to leave ds1 screaming upstairs for as long as it takes?

[gobehindabushfgs]

He is 8 and has Aspergers (not that this is an excuse for anything)

He has just told me that he needs an A5 photograph to take into school tomorrow morning - apparently he has known about it since last Monday but "forgot" to tell me

I told him off for giving me no notice and said it was his responsibility to organise himself and let us know if he needs something, it isn't reasonable to expect me to come up with something the night before!

He started sobbing and hitting himself in the face (he does this because he knows I hate it, but apart from gently removing his hands while talking to him I no longer give it attention)

I sent him upstairs to calm down. When he came downstairs dh asked what was wrong and ds1 explained - sh said the same as me

ds1 is now in his room screaming, growling and doing loud, ostentatious crying - I have closed his door (gently) because the rest of us do not want to hear his tantrum (which I said, calmly, when I closed his door)

This comes on the back of several annoying incidences of him not passing on messages from school - overdue library books, needing trousers instead of shorts for PE, that sort of thing

I am Fed Up

so am I being a bitch?

And he wasn't tantrumming, he was upset, stressed and worried.

Please remember he does not do things such as forget messages on purpose

naw, he was definitely tantrumming

fabbychic I think "women like you" is a bit strong, you know jack shit about me!

he is fine now btw, apologised for the temper tantrum, had a big cuddle and we have sorted out a photo, and I am going into school to do the SEAL activity with him.

The OP is justifying what she is doing and this is AIBU. She is being unreasonable, Im not going to pat her on the back and say well done.

Whilst she posted on here she could have scanned in a picture and printed it off.

I don't have a printer or a scanner fabbychic

I also don't have a digital camera

what planet are you on?

Could your son have been crying out of sheer frustration?
As you said he has forgotten things before, why didn't you catch on then and get the diary or notebook in place?

I don't think you were BU. (fwiw I don't have dc with Aspergers, but do have a much younger DB)

with Aspergers I mean -- not just a random younger db

I've requested a diary repeatedly when he was younger, school didn't go for it

but I don't think he needs one now. He needs to practice taking responsibility for these things - I don't think it is too much to expect. I don't beat him or bin his toys when he forgets, nor will I send him in with no photo - but I will express irritation and remind him that this is HIS responsibility.

Leaving them to scream it out isn't the issue and usually the best course of action but your attitude to your sons aspergers does seem a bit

Communication difficulties are at the core of ASD, I don't think it's simply a matter of him taking responsibility. I am all for having high expectations but aren't you just setting him up to fail?
I know you know your son best but come on!

I know communication issues are the core of AS, and I do make allowances for him - but I know him well and I think I know what he can and can;t handle in terms of expectations

dh and I did the earlybird plus course and have really tried hard to understand Aspergers and ds1, I'm not in denial!

He isn't statemented because the consultant who diagnosed him, the ed psych and his school all say that his difficulties aren't severe enough to warrant one and he wouldn't get any funding anyway because he is sociable, academically able and not disruptive. Not because I couldn't be arsed to apply for one

he does need to practise responsibility - but um, it might be too much to expect from him to be honest

it's not just the communication difficulties, Asperger's also very often comes with organizational problems as well

you'll find that as he becomes older it will probably become more of a problem, the further up the school he gets the more they'll expect him to remember himself and the chances are that he's just not capable of it

you and the school will need to have a system in place for him and I'd suggest doing something about it sooner rather than waiting until it is a massive issue

yes it still is a skill that needs to be taught, but it's much more reasonable to build in things so that it's built into his routine about passing on messages (remembering homework, collecting gym kit etc.) - because the chances are that simply telling him to remember isn't going to work as it would with another child

Ds1 has done exactly this on many occasions.

Just remember - he would not willingly cause himself this level of stress.

He hasn't done it out of not caring about the photo - he very clearly cares a great deal - so you need to set up a communication tool with the staff in his class so that you can communicate with them, and not put pressure on your son who has, what is at it's most basic level, a communication disorder.

My son would be the same - he'd panic about getting told off for not bringing in the photo.

This is where I get irritated with the whole school/home communication thing - yes 8 year olds should be taking some responsibility but IME they don't and it's like pushing jelly up a hill getting them to remember anything.
So things like the OP mentioned really used to piss me off - I want a letter in the book bag or written in a reading diary.

It's so much easier now ds is at middle school - homework gets written in a personal planner which they have to carry around with them in their bags.

Sorry, got a bit ranty there!

My son has AS and when he was your son's age he was always forgetting things like this. He has always had organisational problems and this is partly why he still forgets to do/tell us stuff.

