My son is in reception and we had a meeting with his teacher this morning to discuss his behaviour. During the meeting she said that she thinks he might be "on the spectrum", and when we asked whether she means that she thinks he's autistic she said yes.
I have sometimes wondered whether my son has some kind of neurodiversity, but when I have read about autism he really doesn't fit that many of the supposed signs/traits.
The main things I find challenging with our son are that he is extremely stubborn and when you ask him to do things you often need to ask him a lot of times. He can also get very frustrated. If things don't go his way, he reactions can be very intense - he sometimes has huge meltdowns.
The school are struggling with his stubbornness, the fact that he doesn't respond to instructions straightway and his meltdowns when he doesn't get what he wants.
He is a clever boy - on track with where he should be academically. His teacher has acknowledged that he is bright, with an excellent vocabulary.
I have huge sympathy with the school and obviously we need to work with them to improve things. However, sometimes I think they make mountains out of molehills. One example the teacher gave us was when the class was lining up to go to the dinner hall and she kept putting his hood up so he wouldn't get wet when they went outside. He kept putting it down again and the teacher said that they weren't going to go to lunch until he put his hood up. As a result the whole class was delayed by 10 minutes. I don't know why the teacher chose to make this into such a big deal. She could have just ignored him and he would have got wet and learned his lesson.
I’m pretty upset with how this has all been handled by the teacher. We thought we were going into school to discuss a sticker chart system that she has decided to put in place for our son. When she mentioned her suspicions of autism, she spoke to us in a way that completely lacked sensitivity or empathy. She must understand that it would be something worrying and potentially upsetting for us to hear. We specifically had to ask her whether the school would be able to still cope with him if he does receive some kind of diagnosis.
We have had a few meetings previously with the teacher about our son, including parents’ evening. She is always so negative, focusing on the bad points and barely mentioning anything positive or good. One of her biggest concerns in our conversation this morning was that the school had an inspection last week and the inspector apparently witnessed my son having a meltdown and took the teacher aside to discuss “that boy”.
I don’t know what I’m seeking by posting this. I guess a bit of a hand hold and whether any other parents have had any similar experiences that might be helpful to us.