Cannot seem to behave in more than one place at a time...

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When I first got my AS son back from his biological father I made the decision not to send him to school for a little while. It felt like it would be too much stress, with the move and with the fact that he hated my guts at that point.

After having him for several months, after we had moved I put him back into school. Keeping him out did not seem to have affected his school performance at all. He was well behaved at home, after months of completely inappropriate comments and behaviors, but completely stressed at school. Refused to do work, got into a bit of trouble socially, though less than at the school he attended when he lived with his father.

Halfway through the year, he's doing his work (with a special aid), he's stopped weirding the other children out (as much), but he starts acting out at home. Since then its been up and down, in both places. It seems he cannot "keep it together" in both places. Given the choice between the two, since we have to "live" with him, I would almost rather homeschool him. It is more work for us at home, but he behaved better when he was around less people.

The problem seems to be that he really does need to work on socializing more, and I am just not that outgoing... I'm not a play date kind of mom. We have done some 4H stuff and he seems to like that, but I wonder if it would be enough?

How old is your son?

Being at school - out in the world - is really stressful for AS kids, and that is going to catch up to them sooner or later. You can work with him on managing the stress better, or go back to the homeschool, but if I recall he isn't super young so soliciting his input on it would be a good idea. With my son, in elementary school, he was excused from quite a bit of work to help relieve the stress. In middle school, we eventually eliminated electives in favor of a study hall period. He was very, VERY resistant to that idea at first, but after trying it as an experiment for one quarter, he's stuck to it. We keep after school activities and playdates to a lower level, keep the TV at home turned off most of the time, and allow him lots of time to pace and stim and zone out on the computer at home. All of that helps him self-manage better. It will take some time, but hopefully you can find ways for your son to do the same.

He is twelve and in sixth grade (late birthday). This was his first year having a full set of classes that were all in a different room. He did not adapt to it very well or quickly. He has finally pulled his grades up to full B, from C-F. So there has been improvement, but I worry that the stress may be part of what is causing him to act out at home. As his therapist puts it, "He feels safe to do it with you because he knows you will not hate him, just get mad and then get over it."

So far since we got him back a couple of years ago, we have had to disallow video games of any sort, we did not own a tv until a couple of months ago and it is only used for watching movies. We put him in tutoring after school so that we would not have homework as a source of conflict at home. That helped a lot, it was a huge problem fighting about it every day. But my husband and I are in agreement that he should not get any gaming or computer time other than the timed half hour at a time at the library until he can bring his grades up to A. This is because when we got him back he was completely consumed by games and the computer. He would be completely non-responsive until we would turn it off without allowing him to save and then he would rage.

We are hoping that with the time he's had to develop other interests and his showing dedication for his lessons that it will soften his previous addiction and that he will be able to handle being given a timed allotment of gaming. However, when he lived with my X that is all he did and had very little interaction with anyone. He isn't one that shuns contact or even physical affection, he seems to like it very much, just not when he was so enthralled with things like Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario Brothers.

Today I got the call that my X did not show up for the pre-trial meeting concerning the finalization of our custody meeting and so the judge agreed to go with what ever our lawyer submits. We went ahead and discussed this with the boy because we felt that he should know and he actually seemed relieved that his father did not seem to be trying to take him from us anymore. So maybe that will be one less stress weighing on his mind.

I had originally told him that he needed to improve his behavior and respect levels at home before winter break was over, but then I relented and gave him until the end of the year. Next year he would be in a new school anyway. He may decide that rather than get used to a whole new place he would rather stay home. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

I just wondered if anyone had better experience with home schooling than public or private school.

Just remember that he won't be able to manage his behavior unless some the stresses are mitigated. Does he talk to you about things that are going on? My son, for example, has a really hard time packing his backpack, moving to the next class, and unpacking the right materials within the 4 minute limit. He also is in a very stressful PE class this year. So, we advocate for him on both issues and spent time together over the holiday break re-organizing his backpack to make movement faster (he likes the new system, yeah!). It is really worth sifting through the sand with your child to find out where the issues are, and then brainstorming solutions. AS kids seem to readily accept defeat in some areas of their lives, and it is a real life skill for them to see that it doesn't have to be that way. Plus, far less stressful.

My son is expected to stay on the second tier honor roll, which is a B average. With the pickiness of some of his teachers and his difficulties in some areas, I don't feel an A average is attainable without unecessary stress. Which I mention because I hope you will give some thought to the cost v. benefit behind some of the expectations.

As for homeschooling v. public or private school, pretty much everyone who has moved onto homeschooling with an AS child has loved it. AS kids seem to really thrive with it, so it's more a question of if you really want to do it. Me, I'm not good at keeping my son on task because I'm not good at keeping me on task, so he has agreed that homeschooling in our family would probably be a big challenge. But he likes knowing I would be willing to try it if he ever finds that school is pure misery. So far, he doesn't, thankfully.

There were alot of stresses that went on when I was in school that I never told my parrents. (I have AS). First off, I almost never told my mom about bullying, mean teachers, and little (but important) things like getting lost in the school building and being late for class...repeatedly. Sometimes, I did not know why I did things therefore could not tell my parents. I remember getting D's in P.E. because I would not dress out. Mom asked me why? I would say I dont like to, but really the issue was that we all got undressed in the same room and there were no stalls I could get dressed in by myself. I was sexually abused as a child, so this was very uncomfortable to me. Had I told my mom the whole story...it might have been resolved, but I did not know how to express to my mom that it made me feel ashamed to undress in front of other people. There are things like that which cause problems...and the only way to get to the bottom of it...is to be very specific. Had my mom said...why dont you like dressing out? I would have said because it feels weird. And if she kept playing 20 questions, she would have gotten to the bottom of it. Instead. she said, You need to start dressing out...or you are grounded. Well I chose to be grounded than to be half naked in front of 30 other people.
Sometimes you have to think like a lawyer or a reporter, you have to know the right questions to ask to get to the bottom of what is really going on because AS kids dont like being put in the spotlight, so we just say...everything is fine, and sometimes we dont know how to express what has gone wrong or even if something is wrong in the first place




best wishes,

Jojo

As Jojobean mentioned, playing 20 questions is sometimes the only way to find out what is really going on. With two out of three of my kids (one on the spectrum, the others NT), I needed to do that to find out anything about what was wrong. It has to be done gently, not like an interrogation. Also, with my AS child, it often has to be done in multiple choice format - I provide possible answers, and one of them is often "none of the above." This is important so he doesn't really have to talk, when he's in a non-verbal mood. If/when I "get it," he will often start talking! It's like I've created a safe space where he knows that what he's trying to convey will be understood and accepted, and that I'll take the time to try to figure it out. With the NT child, I had to phrase the question exactly right, or I wouldn't get the answer I needed. I probably carried that over, and made sure to be precise with my questions with the other kids afterwards! The biggest problem with this approach, is that it can take so long to get the information that sometimes, by the time you've figured out what's going on, it's two years later.

I think he is capable of strait As, but as far as stress for moving class to class he definitely has that. They ended up having to revoke his locker, he now has a box in each classroom for his materials in addition to having an aid that is with him at different points during the day. He also has a socials skill class once a week, speech and therapy (non-school Psychologist).

We are working at this from every angle we can... It is just that I dread him having to start all over when we move at a new school on top of even more of a class load. I know it is difficult for him, and while I realize that eventually he is going to have to get a thicker skin... I hate making him go through that. When I think about him starting High School in a few years, not only a bit odd and with a difficulty focusing, but so slender and given to staring... I cringe.