...to think this teacher should have checked both sides first?

[EyeOfNewtToeOfFrog]

Relations with school are strained at the moment. We think DD (7) has a mild learning disability - the assessment she went through last year highlighted a number of areas she struggles in, but the overall result was "she's very very bright academically, struggles with the social side; has a little bit of this and a little bit of that but not enough for a firm diagnosis of anything."

The school do not seem to understand the test results and expect her to behave exactly the same as any other kid. This leads to problems. We have a communications book that gets written in every day.

Today the teacher called me over and said DD had 'hugged' another child and wouldn't stop when the other child asked her to. Fair enough, that's not on. Then DD piped up and said: "That's not what happened! I was checking XX's muscles!" Well, this may or may not be true - that's not the point.

My question is - AIBU to think the teacher should have at least ATTEMPTED to get DD's side of the story before telling me what had happened? It feels like she's being picked on TBH.

I'm not coping very well with the situation at the moment (there's a whole back story) so it may well be that I'm being overly negative about the whole thing. Please enlighten me & cheer me up somebody!

My son has Asperger's syndrome, didn't understand social communication, expressions, hints, sarcasm, gestures or all the usual ways that most NT communication occurs. That has come with a lot of support and several years after primary.
But he learnt that no means no, and whenever someone said that he was to stop what he was doing. Unambiguous, clear, direct imperative. Obviously not when in meltdown.
Often he didn't understand why, but the time to ask for an explanation was after he'd stopped what he was doing. OP, you have a very able child, so she should have no difficulty in understanding what is meant by 'no, stop' when used by another individual.
You may find that her social relationships are less stressed if the other children know that she will stop if asked to.
Did the teacher see the incident? The child may have been quite distressed at being held, my son certainly had little understanding of his own strength, pain thresholds or other people's feelings and would have been oblivious to another person's distress.

You know what, I am usually one of the first to defend a child who has sn. on here, but I do think that it is a really dangerous road to go down to make a statement that a child "has sn" based on the fact a parent thinks so/they exhibit some non typical behavior.

The fact is that lots of children do exhibit non typical behavior. some grow out of it, and some don't. But are we to assume that they all have sn? because I really don't think we should.

I am a firm believer that children should be given the help they need, and that if their difficulties are due to the fact they have sn, they should be diagnosed accordingly and given the appropriate support. I have watched a friend go through a three year process to try and get her ds diagnosed as autistic (he is blatantly autistic, I could spot it a mile away and I'm no expert, yet the relevant people have been dragging this out and it's taken this long) so i do sympathize with the fact it's not as simple as just heading down the road of a diagnosis.

But I think this seeming need to apply a lable to every querk or behavioral trate is really worrying actually. Not necessarily from a parents' point of view but in general. Why are people so desperate to get behavior labelled as disability? In fact what message does that send - that only the disabled are badly behaved?

Has your school done anything to help your dd with her social difficulties?

Ds1 had social speech therapy in Y2 as he wouldn't speak in class- especially in group situations. He learned that it's ok to give a wrong answer, sometimes there is no right answer, he was capable at coming up with great ideas... He has gone from shy and introverted to the complete opposite. It may be that some of it was maturity but I really think that he was helped.

Ds2 is end of August born and quite shy. He was in a nurture group in Reception and they discussed things like how to approach other children, handling arguments... I think that this was helpful as Ds2 was almost 12 months younger than some of his classmates and at age 4, a year is 25% of his life which is a big difference.

I think that WannaBe speaks wisely. I also think that a lot of children can show SN traits but not be SN and that if you excuse her difficulties by using possible SN as an "excuse" then you are doing her a disservice.

SN isn't an excuse for anything, it is a possible explanation for why something might have happened. So when you have more information, you work with it to ensure a more favourable outcome for all concerned next time.

This may sound harsh but here goes.... Tour daughter got told off she deserved it. Whatever version of events you chose to believe her behaviour was out of line. Instead of backing the school up, you undermine the school at every turn.

No wonder the kid has behaviour ishoos, if she gets mixed messages from the adults in her life and her poor behaviour is turned into martyrdom by her mother.

It doesn't sound like she was actively punished, just told to stop? Your statement that the school should be teaching her boundaries rather than punishing her sounds a tad dramatic - shouldn't you be attempting to teach her boundaries too?

Ironically, when the school first suggested DD has Asperger's, I was dead against the idea of having her assessed as I really don't like labels either. (The suggestion was based on the school nurse doing a 45-minute observation btw). I could see DD didn't really fit the criteria for AS (no obsessions, no issues with routines), but was socially quite immature and needed firm boundaries.

However, since the school were having difficulties - and since there was now a paper trail of the suggestion of ASD - we decided to have her tested, to know either way. Unfortunately the results were inconclusive, as I said. The main finding of them doesn't qualify for any extra support. We had to fight every step of the way to get school to adopt even some of the things that were recommended in the reports (like access to a laptop to help with fine motor dyspraxia). The relationship with the school has just about broken down now.

The last thing I want to do is excuse DD's behaviour. She needs firm boundaries, definitely. I would just like the school to be consistent, proprotionate and sympathetic to DD's difficulties in their approach. (As I said I'm convinced there are things DD just doesn't 'get' about social interaction and needs to be supported as well as punished).

I'm at the end of my tether with all of this.

Floggingmolly - of course I teach her boundaries at home. Some of you would be surprised at how tight the discipline is at our house. But how the hell do I replicate a class room of 30 kids, a teacher and a TA at home?

'I'm at the end of my tether with all of this.'

