Daughter's teacher making me crazy !

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And if you live in California, get in touch with Eastfield Ming Quong (EMQ) in Cupertio. We have a lot of friends their. They helped my son. If you don't live in California get in touch with them anyway, and they might know of some resources who know what they're doing in your state. Also, in San Jose, PHP, which is Parents Helping Parents. It sounds like a bunch of amatures, but they're professionals all the way.

Good luck.

I wish I could follow these forums more, but I travel a lot, and I can't sign on.

Good luck.

BTDT

thanks btdt~ as far as the movie questions go, i realize that the meltdown was directly related to her not understanding the questions and no one offering any real help.......the teachers don't seem to be making that correlation~ i don't know whether it's because she's in such a large class, and they can't pay enough attention to her, or whether they're jsut really really clueless.
my concern on a larger scale, is her inability to advocate for herself. she seems to have little awareness of what bothers her, or when she's feeling anxious, or when she feels she's about to meltdown. one of the goals we set for her is to have her start to recognize when she's feeling anxious & be able to say that she needs to leave the room~ keep in mind that , at least the teachers now realize that she cannot do this on her own~ that she'll need to be taught this, and guided through the process ( at least the seem to get this !)
we live in new england, not cali......we're somewhat near yale, and been on the waiting list for awhile.....there are support groups around, but i always feel like i don't fit in~ my kids not dxed with AS & is, i guess, high functioning. when your kid is high functioning, people around you start making assumptions. " oh you're just a bad parent"....." oh your kid doesn't have any real problems~ my kid can't even talk"......" oh just put your kid on Ritalin for the ADHD"..............

ster, first you have my deepest sympathies, teachers (no offence intended) can be very frustrating.

Second, I'm trying to remember how you feel about meds. Z has a multiple and constantly evolving dx. Part of it is ADHD. Does your daughter take any meds for her ADHD? Cor and I found out a few years ago that as much we didn't want to resort to meds with Z that we really had no choice. We give him as low a dose as possible to help take the edge off and help him concentrate. He is currently taking adderall, we've tried other meds without success. I guess what I'm saying is that if your daughter does not take meds you might consider trying them, start at low doses and work up as needed. Ritalin was a disaster for Z as was Concerta, those were months i would have been better off in the heart of an active volcano, but the adderall works for him. We also have him in weekly sessions with a therapist and plenty of work at home trying to help him recognize and cope with "triggers" that set off episodes of "inappropriate" behavior. We've even found out that a small amount of caffiene will help calm him down. (Haven't tried booze yet)

Those open ended questions are a pain period. S, same age and grade as Z, and as far as we can tell NT, has trouble with them. Z actually does better, when he wants to take the time.

Does she have an IEP for her ADHD? How closely is it adhered to and do her teachers actually understand it? As a parent, you will find many, not all, teachers tend to think you are not truly a good source of information about your child and don't really know what is best for her. I don't know why but this is unfortunately true. You have to kick and scream and be a pain in the butt to get results. Cor is, I am of course the perfectly correct parent who agrees with everything the school thinks is best for my children .

Hope this post hasn't been too long. Good luck! Gird up your loins and enter the battle swinging, Your little girl is depending on you!

we've tried Concerta with no luck~ hallucinations ! are in the process of trying to get her on a different med, but as her reg pediatrician doesn't want to try anything but concerta, we're stuck trying to find someone who will medicate her with something different..........she has an appt on Dec 6. i'm sure this appt will lead to weekly therapy appts....she is currently in a weekly social skills group at the same clinic where she'll be going for the med appt.
she has a 504 for the ADHD, but as i stated somewhere in here, even the school staff is not so sure anymore that she has ADHD~ the school nurse asked me 4 times if i was sure that daughter wasn't on the spectrum. i replied that i wasn't sure and that many individuals get dx-ed with ADHD before Aspergers.
since our meeting last week, the school has seemed very interested in following her plan~ they've already started some of the behavior mod stuff. am going to her parent teacher conference on tuesday to check things out in person.

Kids were meant to be seen and not heard when I was in primary school so it meant that I am still not too good at advocating for myself or understanding when things are getting too much, but I am improving.

It would have been far easier to have learned those skills at 9 years or even 19 years, rather than at 39 years +.

Interresting about her pediatrician and Concerta, Z's pediatrician will write a short term prescription for Adderall but would rather have his psysciatrist do it. I've thought it was because it is an amphetamine and therefore a controlled substance. The regular therapy sessions are a good thing, on occaission when Z hasn't benn able to go I've sat down and updated the therapist from a parents perspective and recieved some good counselling on how to deal with different issues. good luck

will keep you posted as to her progress, thanks again

Sheesh, were not completely void of body language and facial expressions. lol

It's kind of weird reading about what some Aspie kids are like, because I can't remember what I was like as a child. It's all kind of a blur, but I know I was easily upset and didn't always know very well what was going on around me. I'll have to ask my mom to tell me more stories of my own childhood.

it could just be that the teacher wasn't grading the work and so wasn't concerned with the daughter getting the correct answer, but communicated that to her poorly. Its very likely it was just given out so the students would pay greater attention to what was being learned from the video.