Once he got to his late teens (he's in his 20s now and very articulate), he started to talk about how he felt when he had tantrums/got very upset when he was younger. He says it was always down to anxiety - panic even - for loads of different reasons (lots of hypersensitivity issues), but often because he couldn't make sense of situations he found himself in. He also got very panicky about the prospect of being told off and would go into full-blown screaming if he thought that might be a possibility.

It's so hard to handle, but try to be gentle on yourself and on your son. I agree with coldtits that he cares deeply about the photo and this is a good illustration of why a home-school book or other communication system would really help you, your child and the school.

Poor you and DS. YABU to just leave him especially if you've had enough as well. What Coldtits says is great though: he would not willingly cause himself this level of stress.

Am going to have this printed out in big letters and put on my noticeboard

You sound a bit spiteful TBH. He is 8.

I think you handled a very typical situation with an 8 year old badly.

Do you think this evening's experience did anybody any good?

I think, if there was no way he was going to calm down and the 'tantrum' had reached meltdown proportions - as long as you were calm and measured, which it sounds like you were - waiting for the explosion to pass before dealing with the situation is actually very sensible, so in that yanbu. Its impossible to deal with anyone who has worked themselves up into that state and 'calm down' time is a valuable tool in these situations.

However, I also have an 8 year old with Aspergers and I'm afraid no amount of expecting him to take responsibility is going to change the fact that Aspergers affects both communication and executive function and that means, that not only is he not as able to organise himself as easily as other children, he will also struggle with communication and remembering to pass on messages etc. This isn't his fault, its just part of the syndrome.

I am sure you know your son better than anyone else, but one thing I am learning is that the further into Junior school my ds gets, the more he struggles with this sort of thing. Its one of the main reasons why more cases of AS are picked up at infant/junior transition than at any other age.

My ds was fine in infants, with all the extra reminders and support they get from teachers at that age. Since entering the juniors he has really struggled to cope with the higher expectations of self-reliance, independence and organisation.

You can do a lot to help him overcome these problems (and its worth it to save your own sanity as much as anything else), as can the school. As he has a diagnosis, the school has a legal responsibilty to take reasonable action to make sure he fully supported. At a very basic level, this means things like a home school communication book or diary and regular contact with parents.

My son has a diary, which I spend five minutes tops writing in with him what he has to remember for the day, then all he has to do is check it once when he arrives at school in the morning and again just before he comes home - his teacher has to remind him to check it though. We have a homework timetable taped to the front of his diary and I have a copy on the wall at home. Then if anything changes, or anything has come up during the day, his teachers just write me a quick note about it so I'm kept in the loop. I set this system up myself with the agreement of both the teacher and the SENCO, because the home-school communication books at our school come with a certain preconception from other parents about bad behaviour rather than SENs.

Does he have an IEP? If so, would it be possible to add self-management/organisational skills into that, so that the school can help him build the skills he needs? If he doesn't have an IEP, maybe a meeting with the SENCO is in order anyway?

I don't think anyone is suggesting you couldn't be arsed to apply for a statement for your son. We/they are just trying to help you sort something out so that the same thing doesn't keep happening over and over again. Its obvious from your later posts that you're a good loving mum and your ds knows that you love him and are there for him.

Fwiw, most of us have been told our dcs aren't 'bad enough' to get a statement by some, if not many of the professionals we've met. Very often they are wrong and a child that copes well in infants and starts to struggle in juniors, then completely implodes on reaching secondary school.

It could be that your ds is so mildly affected that he doesn't need a lot of support and his case a statement might not be necessary, as you said, we don't know you or your son. It does however sound like he needs some extra support around this particular area and school should be helping both you and him with this.

Why spiteful? What did I do that was spiteful? I expressed irritation that he didn't tell me earlier. I didn't refuse to help. I didn't bollock him. I didn't punish him. I left him to calm down, then I cuddled and reassured him and promised to cancel my plans for tomorrow afternoon and come into school for the SEAL activity

what was spiteful?

I don't think he does need additional support at school, he is doing very well, has lots of friends and is happy. We are lucky this year in that he has a teacher who understands and likes him and has bags of experience - last year was rocky for him but we got through it. He does have some measures in place - he has a code word so that he can go out and calm down on his own if he is getting stressed or angry, and he has a set of cards with social stories on them which he uses to reduce his anxiety level around things like assembly and dinner time.

I adore him, by the way. We are very close. I would crawl over broken glass for him and he knows it.

It's incredibly frustrating living with this level of disorganisation, I know it is, but just because you really need your child to be able to do something doesn't mean he can actually do it.

I really need Ds1 to be able to remember what I sent him upstairs to do, but the chances are roughly one in five that he actually will.