Come over to SN and have a glass of
You have a long haul ahead of you, whatever your daughter's talents and needs, and she's still very young. Leave the tether in a heap and forget you have one.
This is the first of many interactions ahead of you.

eye , the problem with ASD assessments is that they don't take into account the variations between boys with ASD and girls with ASD.

Girls can be more sociable and are generally much much better at masking their ASD so that they appear to be able to cope when actually they cant'.

Could you try to see a dx as a signpost not a label, you can use the signpost to point you and your Dd in the right direction for support. She could really struggle at secondary if you don't get something in place for her before she goes.

As I said before, join us on the SN childrens board for much more help and advice, you are not a bad mother.

I speak with knowledge about this but am not going into that on this board.

How have the school been disproportionate, unreasonable or inconsistent?

You have accused them of this without explaining why you think this.

X post.

LOL, x posted with dust [waves to dust, I am trembling in AIBU].

Dustinthewind & Ineedalife, thank you. I know I'm just torturing myself by replying to people who have no idea of what this is like. I'll join you in a mo.

It's fine, we need to get out and about you know, can't stay in a safe space forever.
It's so very easy to feel like a failure as a mother, a housekeeper, a cook, a teacher.
But it isn't true most of the time, you manage the best that you can.

For example, my son is going to come home from college and find I've eaten all the bread, so he's going to have to go and get some if he wants his usual beans on toast for tea.
A good mother would have restrained herself, or stopped MNting and gone to get some.

Kids with SN do NOT need more discipline nalu.

They may need a different type of discipline based on their understanding and developmental stage.

They dont need more than a NT kid.

Dustinthewind & Ineedalife, thank you. I know I'm just torturing myself by replying to people who have no idea of what this is like. I'll join you in a mo

You're very welcome OP

Looking at this from the other side, as it were, the school does have to take into account the other child.

In DS2's case, the Hugging Child (diagnosed SNs) had "tormented" him, and others, for weeks with repeated hugging depute being asked not to do it. DS2 has, let's call them issues, and eventually lost it and pushed her away. He got into trouble for this, not her. I had to go into school and argue his side because no one had listened to him. The deputy head had to go with him to his remaining after school club sessions as the coach refused to have him back. Totally unfair.

Ironically he has always been fine with one of his friends (autistic spectrum I believe) randomly punching him when he gets frustrated but I guess that is boys for you!

As a parent of a ds with a full statement and attends a special school although never dx with anything I can understand the frustration of not having a 'label'.

However, after reading your threads, it does sound like you have issues with the school undertaking any disciplinary (including speaking to you in the playground) as a personal insult.

There will always be situations when your DS will have to understand the consequences of her actions; how else will she learn?

Even at a SS, they are taken to the HT if their behaviour is not acceptable and I get information about little instances when I collect him......

"I know I'm just torturing myself by replying to people who have no idea of what this is like."

Well, I have a pretty good idea what it's like. DS2 has "issues" but doesn't tick enough boxes of anything.

Sorry, 'DD'

Sacralogos - since you ask.....

The school nurse 'diagnosed' DD in Y1 by means of a 45-min observation, armed with a 1-day workshop in 'how to spot Aspergers' and a whole lot of enthusiasm. She annouced 'MiniEONTOF has AS and by the sound of it so does her dad'. (She hadn't met him and had the briefest of descriptions of his background). This did not help our confidence in her or the school.

The nurse then adviced the school to DD with all the 'classical' autism issues: transitions, routines, obsessions, etc. The school looked at DD and interpreted every problem situation as further proof of her 'autism'. They described her in ways I didn't recognise: that she struggles with changes to routines (I've never had an issue with changes to routines, big or small), that she prefers maths to literacy and struggles with abstract thought (she struggles with maths, but ADORES reading, powered through the Harry Potter series last summer), etc etc. All the interventions they made based on this 'assessment' got DD kicking off worse than before.

The teacher in Y1/2 felt very sorry for her and 'punished' her by letting her read in the library instead of going on the playground. It does not take extensive knowledge of my daughter to realise this is NOT a suitable punishment for this child. DD then proceeded to get into trouble before each lunch break -just so she could read in peace.

When my DD was bullied it was swept under the carpet very quickly - although even now my DD is affected by what happened.

I found out 3 weeks ago that for the whole of year 3 DD has lost Golden Time every single week. Yet the school have not put in place a strategy to find out WHY she loses Golden Time, and to help her learn the skills she clearly needs to learn in order to improve her behaviour. This is why we asked for the communications book - to try to help school work out where the problems lie.

When there have been incidents I have got wildly different versions of what happened from the eye witness member of staff (who for some reason I wasn't supposed to talk to!) and the teacher who phoned me. In the eye witness account my DD did something by accident and then panicked and lost ability to co-operate - in the teacher's version my DD was malicious and calculating (nobody got hurt).

When we have suggested ways of helping DD (fidget toy to help concentration, helping her listen by touching her on the arm - she has auditory processing disorder) the school have given us a blank 'no, can't be done'.

DD kept getting into trouble in PE and break times - when we questioned why, it turned out they just hadn't updated the external PE teacher or the break time supervisors about DD's diagnosed difficulties.

Those are the key issues from the past 2 years. There are others too. Did that answer your question?

Eye, poor you, poor daughter. I don't think having to justify yourself to uber critical posts can be making you feel any better. I hope the school begin to act a bit more responsibly in their care for you DD, from your last post it sounds like you and she have been put through the wringer.

I guess the only upside to the flack you have taken on this thread is that it shows you are strong enough to handle it and keep your DD's needs as priority. Good luck with everything.