AIBU to think mother of son’s classmate shouldn’t have grabbed him?

[MissOlivier]

My son has shown some spiteful behaviour towards his class. He has ADHD and ASD. His behaviour is definitely getting harder to manage in a mainstream setting.

@Springnowplease you’ll forgive me if I class “precious darlings” as mild given the hateful shit that has been plastered all over this thread about an autistic child.
Believe me, when it’s your child continually on the receiving end of ignorance, hatefulness, deliberate refusal to understand and prejudice it’s not so easy to stay restrained. I think in the context of parents reacting to an issue regarding their child (and the “well if they can’t be normal send them away” attitudes upthread) precious darlings is fairly restrained.

Fluffy pineapple if his needs can be managed where he is, why move him? And where would YOU move him to? Genuinely interested.

Its never ok to grab a child and she's setting an appauking example. She's angry her child is being shoved so she goes and shoves an autistic child in revenge?

If we want to talk about police involvement then why not call the police on her too?

The school clearly need a much better grasp on this situation and the child needs a lot more support.

Exactly sophie my son was lashing out a particular child in his class. I was constantly being called and I knew every time which child it would be. This child was a sneaky git and was tormenting my son constantly by whispering shit in his ear when no-one was looking, having his cheer squad set up traps for my son to trip over or fall off his seat. They knew exactly which buttons to push. My son was being bullied and was reacting to it without even thinking. But of course he was the problem.

has special needs or not

When will people understand that this statement makes no fucking sense? It is absolutely and utterly telling people that A MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS AND CONDITION IS IRRELEVANT! Would you ask a deaf person to listen harder? A blind person to look harder? Someone with depression to “just get on with it”? Someone with a physical disability to just get up and walk? Or grow back a missing limb?

No you fucking wouldn’t. Because it would be wrong, and illegal and really really shit. But it’s ok to just dismiss a neurological disability as nothing eh?

Obviously the mother shouldn't have grabbed OP's child and I agree that is for the police to deal with.

However, clearly something is going wrong here. It does sound like OP's DS is struggling to cope with normal classroom noise (as well as this child in particular) then mainstream classes may not be the best place for him. It sounds like he is struggling with secondary school in general, not just this child, so perhaps there might be some provision elsewhere that might be better for him.

There was a long thread recently about inclusion, and there were several parents of autistic children who felt their children were better served by specialist provision, and wanted more of it (equally there were plenty that didn't like this solution). Perhaps it might be worth a read OP, to see if there are any options that might suit your son.

Inclusion at the moment is underfunded and some schools are better at it than others. I'm not saying it is right that OP's child should have to move schools- but as this school is consistently failing him and failing to keep other children safe, perhaps it would be a good idea to look at what else is out there?

@ZibbidooZibbidooZibbidoo how is your son now? I hope school are doing enough to keep him safe from bullying.

If you do report her to the police then she may lay a complaint against your son, OP.

Report her to the school, so they can find out what happened. She was wrong to lay a hand on your son.

precious darlings" vile thing to say.

Even if that’s what I said (it isn’t) it isn’t vile. But even close. But it isn’t what I said. If you’re going to quote people, get it right.

Serious question. If a teenager with autism happens to be triggered by a stranger in the street and attacks them, that’s assault right? So why isn’t it being treated the same way in school?

What happens when they’re adults? If a woman they are in a relationship or a mother or a sibling triggers a meltdown and is attacked is that not domestic violence? Where is the line drawn and it stops being the responsibility of somebody else to deal with and start becoming a crime?

Not even close.

Police don’t take action against NT children who assault other children at his age (or are extremely reluctant to anyway).

They are however very keen to prevent adults assaulting children. As they should be.

Fluffy pineapple if his needs can be managed where he is, why move him? And where would YOU move him to? Genuinely interested.?

OP's sons needs are not being managed within his present school are they? To The detriment of his classmate(s). The bullied usually manage to move school. I'm sure the bully could too. Why not?

