To think the school could have cut DS some slack here

[Sprogonthetyne]

DS is autistic, really struggles with school in general but especially when there's transitions and change, so the start of term is hard for him. He's been crying and having anxiety attacks about going back to school for the last week and is only a hairs breath away from school refusal. He went back today and had a really good morning, which took an enormous amount of effort from him.

This afternoon he got told off for using his glue stick wrongly. Not inappropriately, just spreading glue across the whole surface he was sticking (as preferd by last year's teacher) instead of a dot in each corner (preferd by this years teacher), and this completely unravelled him. He'd been trying so hard to manage the big changes and hold everything together, so the unfairness of still being in trouble despite his effort and for something minor that he didn't even know had changed pushed him over the edge and he ended up having a meltdown (which I know isn't ideal, I'm not defending his reaction).

While I know I aught to suport the school, I can't help but feel they could really have picked their battles and just left the kid to glue however he wants.

the only 'reflection' that should be going on around a meltdown should be on the Staffs part to work out why it happened, and what they can do to prevent it happening again.

anyone who has worked with your son for 3 years should know him well enough to know when he is at risk of meltdown, and be actively working to avoid triggering one, and trying to help him de-escalate and regulate.

If that had been my son, i would be objecting to the punishment and seeking a meeting with the staff to address THEIR failure.

(my ds is 19 and audhd, and went to mainstream primary school, i had plenty of incidents like this until he was given an AMAZING competent 1:1 in yr 5. he attended a specialist secondary)

I'm not having a go, there are definitely situations where that is the appropriate response, but that requires the child to be able to read the situation enough to know if the response is appropriate. My kid is behind the curve in been able to read situations, he is learning and will definitely improve, but often needs help (eg. Been mindful of tone or even say "I am/ I'm not angry")

He can definitely tell the difference between 'neutral/gentle' and 'angry', but can't necessarily see the nuance between "I'm stressed and a bit abrupt, but what your doing isn't that much of a big deal' and 'I'm furious with you', that's why managing the tone used with him is so important to help him understand what is been communicated.

Thr staff are not at fault here. Autistic or not, your child is going to eventually hsvr yo live s life outside primary school which isn't all people walking on egg shells and pacification. He needs to be able to find a way of channelling his meltdowns.

But primarily school is the only time when he is like to be randomly told off for using to much glue. Once he's older and allowed his own stationery, he can take as much glue as he wants. Once he's an adult, people tend to stop shouting anyway, if he was using to much office supplies at work there'd be a civil conversion and if he wanted to bring in his own supplies, no one would bat an eyelid

The 1-1 made a misjudgement here - she perhaps didn't realise how much of a struggle the day had been as it had been going so well, or the break meant she wasn't as alert to his state as she might have been. It's going to happen occasionally. She may be kicking herself for saying anything, and having the year get off to a bad start. Did she know how much he'd struggled just to get there that morning?

It's not clear who is implementing the punishment - is that the class teacher, or the 1-1? There's often a feeling at the beginning of the year that it's important to set standards from the outset, and apply consequences immediately so that everyone can see what is expected - especially if the teacher is new, this may be why they wanted the punishment applied. It would be sensible for this case to be an exception, and maybe that will have happened in the end. Let's hope.

It's not about the glue. Your child thought it was a bigger issue than it really was (doing the gluing all wrong versus "try and use a bit less glue by doing it this way"), and that's why he overreacted (by NT standards). By going and buying glue, you may be reinforcing the idea that the punishment is for gluing wrongly.

He wasn’t told off. You’ve literally said he can’t cope with being told off / perceiving he’s being told off.

Even if he wasn't told off this time and it was just an abrupt voice that sounded like telling off to him, the point is he can't tell the difference. If I tell him that when people sound angry they might not really be and it's fine to just smile and say OK, he's going to apply that across the bord, including time when he actually is been told off. The level of tone recognition he's working with is either 'friendly' or 'angry', he doesn't have the capacity to recognise in-between things like 'slightly frustrated'.

I can't even see that he has been punished? He has sat out (usually only afew minutes) to regulate himself

He will miss his playtime today for event that happened yesterday he had no control over at the time and probably doesn't clearly remember because his brain was too overloaded to process what was happening or form memory's at the time.

The missed playtime will bother him but what will bother him more is that for the second day in a row (100% of the term so far) he will be in trouble with no idea what he has done or or how he could have avoided it. For him, this will reinforced the belief he already hold that all the staff hate him and no matter what he does or how hard he tries he will still end up in trouble.

Poor wee soul. He’s lucky to have such a great advocate as you as his mum.

Have you managed to speak to the school or make an appointment?

