8 year old DS Social/confidence/behaviour problems pls help!!!!!!

[chocciedooby]

DS2 does not want to socialise with any kids from his school, won't attend birthday parties, doesn't want play dates and has no interest in any after school activities.
He is fine socialising with the kids at home in the street but not with anyone associated with his school. I have always thought that we just needed to give him time to grow and that in time he would naturally want to get involved with the other kids and activities etc but its not happening.

I do on occasion organise for a school friend to come home for a play but it takes an hour or so for DS to warm up and start interacting with the other child. DS says he hates school and he hates everyone there!

Last year I was worried that he may be getting bullied as there was a period of time when he was refusing to go into school. For 3 months a teacher had to escort him to his classroom in order to ensure he was in and wouldn't run off. Eventually he settled back down and all has been fine until this week.

DS has a new teacher who seems very nice but once again I am having difficulty getting him to go into school. Monday was fine, Tuesday was fine, yesterday DS said he felt sick and had tummy ache. As he was a bit pale and off his food I kept him out of school. He didn't complain about feeling ill all day and by the afternoon he was playing happily. So he was brought to school this morning only for him to flatly refuse to go in! He literally stood still and wouldn't move. The he ran off and every time I got close to him he ran off again. I ended up having to get him into the car and then to go to the principal (which believe me was last resort)and it ended in the 2 of us having to push and pull him out of the car and the principal having to force him into school kicking and screaming. She called later on to say he was fine once he was inside and that she thinks its a control thing?...

I am so upset by this whole thing and I honestly don't know where it is coming from and I don't know how to deal with it.

DS has 2 siblings -He has a brother (9) that is quite socially outgoing and wants to be involved in lots of things. He can be quite domineering and I always think DS2 is living in his brothers shadow and it breaks my heart to see DS2 missing out on so much fun. Also DD1 (4) who is outgoing.

People do say that its a middle child thing and that he is trying to get attention but to these lengths?

I am looking for advice on how to deal with the school issue and also how I can possibly help him with his social skills. It breaks my heart to see him behaving like this, missing out on so many fun things that are part of every normal childhood and at times seeming so sad.

it ended in the 2 of us having to push and pull him out of the car and the principal having to force him into school kicking and screaming.

That is ringing massive alarm bells for me for two reasons.

First, my DD2's head teacher wanted me to do that to her when she was refusing to come into school a couple of years ago. She was going through assessment for ASD and now has a diagnosis of Aspergers. The Educational Psychologist told the staff in a meeting in front of me that it wasn't appropriate to drag her in by force and they had to make her feel safe enough in school to come in voluntarily. She agreed with me that is was dangerous, counter-productive and wouldn't work as she got bigger.

Second, he clearly has a real worry. Children don't try to gain control over that sort of situation unless they are feeling extremely anxious. Lots of children, particularly those with higher functioning ASD are angelic on the outside in school while their anxiety is through the roof inwardly. If that is happening to your DS it will be having a serious negative impact on both his emotional and mental well-being and his ability to learn.

In your position I would put a stop to dragging him kicking and screaming anywhere. Use the normal behaviour management techniques that you use at home and, if they don't work, assume that there is a good reason for that and expect the school to make things more manageable for him.

Talk to him about his feelings re school. Ask him to design a school he would be happy to go to. Ask him whether they could change something to make things easier for him there. Listen very carefully to the answers no matter how extreme they sound. They could contain an important message for you.

Hi goldmandra.Thanks for your reply.
The Principal feels that we simply need to break the pattern of bad behaviour.She feels its a control issue and to be honest I think she could be right. She asked him if he would like to come in early each morning and do a job for her and he said yes.This idea is to distract him and break the behaviour pattern.When I asked him about it he totally clammed up and denied wanting to do anything.

DS 1 was very challenging for many years and it was all about control. We had him assessed and he was diagnosed with PDD Nos which I don't think is even factored as an ASD anymore. It seems that he has grown out of most of his issues ....

I have wondered if DS2 may have the same problem but is displaying his issues in a different manner. It took 2 years for us to get DS1s diagnosis and then we were left out in the cold with no support whatsoever on how to deal with him.

I cannot go through that ordeal again.....and really feel that we have to manage this ourselves.

I have spoken with DS many times about school and he is a seriously closed book on the subject.
Overall his behaviour is pretty good but has gone off the rails since returning to school.

I feel quite lost on how to deal with this situation and have to make a decision either way on how to mange him. Tomorrow I will drop him at school and pray that there is no repeat of what happened today.

You've clearly been let down badly with your DS1 and I can see why you wouldn't want to go through the assessment process again. However your DS2 doesn't need a diagnosis to get support or adjustments in school. You don't have to manage it yourselves.