Without talking to the para you also don't know if maybe the reason for her not being allowed to go to lunch as they felt the other children in the cafeteria would be making fun of her for crying which result in a a worse day for her.




That's true. Though i guess we must do it in a different way. My bf's dad is an aspie and his mom has aspie traits. they are the only ones who have ever been able to read my body language and they always do it correctly. And its quite a shock for me when it happens because i'm like, "Who-ah, Wait? how did they know I was feeling that?"

Don't get me wrong, we are still struggling beyond belief. I think the school board is all a bunch of BS and every experience we have had to date has been fairly negative. We are teetering on the edge of making financial sacrifices in order to save our sanity! That said, if ever I got ANYWHERE, it was because I had sent it by registered mail or email in writing and the response was always there, in a paper trail. I boycotted telephone calls and followed up from messages left with more emails/\letters. It had them all running scared and it is pretty sad, really. We have an IEP, but nobody is prepared to sign off on it (including us). It has been going back and forth and well, we are simply not satisfied with the results or what the school is willing to put into it.

That said, my daughter had an agressive incident today (the first yet this school year) and it was in response to another kids pushing. SHe was caught in the act and they punished my daughter and not the other. My daughter was told repeatedly how wrong her decisions were and when the other child said "I was just joking" they got off the hook. They simply said "you must understand that J (my daughter) does not always understand jokes, but that did not give her the right to push back, you are right" and then scolded my daughter for "not knowing it was a joke", did not write a note in her agenda and stopped her on the way out the door to use their abusive manipulative power over my AS child to say "don't go home and tell your parents about today. Make sure you don't tell them how I was mean or rude to you (probably my daughter's words and/or perception of the incident), but WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

I feel you pain, really, I do...*sigh* Good luck!

triangular trees ~ you are right about the movie incident....the teacher and para didn't want daughter to go to the cafeteria sobbing because they didn't want to cause daughter further problems...at the moment, the other kids don't seem to tease daughter about her crying.
makelifehappen~ the incident you described is horrible ! and yet, sounds so much like regular ed....

there are support groups around, but i always feel like i don't fit in~ my kids not dxed with AS & is, i guess, high functioning. when your kid is high functioning, people around you start making assumptions. " oh you're just a bad parent"....." oh your kid doesn't have any real problems~ my kid can't even talk"......" oh just put your kid on Ritalin for the ADHD"..............

Sorry, I'm really just a lurker on this forum but this sums it up for me.

My son is in 1st grade and really has no major problems at school. We had an extensive neuropsych evaluation (10 - 12 hours) when he just turned six and he does not meet the criteria for ADHD or Asperbers. He has some characteristics of NLD but not enough for a diagnosis. He is extremely bright and compensates very well. He likes other kids and for the most part plays and interacts well.

My problems right now are that he acts hyper, silly, and is super competitive. Please understand that I don't have Munchasen syndrome or whatever it is when a parent tries to get attention for a diagnosis of some sort. I'm always caught in the middle of thinking he is normal but I also have a nagging feeling that he does has Aspergers. My family thinks the problem is me but they don't see it like I do. I've heard the term "shadow" kid and I think it fits him. He's just on that edge. Anyone else have this problem? I know we are lucky in many ways.

when my daughter was younger, we did not feel she fit any particular dx....as she's gotten older, and social problems have become more pronounced~well, now we definitely know there's something wrong....just have to figure out what

Pandora,
My son was diagnosed 2 days ago. He is 15.

About 3 weeks ago he came home in an emotional turnmoil (more pi$$ed than anything else, actually) because in class he had actually told the teacher he did not understand what she was talking about. This was a breakthru: he always keeps quiet when he is doesn't understand an explanation. Well... the teacher decided he should know. She decided he was trying to be funny by DISRUPTING the class (hello!! !! !) and when he said a 2nd time that he did not understand she proceeded to talk to him loudly and VERY slowly like he was a "slow" child, something like "of course you understand this. It is so simple". He then said "thank you for calling me a ret*d in front of the whole class" (hopefully I am not offending anyone, I am just being honest about what he said). And of course he got in trouble because the class laughed and he was inappropiate (I hate that word now). He got after-school detention, never got his questions answered, he was embarrassed as hell and we were all OBLIVIOUS of his needs.

This long story is just to address my MAIN concern: I am freaking out that the school is not even remotely prepared to deal with him. But I may be jumping the gun here because we have not even addressed the diagnosis with them for real. Yet. Even so, I know the caliber of some of these teachers (based on years past) and I am so full of doubt.

Maria

Castillian~ 15 year old son had a similiar experience in middle school....we ended up pulling him out of the regular middle school & putting him in a therapeutic day school....it has been his life saver. finally staff that nurture, that understand, that want to see your kid do better .

Thank you, Ster!

We are open minded to the possibilities. I hope I can stay as calmed as I feel now.

I have to say: The past few years have been difficult although Dylan never ceased to amaze me and make me laugh! Now I find myself strangely at peace for having found a NAME to his behavior. All of the sudden I am looking at him flapping his hands and making noises with his fingers and I know why he does it. I LOVE THAT.

Maria