Year 1 violent and disruptive behaviour - only at school

[ncforschoolhelp]

My DS is 5 and in year 1 at school. I will try to give as many facts as I can as would appreciate any and all advice.

In year R he transitioned into school well we saw some challenging behaviour both at school and home around the time his baby brother (now 16 months) was born but that improved and by the end of year R he was achieving and performing well at school.

Year 1 is a different story. He is in an infant school in a mixed year 1 & 2 class. We absolutely love the school and I can't fault his teachers. His behaviour has got progressively worse since starting year 1, and he is now being violent and disrespectful towards teachers and disruptive to his classmates.

He has no diagnosis for anything, nor are we seeking one (yet), and the school have been very clear that they don't believe he is showing any signs of ASD. He is showing some signs of ODD, but not all of the time and seems to very much be choosing poor behaviour.

The school (and us as his parents) believe that a lot of his behaviour is driven by anxieties but I'm at a loss to understand what his anxieties are. We parent relatively gently, however are consistent and firm in consequences (removals of privilege, toys or special events in the main) for poor behaviour. His behaviour at home is what I would call very normal, a little boundary pushing and some backchat but he is only ever violent or aggressive at home when we are dealing with the fall out of an incident at school.

There were incidents of violence from an older kid last year which the school dealt with well and that child is no longer at the school.

Outside of school he has 2 extra curriculars per week where his behaviour is fine, he gets 10-11 hours of sleep per night, eats well and lives in a comfortable home with lots of toys / books / games / stimulus etc.

The school are bringing in a local behaviour support team as a first step to help them build strategies around him and we will be involved in these conversations too and will do whatever we can to support the school in helping him manage his frustrations.

Lastly, he is out performing all of his peers in reading, maths, literacy. He reads different books and does different work to his class and the school see him as being top end year 2 if not year 3 in his ability. This is lovely to hear but I would much rather that academically he was slightly more average if it meant his social skills started to develop in a better way.

I'm at a complete loss as to what to do to help him. He's a lovely, curious, clever and funny kid who just seems to completely lose his way while he's at school and I think I thought he would be fine after a half term break but he's not and today was another incident to add to the others.

I'm feeling like it's all my fault, I have an ingrained dislike of authority and that I've passed this on, I have suffered with anxiety and low mental health in the past and I worry that I've done something wrong, even though I'm also really confident that we have provided him with a relatively lovely life so far, as much as we can.

Has anyone experienced similar? Has anyone experience of ODD at such a young age? Has anyone seen success from working with behavioural support teams? Should I be taking him to the GP?

Thanks so much if you've made it this far and I appreciate any advice!

Have you reflected on your parenting perhaps making allowances for things that trigger him at school? I don't mean you have done anything on purpose, and often we do things that make our family life work, but make a social situation harder. For example we always put our 5yos shoes on, it guarantees he will leave the house and go to school. This caused issues at school because he wouldnt get his shoes changed for PE. I know this is a tiny minor example but you might pick up other things you do at home, that other parents aren't having to do. These could be autism/adhd signs that are being overlooked because you don't know what you don't know.
Hopefully this makes sense, it's a bit garbled, but reflection on the "norm" for a 5yo with an Ed psych might be useful too.

I'm interested in the provision in school.

More usually the change from reception to year 1 brings about a move from play based to more formal learning and some children don't cope well with the added expectation and rigour.
Could this be affecting him?

I also wondered the opposite for your Ds. Is year 1 in his school still play based but your DS is missing out as his ‘work’, set to challenge him, means he's missing the more practical, play based time. Could he be kicking back against this?

As above the ABC record and analysis of patterns may identify this.

What does your son say about his day at school? About his behaviours?

Getting a diagnosis of Autism is two years plus,and adhd is over four years in my county. You can go private faster but if your senco say Deffo not ND your wasting your money. However my dd senco said she was Deffo not ND, had no problems on the forms then went on to say she was stubborn and strong willed which convinced the paed to diagnose her as the senco was listing all the traits while insisting dd was just a stubborn kid.

Getting the LA Ed psychologist can be tricky as it costs the school and again in my LA they don't have enough. That's why it's wise to read up on the process. If you get to stage of asking for a ehcp assessment the EP has to asses.

I had a senco say I'd never get a diagnosis or rhcp. My child is now in a private SEN school paid for by my LA. They can get it very, very wrong sometimes

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/

https://sossen.org.uk/

He sounds exactly like my son at that age, things went massively wrong for us in year one too and he was being aggressive but like your son was well above average and was a fluent reader. He was diagnosed autistic age 6 and moved to specialist school in year 4 as just couldn’t cope in mainstream. He’s a teen now.

if he’s anything like my son he won’t actually know what’s wrong or why he’s lashing out. Looking back mine was in a very big, busy, noisy school with large open plan classrooms shared by several classes, and quite chaotic due to high numbers of kids, basically hell on earth for most autistic kids. He also struggled if he didn’t think things were fair or he was being treated unfairly or differently.

That’s a good point @Hercisback1 - it’s very easy to not see your child’s quirks and differences when a) they’re you’re first and b) you’ve naturally fallen into a pattern of accommodating them at home.