I think you need to ask yourself why a child would need to go through such trauma simply to be in control. It's usually a symptom of significant anxiety.

What is it about school that could be causing your DS to be so stressed that he gets into that sort of state just about going in? All behaviour is communication. What is your DS trying, albeit possibly unconsciously, to communicate to you?

It's going to be a very difficult question to answer if he won't open up to you but that doesn't change the fact that he needs someone to change something.

I am disappointed that a Head teacher would label a child as trying to be controlling without asking herself why. At least she's responding by offering a way to make the transition a little easier but I'm not that reassured if she isn't doing it for the right reasons.

I made the mistake of trying to force my DD1 to attend school when she was refusing. I bitterly regret not listening to her earlier because she came close to a catastrophic breakdown before I realised I had to stop and it took her a year and a lot of work with CAMHS to recover enough to return to school.

IMO, unless he is generally extremely lazy, oppositional and willing to fight tooth and nail to get his own way, your approach should be about trying to open a channel of communication with your son about school rather than physically forcing him to attend and the school should be doing the same. If he can't talk to you he could possibly talk to a TA, the SENCo, a family support worker or maybe just a favourite teacher. Suggest that the school gives him some one to one relationship building time in the hope that he may open up to that person in the future.

In the meantime consider sensory difficulties he may be having in school and see if trying to reduce those helps.

Hi gold mantra. You are so good to
put your time and thought into your reply and it is appreciated.

I agree that my husband and I need to keep working on opening up lines of communication with DS, however I believe that a lot of his recent behaviour is down to attention seeking and the episode yesterday was taking it a step too far.

He is definitely anxious about school and over the years I have spoken to his teachers (they change each school year) and none of them have noticed anything to be concerned about. They say he mixes with the boys in his class and plays in yard etc. I just don't understand where the anxiety is coming from. He is a bright boy and academically is thriving so it cannot fear that he can't keep up with the work.

Yes we were felt let down by the system here (we live in Ireland) with DS1 and interestingly the school principal was most supportive and really got involved in helping him to deal with his issues and behavioural problems.

I honestly bang my head on the wall at times because I feel that maybe my parenting has not been up to scratch and I have let my boys down in some way. I have always been firm but fair with my kids and have not pandered to their every need and yet they seem to struggle to become independent of me.

Also interestingly, my DS2 is extremely stubborn, can be very lazy and at times oppositional so a lot of this could just be his character.

You will be pleased to hear that the school run went well this morning. I dropped both boys at 8.25 (15 mins early) right outside the school and said goodbye at the car. DS2 simply walked into school! There was no fuss, no crying, nothing.....I just can't work him out.

Hoping now that all of this has been a settling back into school period and going forward I need to try some clever ways of getting him involved in sports activities and social things with his peers. He really needs a confidence boost. He has great sporting ability but seems to have a fear of people watching him fail in something. He is putting way too much pressure on himself at only 8 years of age.

Thanks again for your post.

You sound like you're quite reflective in your parenting so I doubt very much that you're to blame and you're clearly not letting them down.

It's clear that both or your boys tend towards having symptoms on the Autism spectrum and children like that naturally find the world a little harder to deal with resulting in them finding it harder to separate. They don't need to have diagnosable Autism to experience the same challenges to some degree.

I'm really pleased that he managed to go in without any upset this morning. Maybe the promise of a more structured transition time was enough to reduce his anxiety.

With or without a diagnosis the key is to look at the difficulties your child has, the reasons behind those difficulties and work together to find solutions. If the Principal is working along those lines you've half the battle won.

I would keep a close eye him and work on finding ways to get your DS to express himself better in the long term. This should help him to deal with any problems he encounters in the future when the social, organisational and sensory environments can be less forgiving.

If this problem rears its head again I would strongly suggest not forcing him into school kicking and screaming. Instead get the school to take a more detailed look at his social interactions. Children can be good at mimicking socially appropriate behaviour and looking like they are fully integrated while a closer observation reveals that the child, in fact, on the periphery and not integrated into the play after all. They can also be keen to join in play, participate quite well but find the whole experience very hard work because they have to use logical deduction to work out what others know instinctively. A day full of that without a break can be incredibly draining for a child.

Also get them to consider his sensory environment and how motivated he could be to cover any anxieties and blend in before deciding that he is fine in school.

Good luck with this. I hope the worst is over and he carries on being more settled in school permanently now.

If you want to build his confidence maybe you could find a structured sport activity like climbing. When the groups are small and the rules are rigid for the sake of safety, he might feel safer and more able to join in and achieve.