Teacher told my son in front of class that "If you want to behave like a baby, then I'll find you a rattle and dummy"

[MUM23ASD]

and i suffered the meltdown as soon as he came home.

DS3 is 9 and quite a handful at mainstream school- SALT assessing him soon- AS/ADHD possible diagnosis to be decided later in summer.

don't know what to do as he was hyper b4 he went to school and am not sure if i even have the energy to query this with school.

i would love your thoughts on this...i have mine...but i want to hear your side first!!!!

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Would like to read your thoughts too.

Complain to headteacher of school; the teacher concerned acted unprofessionally in my view to say that to your son.

If you haven't already applied for a Statement for him do so. You don't need a diagnosis to obtain such a document from the LEA and it may well go some way to making his educational life at school a bit easier (and particularly so when he transfers to Secondary school). Is he on any plan currently?. No statement in place to my mind equals no real support of any value.

It could be that he is getting meltdowns when he comes home from school because he can barely cope there during the day. He thus takes all his frustrations out on you.

Make the application for the statement yourself; do not let school go anywhere near it. Sounds as well like this school are also not very understanding. SALT can certainly assess but cannot make any diagnosis.

Who is going to decide a possible AS/ADHD diagnosis and why late summer?. Is a developmental paediatrician to do that?.

HTH

[MUM23ASD]

hi attilla

yes, paed has seen him and her process is to request SALT to see him at school. she then waits for SALT report and calls me back to go through the 'diagnostic tool' that she uses...was DISCO now saying has a new online one.

Bit confused with school ,as have just given his teaccher the conners adhd rating scale to fill in and though very blunt in what she has said - i felt she was doing all she could to ensure he gets the dianosis/help he needs.

so....when he came home today i was shocked. As when i recently queried the number of 30min exclusions from his class he was having- and whether he was anywhere near formal exclusions...i was told by deputy (again trying to sound nice) that "DS3 is kind of exempt from the behaviour policy cos we know he cannot help it" (or words to that effect!!!)

i was shocked then too...as they think they are helping me by him never seeing a consequence for his actions...nor is there therefore anything on his file to show the LEA how he struggles- if everytime he causes disruption- he has "Time OUt" usually in another class, and then returns to his class.

[BriocheDoree]

Even if a child is fully NT, that teacher is WAY out of order. You DO NOT run kids down in front of their entire class!

[TotalChaos]

sorry your lad is having problems at school. did he take the rattle and dummy bit literally?

[NotABanana]

That is completely unacceptable to any child, SN or NT.

You have to find the energy to fight for your child.

[MUM23ASD]

i'm glad you said that, as my first thought was that it was like bullying.

its the sort of thing you may well WANT to say...but you don't.

a bit of me wants to know exactly the context in which it was said...and where as i cannot fully trust ds3 to tell me the whole story.

sometimes he innocently gets it wrong- and sometimes he lies.

And today the first account he gave me was that:

my teacher thinks i'm a baby" ....
"she picked me up in assembly and showed me to everyone and said 'Look at my Baby'"

then after i probed him further he said the "LIFTING HIM UP " WAS NOT TRUE.....
and then that it WAS NOT IN ASSEMBLY.

But....his teacher did say in class what he said originally.

so, i am even concerned that none of this even happened. (when he was 5 he told me he was the Gingerbread Man in show they were doing. He told me all his lines...he showed me how he had to "run,run as fast as he can"
And started instructing me on how to make his costume. I luckily decided to innocently ask teacher when she needed me to get the costume made...and she was blank faced. He had made the whole thing up.)

So.... what do i do??? (i am tempted to approach school in the manner of just wanting to see what happened and show them either how he has interpereted her comments (as it may be that he has taken her literally)...or if she did say it, maybe she will think twice in future.... or at worst...confirm that my son is a liar.

[MUM23ASD]

Chaos...yes i wondered that...but i still think she shouldn't have said it ( if that is what she said)...but it's possible that in a certain context...even i might say it to my own child....and he may have made it all up.....

[TotalChaos]

oh how very damn awkward that you can't be 100% sure what happened. think you will have to proceed on basis of you wondering what happened/was said to him today. as even if you are convinced it wasn't anything unreasonable said that got him so wound up, at least you can move on to try and work with him to see what else DID get him wound up.

[MUM23ASD]

...and then to finish me off...DH has just taken ds3 back to his friends house to find out whether the £4 he says his friend 'gave' him is his to keep....as he said first he was given the money...then he said he was asked to look after it cos his mate had no pockets...and so i sent him back to return money- and when i just asked him if he had given it back- he said "I'm not sure"
so i suggested he check his pockets.
money still in his pocket.
So DH suggested i go up to this lads house and talk to his mum....and i just can't.

All i have done since 3.30 when ds came home is eat eat eat. I am so miserable as things like this trigger my bingeeating

[MUM23ASD]

p.s...as a child aged 9 (as is he) i stole from my parents.

[TotalChaos]

can DH phone up if he won't go up there to sort the money out? I know where you come from with the binge eating, I eat food like others use alcohol I thinK!

[MUM23ASD]

thing is...my husband says the best punismnet is 'grounding ' him...but i am so fed up and unable to manage him at the moment- that i am almost glad to see him go out.
As grounding him means i'd have him here.

i think i need to go to school and cry my eyes out so much that the head refers me to social services...as i've begged for support from SS and they just don't feel we have a bad enough need.

but i'm seriously worried that if he's lying now at 9 like this- then where he'll be in 10 years time (as my step son - ADHD/AS was in prison at 18 for theft)

[MUM23ASD]

DH has actually taken DS there now.

I have a dietician appointment in 2 weeks....and i am dreading it as i have not managed just 1 thing she advised me to do.

[TotalChaos]

try not to catastrophize about the money, I don't do advice about older kids as I haven't got one, but from here and other sites I get the impression that it's really not that abnormal for a kid that age, whether NT or not. I hope that you can get SS to provide some help. Have you been to any local ASD support groups to get a feel for what help might be available?

[cory]

I really do not believe that stealing at age 9 is any sort of indication of how you will be when you get to the age of maturity. Even many NT children are morally undeveloped at 9 and both NT and AS/ADHD children will change and develop enormously in those intervening 9 years.

Your dh has done well to take ds to sort it out; it is absolutely the best thing you can do for him.

[MUM23ASD]

today is another day- and the money was not stolen (shame on me for even suspecting him )

thanks cory and chaos for helping put things into perspective...i let it snowball and after a good night's sleep things always seem less awful