To believe my 5 year old, not his teacher?

[Jamhandprints]

My 5 year old has ASD with challenging behaviour, usually triggered by routine change.
So today at pick up time the teacher called me over to say he had got his best friend in a head lock for no reason (typical of his behaviour) Then, whilst in time out he has pinned down another child and put a bead up his nose.
I was horrified about this and nearly burst into tears.
I collected my son from the deputy head and asked him, on the way home, to tell me what had happened.
He said he hurt his best friend and put a bead up X's nose.
I asked him to tell me how he had done it and he said:
"I...I don't remember doing it. Miss Y said I did but I just I definitely don't think I did."
I asked a few times in different ways and got the same response, including tears. "You don't have to say tell the truth mummy because I definitely am".
So I phoned the teacher and she said nobody had actually seen it happen but X had said it was my son. She will investigate more tomorrow.
Thinking about it, my son has terrible fine motor skills, so to pin someone down and put a bead up their nose would require a lot of skill.
So i just feel terrible because all the school mums already hate my son (understandably) and I was going to contact the mum and apologise but I think he probably is telling the truth.
He is slow to process speech and respond so probably didn't know what was going on when he was sent to the deputy.
Does it matter?

Hi OP,

I appreciate that my own experience is just anecdotal and my son is only 1 person with autism but at 5 my son wasn’t capable of lying (still can’t at 9!), and could easily see how this situation would be very confusing and upsetting for him, I also agree about how easy it is for school staff to make assumptions, (I work in education before i get jumped on here!) so in this instance I would be inclined to believe your son.

Do you have regular meetings with the Senco? It’s worth raising that your DS is becoming a bit of a scapegoat.

and for you OP, it’s a bloody hard and lonely journey sometimes.

I feel for you these situations are a bit tricky
It seems like your son is turning into a conveiniant scapegoat

Teacher has a difficult job, learning curve for her too

Thanks everyone. Your support means a lot.
Totally, @junebirthdaygirl, I don't want them to think I'm not supporting them. I am under no illusions about my son's nature. It's just this one thing!
But he really has trouble expressing his needs so if he's telling the truth I don't want to tell him he's not.

So did the child with the inserted bead then go to hospital or doctors, because something like that needs to be dealt with as an emergency in case they inhale into their lungs (voice of experience with bead type item in child's nose !)

I believe your son. My son is ASD and can’t lie. I mean he tried sometimes but then compulsively tells me it’s not true after lol xx

You're his mum. It's your job to fight his corner. My DC are neuro typical (well at 5 we thought dd was, at 17 found out she wasn't). She always stuck up for and was friends with the two v "naughty" boys. The one with the calm, reflective mum who sought support is at Warwick now.

You have given a logical version of what your son is capable of. Stick with him.

FWIW at 10 DH rolled a bogey and put it up his sister's nose. He is v v co-ordinated and at 57 freely admits it was pre-meditated and it was still a feat. Shocking thing to do but having known his sister for 30 years becomes more understandable with every interraction.

OP you sound like a brilliant mum x

Thing is. - you just know when your kid is telling the truth. I have an ASD child and he simply is unable to lie about things, his younger brother can and does. Defend your son and make sure he knows you are on his side. As an asd kid I think it often feels like the world is against you, that you are always blamed, and kids will wind you up because they know it gets a reaction. You can’t necessarily prevent this but you can let your son know you will always stick up for him.

Believe your son.

Your DS sounds like an easy scapegoat.

The time in reception when my dd told me someone else had done something a bit like this to her - likewise nobody saw - it turned out she'd done it herself, then registered my shocked reaction, so immediately regretted it and deflected the negative attention by saying her friend, the one who everyone would easily believe would do such a thing, had done it.

She admitted it eventually but only about a month later.

I have an ASD pair too.

My youngest is almost 18, and no way on earth could he do that. He wouldn't have the fine motor skills, not to mention his brain firing off in different directions processing the different tasks.

It's obvious your son is the class ,and school scapegoat. Amongst the kids and even worse the staff. Because the accusation itself is so ridiculous the teachers response should have been ' did that really happen '?? Along with a firmly, raised eyebrow.

I think it's time for a new school and a.fresh start. It may even be time to homeschool him for a while so he can build up his skills, no way would I be sending him back into that hell pit with those Hellions.

So I think you should talk to the teacher and stick to the facts, like a detective. 'We know that this occurred, between this and that time. X and Y were together at this time, they were supposed to be doing Z, no-one was watching them closely, no-one saw what happened.'

Don't let her describe it to anyone else as something your DS did. That is not known.

