To challenge autistic DD’s detention?

[ThisFairShark]

Dd (14) is autistic, diagnosed at age 8. She has trouble reading social cues and knowing what is/isn’t appropriate to say, she’s always very honest at all times! and has a support plan at school and is under the SEND team.

In school, she wasn’t paying attention in her science lesson and a teacher apparently said “(DD’s name) am I boring you?” to which DD replied “yes a little”. The whole class started laughing and DD got given a lunchtime detention to be served next week.

I know for all intents and purposes this is rude behaviour but I’ve spoken to DD and she genuinely didn’t realise that this was something she wasn’t supposed to say, the teacher asked a question and she gave an honest answer…

now I’ve spoken to her about how the teacher actually just wanted her to pay attention and this was their way of asking her to do so, but I don’t really think she should have to do the detention as she wasn’t aware that she was being rude nor did she intend to be rude, she just doesn’t have the social awareness to understand that the teacher actually just wanted to pay attention and wasn’t genuinely asking if she found the lesson boring.

WIBU to talk to the school, CC’ing in the SENCO and ask that she be excused from the detention, and that in future, if teachers could be clearer (for example, “pay attention please, DD’s name”)?

She now knows so let her do the detention!

YABU.

Who could be arsed to be a teacher? Mummy's emailed again!

Just tell her to do the detention but maybe email the teacher directly, and explain that your daughter is sorry that she wasn’t paying attention, but that her « rudeness » wasn’t deliberate but an honest answer due to her autism. Ask if it happens again, please could the teacher just ask her to focus rather than ask a rhetorical question.

It depends why they've given the detention. If it's for not paying attention in class/not doing her work/fooling around or doing something else instead of working, that's fair. If it's for her response to the teacher, I'd say fair to challenge it.

Sorry, but this. She’s 14. Hopefully one day she will be in work and if she said this to a boss or a client etc it could go horrendously - now is the time to be learning what is and isn’t appropriate to say and that there are consequences whether she understands if it’s rude or not. Having the consequence will help cement this.

Autism is not an excuse for rudeness, this is how we learn. If she didn’t know that was rude she does now, and hopefully she will remember in future.
I had something similar happen to me at school and it taught me that I need to think about what I say to people. At the time it was upsetting, but 50 years later I’m very glad that teacher didn’t let me off with my behaviour because of my disability.

How she is responding to being given a detention would be my first question. My ASD daughter would either completely spiral, detention = bad child, or be outraged (strong sense of justice) and find it very difficult to trust the teacher and by extension the school ever again. In theory it is discrimination because of it's about the comment, they are punishing behaviour that is as a result of disability.

But. If she's rolling her eyes and taking it in her stride, I'd probably email school to remind them of autistic tendency to take things literally and to be aware of that going forward when teaching your child, and I would be considering more examples to explicitly teach my child of things people say and the socially expected response.

She should do the detention. Don’t teach her that her diagnosis is a get out of jail free card. She was not paying attention and she was rude to the teacher .

I agree

YABU. And I say that as the mother of an autistic 16yo

"I know for all intents and purposes this is rude behaviour" but why, because she was honest?

@ThisFairShark you are not being unreasonable to contest, imo.

Should our young people not "challenge/be honest" just because "adults" don't like their responses?

eta; It's a power thing 😞

💯

Sick to the back teeth of hearing about parents who’ve emailed the school due to some issue like this.

Ok, so she didn’t know it was rude. Well, now she does and a 10ish min detention won’t harm her, will it?

I’ll add that as a teacher, I’d never ask the question, « Am I boring you? » I’d just gently redirect attention.

Ffs

You honestly don’t think it’s rude for a kid to say ‘you’re boring me’ in a classroom?

Would you, as an adult, say it to other adults?
Is this the kind of thing that’s acceptable to say in the workplace to say, your manager is it?

I definitely think you should let her do the detention - a lesson learned. But having said that, an experienced teacher should probably be aware that asking that question to some autistic students could well get them a more honest answer than they might want! It's a somewhat confrontational way of asking a student to pay attention. I wouldn't say it to any student who wasn't NT or who wasn't a regular PITA tbh.

Yabu, as someone else said she can't go round saying that to bosses or whoever at work so it's best she learns now that it was inappropriate and rude

I think she probably needs to do the detention.

But if she is anything like my autistic child, she might accept this was rude, but not be able to transfer that learning to another situation anyway.

I don't think that young people challenging adults is a problem @thisfilmisboring123

The teacher asked!!

The child was honest.

I don't think you're being unreasonable. Autistic people are often very literal, and she answered the question honestly and wouldn't realise the teacher was being sarcastic. I'm not sure the school will agree to drop the detention, though.

At some point you’re gonna have to stop intervening on your DD’s behalf, she’s 14 and needs to learn these lessons at some point

Exactly this. Also, from the school’s perspective, how can they then give a neurotypical child a detention for the same thing if they let your DD off the hook, and how would it affect your DD’s social situation if she is treated differently? That really would single your DD out and make it very hard for her with her peers. I know my DS finds it very unfair that an autistic boy in his class “gets away with” things the rest of them wouldn’t and disrupting their learning. Fairly or unfairly, the other kids now feel that after two years of high school, this kid then trades on “but I’m autistic” to get away with behaving badly, not doing the work, etc.

Unless your DD is heading for a career at Slough house with the Slow Horses then she does need to learn that you have to use your head when responding to someone, especially a teacher/ boss/ colleague.

For example surely she knows that if someone says ‘do you like my new haircut?’ the only response is, ‘yes, it looks very nice.’? It’s not much different.

A Games teacher once said 'Am I boring you?' to me - she'd been waffling on about hockey or something. I mumbled something polite in response. To this day (it was 40 years ago) I wish I'd replied 'Yes - I have no interest at all in hockey.' Applause to your DD.

Except the kid wasn’t challenging, were they?

They were asked a clearly rhetorical question, ok they haven’t understood but regardless the answer is rude.

Child does the detention and learns a lesson- it’s rude to tell someone, particularly a teacher in a classroom, they’re boring.

Where’s the problem?