OP - I just want to add that you sound like a wonderful mother and a lovely person x

I would add that for my son it’s become much more obvious he’s autistic as he’s gotten older. Being as the wait list is 2 years plus most places you might as well ask for a referral now and you can see how things pan out whilst he’s on list, you can always come off list or if by the time he gets to top he’s clearly not autistic he won’t be diagnosed

@AllYearsAround there seem to be certain triggers but in the main it's a pattern of - is asked to do something - doesn't want to do it - is asked again / told to do it - lashes out with some form of disruption or violence (usually against teacher). That's a super simplistic way of explaining it but basically the seems to be it.

@Standin provision at school - changing to more structured work seems to have brought about the behavioural deterioration but also the work not being challenging enough seems to have played a big part.

@Morph22010 I've recently started to think about how a more structured, quieter environment for junior school might be the right approach for him. His school is quite free flow - open plan classrooms and a real focus on self led play which is great but doesn't work for everyone.

@Hercisback1 there's nothing I can think of that we are doing or have done to exacerbate this behaviour but he was my first and I could very well be struggling to be objective. He's always been very independent and is able to organise himself relatively well. We do lay his uniform out every morning and other things like that so I will absolutely reflect on that moving forward.

@howdydude thank you, so much. You have no idea how meaningful that is at the moment.

@Morph22010 you're right and I think maybe starting the process with the GP might be the right thing to do. It's so difficult when professionals are saying that there isn't anything "formal" going on that they can see but you know the behaviour is outside of anyone's control and could get worse.

When my DD was diagnosed with ADHD, one of the diagnosis criteria was that the issues are observed in more than one setting - so school and home. For the diagnosis the psychiatrist was even interested in DD showing traits in her swimming lesson. I think the same would be true for an ASD diagnosis.

Being bright and bored is definitely an issue for some children. The first ed psych we saw with our DD at year 1 didn't think she had ADHD because she remained fully engaged through what was effectively a 1:1 battery of IQ tests, but suggested moving her to a private prep school to fix her boredom. We weren't able to move her then. Her issues with attention didn't improve and she was diagnosed with ADHD in year 4. We did then move her to a prep school and having a proper timetable with specialist teachers who have the time to plan work for her has definitely helped with the boredom.

Does sound like reading up on PDA might give you some ideas. My dd has pda traits so we always offer her an element of choice when things are tricky for her. Do you want to get into the car for school now or do you want to get your toy first ( there's no option on the outcome, she is getting in the car either way but she decides how). In other areas I shrink her choices to the bare minimum. Eg all her school uniform is exactly the same. It removes as much anxiety as possible from school. She is overwhelmed in a environment she can not control.

I'm not saying it's pda but again these strategies help all kids

I’m actually a SENDCo (secondary) but am probably more familiar with the various ND presentations/co-morbidities because DS1 is AuDHD and my master’s research is autism-focused.

Your DS’s emotional overwhelm is very likely due to AuDHD and I would be investigating both, despite SENDCo recommendation. Medication has been life-changing for my DS in school and has allowed him to focus/concentrate in lessons. This has had a massive positive impact on his attainment and self-esteem.

I have met children with this presentation some of whom have autism and some of whom were not diagnosed.

I think it's worth you looking at the process.

You talk about your parenting - and clearly you have put a lot of effort into parenting your child. However it isn't just nurture that impacts how a child is, it's also nature.

If you have an anxious child (and clearly you do, whether he has autism or not) then you are going to need to change your style of parenting. He needs much much more reassurance and structure than other children.

It is also quite likely that you as a household have learnt to flex around his anxieties. If he gets worried about (eg) putting his shoes on on his own, you do it for him because it's the quickest way to get him out of the house and to nursery.

School is often the first place where children are put in a position where they "have" to do things whether they like them or not and for some children that is emotionally overwhelming.

Others have mentioned the ABC chart - this will give a sense of what he struggles with so that school can look at reducing his triggers. Regardless of whether he has autism or not this is likely to look like decreasing demands and teaching him about emotional regulation.

Speaking from experience, don’t believe what the teachers tell you. I thought my daughter was badly behaved at school at that age but when she got older she would tell me weird stories about things that teachers said or allowed other kids to do that just sounded crazy making. Things like seriously telling her off for finger painting when everyone else was using brushes, putting her storage tray right next to the kid who was bullying her and then the teacher just rolling her eyes when my daughter complained. Some kids getting away with murder and other kids getting in trouble for nothing….
At that age the kids aren’t old enough to explain some of these things or even understand that they are in a toxic unpredictable environment.
I guess my take away message would be don’t automatically assume your child is the problem here

@Happyinarcon he is being violent towards teachers so OP is absolutely right to take it seriously and try to get him the help he needs.

I hear you, I’m just saying that my daughter had behavioral issues that seemed to stop completely once we moved to a different school. And the teachers made her out to be a problem kid but I then discovered from other parents that the child my daughter had problems with was terrorising a lot of kids so it was a class wide issue. I had repeated interactions with the school and was somehow never given the full story.
Im not saying for one minute don’t take it seriously, I am saying though that OP might not be getting the full story

Don't rely on teachers to recognise ASD or ADHD or to tell you what you need to do. Their training for SEN is often next to none.

