I'm hoping for some advice please.
DS is eight, nearly nine and has had problems at school pretty much since the beginning but things have come to a head today.
He's had some behavioral problems since Reception. He's very, very easily distracted and this has been the cause of some problems with his teachers. He's reading is excellent, but he gets some extra support in Maths. His handwriting is appalling and he still can't do his tie or shoelaces. His teachers originally thought he might be dyspraxic, but then considered ADHD. I took him to the doctor who referred him on to the CAHMS team. He had one assessment there, where they ruled ADHD out.
He also chews. A lot. He chews his clothes, paper, blu tak. Pretty much anything he can get in his mouth. I give him gum, which helps, but obviously he's not allowed this in school, so he chews what he can while he's there. I've tried talking to him about this, but he says he doesn't realise what he's doing until someone points it out.
Generally when people point it out they're sniggering or joking about. This makes him lose his temper and he gets really wound up. The other kids find this funny and have started to wind him up now to get a reaction. We've talked about coping strategies with him, like counting to 10 or walking away, but this hasn't really helped.
Some of the stuff he gets annoyed about can be quite trivial, althought I suppose if I were 8 I wouldn't find it so. But, I think his mindset now means that he loses his rag as a first reaction now, rather than it being a last resort.
Today, when I went to pick him and DD up from school, i was asked to go to the head's office as there had been an incident. Apparently someone had noticed the colour of his underpants when he bent over and informed everyone DS was wearing blue pants and they all laughed. DS saw red and tried to strangle this other boy and had to be pulled off him. The head also told me that this Tuesday they had found a list on his desk which he had called his "revenge list" which had some people's names on it. One was a little girl who had smiled at him which DS thought meant she was laughing at him. Today was the first I had heard about it.
I'm really at a loss to know how to deal with this. He knows that he can never raise a hand to someone else, he knows he should've just walked away if he's upset but he says he just couldn't take it anymore. The school have said that they're going to monitor him closely to see if he's being picked on, but I'm at a loss as to what to do. It's gone beyond a telling off and a punishment, but I really don't know.
Has anyone any advice to offer?