I think you’re focusing a bit too much on the glue though, and not seeing this poster’s point that it may have been glue this time but this situation can and will happen lots of time throughout his school, career & general life.

It could be using a particular pen next time, it could be teachers asking the kids to underline the date and then changing their mind and saying not to, it could be rubbers, or using pencil vs not using pencil. In his working life it could be changing an email signature, doing a piece of work the same way for a year and then it being changed completely and the previous way becomes wrong etc etc etc. What you have said is that it isn’t the glue, it’s your child’s frustration at being told something is right, doing it that way, and then subsequently being told it’s wrong and the new way is right, and him being unable to cope with that because if the new way is right then that means the previous way is wrong— that is something he is going to have to deal with his whole life, things change, different teachers will have different rules, the same teachers can change rules, different managers in the workplace change the rules and sometimes everything changes there too.

Buying 24 glue sticks doesn’t really help.

But if he's capable of smiling and saying OK, that means the meltdown wasn't inevitable. There's an extra stage between him being given an instruction that he didn't expect (which IS pretty inevitable) and the meltdown.

You can teach him to look serious and say OK if you like- you have taken that advice very literally. That the person isn't angry, they are there to help him and they're doing their job.

I agree he shouldn't miss his break the next day for a meltdown. That's an inappropriate sanction given his neurodivergence. But the answer to that isn't attempting to create a world where he is never 'triggered'. You can address it on two fronts- educating him on how to react as above, and speaking to the school re the punishment... but NOT making it all about his 1:1 giving him a perfectly reasonable instruction about glue. Good luck- I get why you are feeling like this! It's just important to focus on the areas that you can potentially change.

Aaah.
Its perceived as a criticism in your eyes.... so, and I say this as someone with ADHD and ASD... is everything going to be perceived as a criticism?

probably, until his frontal lobe has matured enough to recognise the difference.

DS19 took until he was about 14 to learn that.

The OP's DS is 8, operating as a 6yo. Why do you expect him to be able to tell the difference?

It's fine for the teacher to tell the other children in the class to only glue the corners. You can't overule her about what she wants the rest of the class to do.

He would be able to process the change if he was told about it when regulated, he couldn't at that time because he was already in panic mode from the unexpected telling off.

If the process at work changed, you would be told that, and if you forgot and did it the old way, there would probably be a civil conversation about it. In non of the situations you list is someone shouting at you likely to be the first time you are told of a change.

Of course no, but I can make sufficient resources available that they don't feel as much pressure to prioritise reserving glue over all else.

But was he SHOUTED at?

From what you have been told though she hasn’t actually shouted at him, or told him off, she has just corrected him which he has perceived as a telling off and that can and will continue to happen throughout his life.

I doubt very much the TA told you that she shouted at your ds

Its his mums responsibility to explain its NOT a criticism... yet she's on here saying it was one.
If she can't see it wasn't a criticism... then how is that going to help her son?

Lots of things will happen in life that a child will eventually need to handle - but theres a right time for learning those things.

We would hope children will leave home, go to university perhaps, set up their own homes - we don't use that as a reason to abandon children in the wild the moment they're weaned though!

I've never had someone at work, tell me to do something one way and then without warning, tell me that way is now wrong and I should be doing it a totally different way. I think if that did happen in a work place, the employee would rightly complain and possibly leave, if it were to happen frequently!

@OP So much of what you're describing has made me realise how much my AuDHD actually DID affect me at school... I would have reacted in exactly the same way (and now see how my occasional 'hot temper/lost her temper' moments were in fact meltdowns!) at being told to do something one way and then having that switched on me without warning!

He's a lucky kid to have a parent who does very thoroughly understand how he is thinking, whats going on for him, why he can't communicate or process at certain times. So many kids do not have that.

I don't know why so many people are choosing to be snarky arseholes - I'd want to have a word with his 121 about how this was handled and trying to ensure it doesn't happen again. It does seem to be a huge error of judgement (and not just one) on their part.

is she meant to stand next to him in school and interject every few sentence to tell him it wasn't a criticism?

As a parent you can explain the difference between a corrective instruction and a criticism as many times as you like, but that isn't going to translate to the brain of an overstimulated, trigger point autistic in a loud, school environment.

They do not have the emotional maturity to tell the difference in the moment.

Why are you finding that so hard to understand?

I don't want to sound like I'm arguing here but I'm genuinely a bit confused by you advice.

We've spent years teaching him to be able to recognise the basic emotions (happy/sad/angry) but he is not yet at the stage of been able to differentiate the extent of those emotions (eg. The difference between slightly frustrated and furious).

I may have misunderstood but you seem to be saying I should tell him to ignore it if someone is talking to him in an angry voice, just in case they are not really angry. Surely this will just really confuse him, and lead to more misinterpretations in the long run.