My 13yo son: disturbing statements worry his teachers

Post Reply New Topic

Hello,

First, a little background:

My 13 yo son and I are both Aspie. He HATES 8th grade--has never liked school at all. There are many reasons for his dislike: teachers who don't "get" him, bullies, studying subjects in which he is not interested, etc.

In the past year or so, he has gotten very intense in his dislikes of certain things. There is no grey with him--it's either black or white. For instance, he loves Star Trek but not Star Wars. I have tried explaining to him that one can like both (I do) but he insists that anyone who likes what he dislikes is "out to get [him]" or is "bullying [him]." He has always been "black or white," but his dislike of opposing opinions has become very intense, saying things like he'd like to "take out" those things.

Despite our discussion with him about "what NOT to say in school" he continues to make statements like "I'm going to blow this school up" or pointing his finger like a gun and making a "pow" sound at his teacher/kid he dislikes/etc. The other day in computer lab, he showed his teacher a site (thinkgeek.com--excellent site!) which had a Star Trek detonator. He told his teacher that he wishes he had that detonator so he could "annialate" the whole school. Of course, in light of Columbine and the recent Connecticut shootings, they are NOT taking statements like this lightly and he got some disciplinary referrals because of it.

Despite my Aspergers, I am a Registered Nurse and one of my special interest areas is psychology/neurology, so I know that teenagers get this influx of hormones that renders them "temporarily insane" for a few years, but he is having a particularily hard time dealing with all the new emotions and such. Still not interested in girls, but he said he wished he could get brain surgery to "remove the emotion part of [his] brain so that just logic is left."

He is currently on moderate doses of guanfacine and risperdal to curb the outbursts and rage events (thankfully there are few), but he still says things like "I wish I wasn't on this earth" and other things that hint at suicide. But when I ask him if he has a plan, it's always something from his fantasy games, like some "Halo explosion," never an actual, can-do plan. He also sometimes mentions "taking everyone else out with me."

BTW, he is 180 degrees different at home than at school. At home, he sometimes has an outburst if he gets frustrated, but he is generally a very enjoyable boy.

Because I am close to the situation I am biased, hence the reason for putting this here for some opinions. Thank you...

It looks to me that his AS nature can't handle the middle-school/ gaming culture. I would homeschool him for a year or so to reduce the negativity and immerse him in a good envirnment, good culture. High school could be better, depending on the high school.

In other words, I think discussions won't be enough. You and he need the positive support of everyone around you, not the negative influence of kids his age.

My 9 year old WAS having similar problems that just started this year. Bad behavioral marks, bad comments from his teacher, threatening to shoot other students "in the head" with his BB gun. (He is ADHD with poor impulse control, not aspie). I was having meetings with his, non-understanding teacher and school counceller, but he was on the road to trouble and they were just making it worse! Then, his teacher went out on maternity leave and was replaced by a more experienced and understanding teacher, and instantly ALL our problems disappeared!

An empathetic teacher made all the difference. Hope this helps.

For my son, I found the book 'A 5 is against the law' very helpful for defining those statements that are inappropriate, to what level, and why. It is written especially for the adolescent with AS, but you may want to preread and screen the material based on your child.

I also wonder if some speech therapy addressing pragmatic language issues might be beneficial for him to learn to better express himself emotionally.

It seems to me he might be experiencing some depression because of his social/communication issues related to AS which may need some intervention as well.

I remember being in 6th grade and I would talk about wanting to kill my student teacher or wishing I could throw her off a cliff. She was a horrible student teacher who was always losing our school work and marking them as missing assignments. All the kids were frustrated with her and were bored with her because she go bla bla bla while explaining math assignments. But I would have meltdowns and cry and would fight doing the same school work. Other kids didn't seem to get as upset as me despite that they were just as frustrated. The only difference is they weren't having outbursts and having anxiety over it and saying they want to kill her or wish they can do things to her.

I did have to be taught how serious it is to say you want to kill someone or hurt someone so they would pull me out of class and have me read articles about kids being suspended from school for saying such things. It took me about a month to get it.

Mom also started to make copies of my school work so I wouldn't have to redo it again if she loses my school work. We had a copier machine so it worked out well and I had less anxiety.

I don't know if this is helpful but I have been there too about saying things that are considered threats because I would get so frustrated I would meltdown. I never wanted to do the same things again I didn't want to do so I do it once and I am done, never again. So it would be a fight with my parents and I and my teachers and then I would have anxiety over having to do the same school work again.

Your son may not understand the consequences of saying such things because to him he isn't really going to do it because it's not possible and he is just ranting because it's what he wishes he can do if he could. So he expects others to know that too. For me all it took was having me read articles about kids getting suspended from school for saying they want to bring a gun to school or wanting to kill someone, stuff like that.

I think this is also about control too, he feels his world is out of control so that's why he is so black and white with opinions and he is most likely been made fun out of for liking particular things. It sounds like anger and depression too, angry at being misunderstood, depressed and talking about suicide. My brother did commit suicide and my daughter has talked about wanting to die over the years too from about the age of 8 which totally alarmed me. The bottom line is he is crying out for help.
If you can home school that would be a good option, l have read asd kids thrive better with home school as long as there is a good routine in place.
The idea of showing him material about the threats he is making is good too, it's visual. Remember visual is the best communicator, words over load. Speaking from experience as my dear daughter often says stop talking when l am trying to talk to her about things
Hope that helps

middle school was a terrible time for me too, I also made statements like that with no real intention of going through with them. maybe hes doing that. it could be a way to vent frustration.