If you do report her to the police then she may lay a complaint against your son, OP.

I would be amazed if she didn’t do this. She may well also claim that she was forced to act in self defence to prevent an attack on her or her daughter. Unless there are other witnesses you will really struggle to disprove that given the history.

So what has he got? ADHD? Asd? Autism?

I’m sorry to say this but maybe main stream school isn’t the right place for him.

You need to get him help NOW! And in an environment that better suits him

I’ll give you two examples from my experience

1 my niece had a boy with adhd being violent towards her and that ended up with him stabbing her in the back with a pencil which required stitches and he got expelled.

2 my ex partener Son had ADHD who didn’t cope well with going up to high school got expelled out in a school for children with special needs got expelled from that for being violent. 2years home schooling then he got a place in a school which was specially set up for children like him and he started th flourish and even managed to leave with 2gcse unfortunately the school got closed down due to poor exam results but I think they missed the point of the school for a lot of the kids there the next stop would have been a young offenders institute.

how is your son now? I hope school are doing enough to keep him safe from bullying.

I moved him to a new school in September. They are absolutely fantastic. Really hot on bullying. Brilliant with SN and have managed to move him right up the statementing process when previous school managed diddly squat in 3 years. We are hoping to get a classroom assistant for him.

My apologies for the misquote. But "darlings" is equally vile, frankly. Those children matter every bit as much as yours. Sad that you can't see that.

Fluffypineapple so you just find a place at a random school? Is that the answer? Move the kid? What’s to stop the same issues happening there? What does it solve?

@ZibbidooZibbidooZibbidoo I’m sorry he (and you) had such a crap experience with his old school but I’m really glad things are looking up now. I hope he’s enjoying his new school and that you can have a bit of breathing space to stop fighting battles and enjoy him!

@Springnowplease except according to the majority on this thread (and in RL) our children DON’T matter as much.

Dreadful that she grabbed your son and shouted at him. Whatever did or did not happen before, she assaulted him, she is an adult, your son is vulnerable. (A technical definition: a vulnerable child, because he has SEN). And terrible for her dd as it must be, she has set an example which will get her Dd into trouble is she replicates it.

The school need to know what she did.

Your son needs to know that it is wrong for him to act against anyone else and wrong for her to grab him.

Fuzzyduck1 the vast majority of children with SN including adhd and ASD can access education via mainstream! You seem to have had some poor experiences but not all NT kids are violent, or end up as young offenders and it’s rather offensive to generalise that this may be the case.

"properly supported" is an awful concept. It makes the school look crap when they are probably trying their best with limited resources. It means that the behaviour of other students has to be modified to suit the needs of one student, is that fair? I have to have 4 lessons a week in almost silence (not how I like to teach) to deal with the needs of a child like the one described above. It frustrates me that I know I'm not getting the best from the other 29 students because they can't talk to each other. Yet to keep one child happy the rest have to be totally silent and occasionally whisper.

Inclusion is shit for most people involved. The pupils whose additional needs aren't met correctly, the pupils who are impacted by trying to meet another students additional needs, and the teacher who has to try and balance the shit storm.

The girls mother is probably at the end of her tether (as are you) and needed to vent. She will feel like nothing is being done if he has been hitting her all year. Teaching staff know his triggers, and it does seem like he perhaps isn't suited to full mainstream education, yet it seems he acts so quickly they struggle to control him.

The mothers actions were wrong. I'm sure we can all agree on that. Put yourself in her shoes for a minute, her life's not a walk in the park either.

But "darlings" is equally vile, frankly. Those children matter every bit as much as yours. Sad that you can't see that.

😂😂😂 oh stop!!

KT63 the police will take action, if pushed and esp if the girl's mum reports each assault individually. There is no law to say assault isn't assault just because it happens in school and, let's face it, it looks like there are plenty of witnesses.

They will definitely take any report the OP makes against the woman in question very seriously too.