I had my first experience today where I was unable to physically restrain my 7 year old son. He was attacking one of his class mates in the school playground at school pick up and many of the other children were watching. I could manage to pull him off but if I let go he attacked him again as the boy would not go away and kept trying to tell me what my son had supposedly done during the school day. When I restrained him he kicked and punched out at me. I have never really had this happen before and it was in a very public place.
In the end I managed to drag him into the school building so there were no children around us and he did eventually calm down but I was reluctant to do so as he has 2 younger siblings and I didnt really want to take them all into the school for the teachers to judge my handling of the situation. No parents or teachers approached us at any point.
FYI My son has had initial assessment for aspergers and professionals decided not to assess fully as it was felt unlikely and I am happy to accept this decision at the moment but I guess I need a strategy that would work for very high functioning children with some asperger type traits and with social interaction issues.
We follow very set routines, clear and consistent boundaries and effective time out and diffuse any such situations immediately at home and generally dont have too many problems. I gave consequences for this behaviour but I dont think that these would prevent a reoccurrence. We have never found any rewards or consequences that have had any real effect and school have said the same. The teachers that dont set clear boundaries have struggled as he will test to the limit to establish the boundaries but the good ones have managed him well.
How should I deal with this if it happens again in public?
Please respond kindly as I am feeling battered and bruised and my husband is away on business. Many thanks.