I really wanted to burn down my school in 8th grade, I just didn't tell anyone that since I knew I'd probably get in trouble if I said that.

I second the suggestion to homeschool if you can. I hated school, especially after I got past elementary school, and while I didn't make any disturbing statements, I only internalized my misery, it was true, agonizing misery. I would have given anything to be in a homeschool situation, and I still think that would have been best for me at least during certain years. I wasn't just miserable in school, I was extremely lonely. I couldn't articulate any of that, I didn't really even identify the feelings until after the fact, years later. I never wanted to destroy my school, but I remember having fantasies about it not being there any more, such as it burning down over the weekend.

If I imagine today what it would be like to be in prison, that is exactly how I felt in school.

It sounds to me as if he's sending a clear message: "Get me out of this situation!" It's up to you to hear him and respond.

Seconded. HOWEVER, do try at the same time, to keep him involved in some sort of social activity. Just not the artificial literal prison environment school is. If he's homeschooled, that makes an individual sport easier. In figure skating, a lot of the people who are really good are home schooled, and their main social outlet is the rink. Try to have something like that setup for him.

Don't worry about him not learning. The GED is about the same level as most 7/8th grade standardized tests. He can probably pass it right now if you get him the book to study from. Once he passes his GED, then he can go to community college, actually. So he could actually have a jumpstart on life if you do this. Unless you're in AP classes, high school is useless for college, most kids have to retake their algebras and whatnot in college anyway.

The reason for pulling him out of school isn't even for the "safety" it's the fact that once you make those sort of statements, especially nowadays, you'll get profiled like all hell. By making statements like that, it's possible law enforcement could get involved in your son's life over any kind of innocuous activity, and then he could end up in jail. Because law enforcement takes "threats" like that VERY seriously nowadays. So saying things like that in the 80s or whatever wouldn't have been a big deal, but now it is. Also, due to the quietness of AS, people tend to call you a "school shooter" even with ZERO violent propensity demonstrated, just because you're quiet. Throw in any kind of talk or interest in weapons or firearms and you're screwed, you're gonna be constantly profiled as a "school shooter."

In my case I hated school, and I hated it so much I got in trouble for truancy, and have pretty much had the legal system involved in my life for half my life, my life would have been much better/easier if people had just listened to me when I said I hated school.

But as I said, too, don't allow him to just stay home and play video games if he's out of school. Have him doing something useful and constructive, and seeing some people. If he decides to go back, then he can, but the dichotomy presented to me when I was a truant child, which I knew and argued was false was this. They said "well adults have to go to work!" Well, no, adults aren't forced to go to work. In fact if adults are out of work, they can even get free unemployment from the government. They're certainly not forced to work. They also have the freedom to pick the place they work or can even work from home or be self employed in some fashion. I presented that argument as a kid and was just told "Yeah, well, it's the law!" just because it is. But, as an adult, if you were in an abusive or bad work situation, you'd attempt to change it, right? I don't see why children are held to a higher standard, then.

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/gateway.html

Two great articles to read.

This really concerns me. My ds (13) recently got in trouble on the school bus because he was being picked on. He told the bully he was going to 'shoot him with his bow' and then hit the kid with his bow case (my ds is on the school's archery team). He has never done anything like that before and let his emotions get the best of him. My ds does have an interestest in weapons but mostly because he's a hunter (we have a lot of hunters in the family). We've told him not to discuss guns in school and he doesn't. He is definitely not a quiet kid and has a provisional AS dx. Should I be worried that he will be profiled?

Yeah, and it depends upon "quietness" it's not even so much quietness as social awkwardness. But yes, you should worry. Another profiling thing is like, wearing darker colored clothing, or plain clothing. As much as he might hate it, wearing brightly colored "preppy" clothes like the popular kids wear will help him socially, just because people will be less likely to profile him by wearing those kinda clothes regardless of what he says/does.

You're in UK, right? (Provisional AS DX?) If so it might not be quite as bad, but USA has had more school violence incidents, so here in USA, yeah.

Ds does dress like the popular kids or at least as much as I will allow. I 'try' to keep up with the latest styles so he doesn't stand out. He has actually started caring (a little) about what he wears. The other day he didn't want to wear a certain style of shirt that I bought because he thought people would think it looked weird. I know growing up we were taught to not care about what others think but I'm glad he is even thinking about it.

I'm not in the UK. My ds only has a provisional dx because he doesn't meet all criteria for AS. We are not sure if he's on the spectrum or not. One dr described him (years ago) as having an 'extreme male brain'. She said something that at one end of the spectrum there is autism and at the other end is schizophrenia. The very middle is your average NT person. My ds is toward the autism end but not quite there, if that makes sense. He is gifted and also has ADHD so that could explain some of his issues, too. I posted about my ds fitting in here on another thread.

Should be fine I guess. As long as he doesn't get socially ostracized, which happens right at around his age. Socializing gets harder at that age, because basically, you can't socialize as much about "stuff" anymore. IE, if you're a kid, you'll play games and your socializing is about games. Later on, as you get older, it gets more about people, and that's where deficits in empathy, reading nonverbal cues, etc, comes about.

THIS!! !!

Also, make sure that the school is aware of the pragmatic speech issues, as they are a part of his disability and therefore they have to address them as they would any other special need. One of the symptoms of a deficit in pragmatic speech is extreme language like you're describing, and the SCHOOL should be providing supports and therapy for this.