I do think it's possible that your DS is the go to person to blame now. It seems unlikely he could have done it without anyone noticing. S

Something similar happened with my DS 11 who has asd. On the las day of term 20 minutes before home time his teacher called to tell me that whilst he was playing with some friends another child came and disrupted him and tried to take over in which he got angry and pushed said child to the floor. The teacher made a point to say that he was provoked and that she wS worried about him walking the half way down the road by himself so would I come to the school. Well in that time the events had escalated and according to another teacher who called DP he escaped isolation and stormed onto the playground and pushed a child from another year group. Now either they are making him sound like a lunatic for what ever reason or he was so mad he zoned out and doesn’t remember, he’s still adamant he didn’t push anyone else other than the child who interrupted him. He’s n3ver one to induce violence unless someone has irritated him or provoked him, most of the time he minds his own business. I’m not really sure what happened as all 3 different stories I’ve heard have inconsistencies. He did tell me another boy hit him and he hit him back but didn’t tell the teacher as the boy that hit him often acts like he never does anything so the teacher dismisses any wrongdoing. There’s several kids like this in his class and h3s getting annoyed that everyone always believes everything those kids say or do.
You need to find out if anyone else was a witness. It sounds like a case of he said she said but they could be trying to make your boy look like a nutcase. It happens.

I feel sorry for you OP and your precious boy.
Given everything you said it sounds v unlikely your son did this. But even an “investigation” might not get to the full story.
You sound sensible - I would stick by your boy on this and trust your judgement and instinct.

I'm another with a ds with asd who, at that age, found it impossible to lie. Kids that age are always shoving things up their own noses/in their ears and immediately know that they shouldn't have - much easier to blame someone else for it than own up to being so silly.
hope you can get to the bottom of things.

Who knows? But it made me sad to read you saying it was “understandable” that all the other mum’s hate your son. If they’re aware of his difficulties, surely they’d be a bit more understanding. Ok, it’s real life, they may well be wary because his behaviour is challenging, and maybe rightly so, but surely a reasonably sensible parent wouldn’t hate a 5 year old?

I'm inclined to believe him. More likely that the other child stuck it up his own nose and was lying to get out of trouble. They dont think it through at that age.

How would he have done it? As you say, his fine motor skills are shit so how on earth would he manage to pick up a bead and put it up the nostril of another child, who was, presumably, a moving target, all while holding this child down, in a classroom and no one saw or heard a damn thing.

It's not realistic. Where was the teacher? I'd wager: not far and certainly within earshot. I doubt the other child just laid there and let him do it with nary a protest. If he was held down (could your son even have overpowered him?) then there must have been a struggle. Why did no one hear it, even if they didn't see it?

Another one here with a child with ASD. My DS doesn't lie and often other kids will say things that he has done when he hasn't.

I've had years of this (he's 11) and it really winds me up. It's all to easy to pin the blame on someone who has difficulties.

for you OP. You mentioned other parents not liking him. One of the Mums at my DS's school told her child he wasn't allowed to play with mine and now wonders why I unfriended her on Facebook and have blanked her in the playground ever since!

Even with a teenager, I have fought this battle twice recently. Once DS (whose EHCP states that he dissociates and has complex PTSD) didn’t remember what he had done. I didn’t (necessarily) dispute that he had done it, but I did argue strongly (& successfully) for there being a real need for them to be very careful when sanctioning him that he understood why, because it could very easily feel like further proof that the world is against him if they sanction him just as normal for something he doesn’t remember doing. And - given the contents of the EHCP - I absolutely refused to let them impose a further sanction for lying. DS wasn’t even saying he hadn’t done it, just that he didn’t remember the ten minutes around the incident. But I was much more vocal when AN Other student said he had done something & my son said definitely not & it was acknowledged that they had no other proof but AN Other student is ‘very reliable Ms Freddie’. No. I mean maybe he had done it, though on that particular occasion I don’t believe it myself, but one student’s word against another (it wasn’t even something directed at the other student or anyone particularly) needs more investigation.

Good luck, OP.

It seems very unprofessional a teacher would send a child to the deputy heads office and tell the parent as if we’re definite fact before completing the investigation especially as no one actually saw this “incident”. Regardless of anything else I would be annoyed about that. I definitely think this needs looking into further.

*were

@Langrish, I know but ASD isn't something you can see so they're not necessarily aware of it. To them he s just the naughty boy that hurt their child for no reason. I don't see them socially as we don't get invited to parties or play dates, so I've never been able to explain.

YANBU. unfortunately IME a teacher who just believes the child who can communicate more easily because it's the easy option and doesn't believe that communication can be poor whilst being able to speak is not going to improve and it causes significant emotional damage. My poor son (5yrs asd) has had this or similar a lot. It's so so hard.

Do you have any beads at home OP? Or some small buttons? Maybe you could "play a game" with your DS and get him to help you sort them in to colours or count them into piles of 5, to see how he copes. That will give you an idea if he could even manage it.