mundane is key for educational resilience, persistance in the face of uncertainty, opportunities for mastery motivation is one thing I would promote.
It is impacted on by the child's self regulation abilities, but the two support separate executive functioning areas.

Kraftie-If asked, he says he doesn’t like it. Says it’s boring, “stupid”, and it’s too hard to remember the rules. He also has been saying that he is a “bad guy” who needs to go to jail for always messing up. He is friends with all the kids in his class and they love him too, but he says the friends are not worth the rest of it. He does go in willingly and cheerfully each morning.

He’s reverted on his life functioning skills in the past few weeks, isn’t eating as much, and stopped playing video games on his own. He says they make him “crazy” and his dad and I will stop liking him if he is crazy. He rarely likes to leave the house these days, even to go do favorite activities.

Amity- What you’re describing is how I thought it was supposed to go already, but it’s not. Maybe these other assessments will help do that. The problem is that the appointments aren’t for three months. I don’t see how he will make it that long. It kind if sounds like from what you said, the “detailed” portion of his documentation is not there.

I just read that there was an option to send a note to the school board and say he’s not emotionally ready to go this year, and then we’d get him tested next year and he’ll either repeat kindergarten or do first grade. No one told us that was still a thing. We didn’t think it was a legal option anymore.

SocOfAutism, I am so impressed with how you are handling all this! I have no words of wisdom for you, as I’m am just starting this process and waiting for my son’s results.

They did an iQ test, really a full assessment. I was talking to his teacher and I understood that with the results we would know more about his learning style. I hope our school doesn’t give us a lot of grief.

My heart goes out to you. I will follow your story about this, as I’m learning and don’t know about all the options out there. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Sending you wishes of wisdom and strength!

I am getting the sense that the school is NOT a good fit for your family. Having followed this board for more than a decade, and having an ASD child that recently graduated from college, I can say that having the right fit is ESSENTIAL. Sometimes you can find the right fit in a private school, sometimes you can transfer among public schools or classrooms within a school, sometimes an educational advocate can get the language in your IEP and educate the staff so that the environment becomes more appropriate, and sometimes you will have to home school.

My son also often used the "stupid" excuse, but it did not always mean the same thing. I urge you to dig a little further, and try to identify any ancillary issues that might be buried in that statement. My son, for example, turned out to be disgraphic, meaning that writing by hand was actually painful for him. To avoid the pain, he was looking for ways to short cut the work he was being asked to do. Other times the real issue was noise in the room, not actually understanding the assignment and thus pretending it was something he had already done, and so on.

Once you have eliminated all the potential ancillary issues, I recommend teaching your son the life skill that is doing things we don't think are essential, just because someone asked us to. My son wasn't able to master that until much older than 5, but the conversation started early. The language I used was about games: to get by in life, sometimes you just have to play the game. The rules of the game include repeating things even when they are stupid, etc. Whatever phrasing has the best chance of connecting with him.

My son's peers always like him, too. They still do. He has gifts that attract people. He remains far less interested in people than people are interested in him, but it definitely makes everything easier for him that both adults and kids have always been drawn to him. Your school seems to be locked into its box of trying to make everyone the same. They are going to have to change that if your son is to thrive.

This is why if I ever have kids, they’re going to one of the bigger schools in the area. Got a lot of detentions in 6th grade and I move to a bigger school and never got a detention again.

Thank you guys for the wisdom. It really has been a shining beacon of needed information during these dark few days.

Interesting tidbit about the big versus small school. My son is indeed in a small school.