Id move him to a different school. DS was in a small village school in a mixed class and it was a complete disaster. They had no real idea about SEN and certainly couldn't stretch him. Just move him. This won't get better.

Ds was really advanced on entering school, his school was very proactive though calling for Ed Psych early doors. Ed Psych declared him profoundly gifted. He did do numeracy and literacy with much older children and towards the end of Primary they got in a secondary school teacher to teach him Maths. He doesn't have an ASD dx (although 2 of his siblings do) because he has none of the social interaction difficulties, he's always been hugely popular and draws people to him. It really went downhill in Secondary as he was bored so used his talents to disrupt so I'd say get as much support as early as possible and some schools are better than others and the school your son is at doesn't sound the best. I would be speaking to a GP asap and exploring ASD ADHD and PDA regardless of what the school think. Mine were diagnosed before nursery, I doubt that school would have spotted ASD for dd as they couldn't spot it when she already had a dx.

I really don't want to misrepresent the school; it's a brilliant school and I really do believe they are doing by their absolute best for him. We are in super regular contact and they have been really proactive in taking forward our suggestions as well as implementing their own strategies, I guess my view now is that they are running out of strings for their bows so are doing the right thing in getting more specialist support in. I have also made him a GP appt (4 week wait 🙄) to start the ball rolling there.

I am making myself sad and scared reading up about PDA and need to step away from diagnosis type info I think and allow the process to happen a little more organically. The Explosive Child book a PP recommended is helpful - especially viewing DS's challenging behaviours as skills lacking to deal with expectations, instead of "what's wrong with him and what have I done to make it worse". The nature / nurture bit is helping to keep me saner so thank you for whoever mentioned that.

We have continued to see an escalation of DS's behaviour and he has his first GP appt tomorrow. The school have been in touch with both the local behavioural support team and the Ed psyche team and are starting to talk a lot more about potential ASD. I feel so sad for DS as we are absolutely not seeing the same behaviours at home as the school are. At school, he is having several violent meltdowns per day, particularly around transitions. At home, we have had maybe one tantrum & episode of violence in months. It's so hard to know what to do.

@ncforschoolhelp

Sorry to hear your DS's struggles are worse, it's so sad that he's overwhelmed in school.

It sounds like your home is 'optimised' for your DS, so a low-demand, low sensory environment. School is probably a total sensory onslaught for him.

As a SENDCo, I would be advising that he is referred for both ASD and ADHD assessment. Especially in boys, I find that one isn't often present without the other, and parents often have to eventually consider a dual diagnosis. When DS1 was diagnosed with ADHD and started medication, everything changed, and he started to excel at school.

It would be a good time to reflect on anything your DS does struggle with at home, and also any undiagnosed ND in your close and extended family, as this can be helpful info for the assessment process.

It's tough coming to terms with your children's struggles, but it will eventually mean that the right support is in place for your DS

But this is happening at school because his needs are not being met at school (though it sounds like they are at home). This is why it's really important to get the assessments done (EP, OT, maybe SALT, ASD, ADHD) to try to work out what his needs are. Once his needs are being met he will hopefully have a very different experience at school. I'd be pushing for these assessments asap.

Completely agree with all of this.

Our DS was also fine in Reception and struggled in Y1. He has ADHD (which can look like ODD, I don't actually think ODD is at all a helpful diagnosis, it's more or less just the extreme end of ADHD and has no additional value, as you need to work with them in the same way including medication).

We had difficulties at home at this age but not as many as at school (he got progressively worse at school).

I would look into ADHD and as the waiting lists are very long, I would suggest trying to go private. We got DLA for our DS (I bet you are doing a lot for him already which is working) and used that to pay for a private asssessment.

We are not in a position financially to go down the private route. I really believe we see a completely different side to him at home; he is by no means perfect and there may be times that we notice a trigger very early or avoid them but in the main were a busy household and don't have time at all to pre empt poor behaviours. I think that's why this has come as such a shock, because we see a very different DS at home to what his teachers and peers are seeing.

PDA / ODD / ASD have all been mentioned but only at a very early stage. I'm not hopeful that the GP will be super useful but I think it's important to have the conversation there.

The school have had one conversation with the Ed psyche team (the behavioural team are yet to come and observe him) and have mentioned EHCP & ASD on the back of that conversation. They have explained that they are in no way diagnosing, it's just that's where their thoughts are at at the moment.

Interestingly he has been paired up with some different kids this past week and that has been when he is at his most comfortable and calm at school. It seems like now though any sort of transition (changing lessons / coming back from break and lunch) see a major and sometimes violent meltdown from DS (again, never toward other children, only toward adults).

I feel very sad if I'm honest. He is super smart and has a really really good memory but otherwise, to me, he is a perfectly average 5 year old: when we see him out in other settings and with children from outside of school he doesn't exhibit any of these behaviours. It is almost exclusively at school.

Thanks so much for everyone who's replied so far, I really value it and it feels like real life support. for you all!!!