Can I have some advice please? SEN child in ds's class.

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ds changed schools recently, and there is a little girl with SEN (not sue what) in his new class who he does NOT get on with. they argue constantly, she pushes and hits him and tells him that she hates him daily. I have spoken to the teacher and she insists that ds just ignores her when she hits him etc (they are both 6) and moves onto another table. that sounds about right tbh, he is very non-confrontational. anyway, yesterday was ds's show and tell. he took in a snow speeder and put it where his teacher told him to, on the floor behind her desk. this little girl stamped on his snow speeder and told ds that she wished he was dead.

he is really upset about it and is still talking about it today, I dont know how to handle it. he should make allowances for her, Im very aware of how hard things are already for her parents, the TA and teaches, but how do I explain why?

sorry if this is phrased badly btw.

Sounds like he is doing pretty brilliantly tbh not to respond, well done your DS Liss.

No he should not have to ignore a hit, just becuase there are different reaons does not mean it can't be addressed. If her hitting is such than nothing wills top it then she needs a statement and a TA providded. Alot of school don't like that though so will avoid for whatever reasons.

I know that when ds1 was hitting at school that I'd never know unless a aprent told me. I wouldn;t necessarilya dvise that to everyone but i feel sure you would be kind in how you did that. Ask them how you can help- not long winded campaigns or anything but i would ask the parents who kicked off (I don't mean mentioning to us, I mean the ones screaming at us or coming round the house) to write to teh school and the LEA to back our claim of a need for more support- support we eventually got.

And your ds should be able to sit on another table all teht ime if for some rnadom reason his presence is triggering her behaviour.

I'm so sorry for your ds, but he shouldn't have to suffer this horrible behaviour just because the girl has SN.
You need to make it clear to the school that this is happening and how upset he is.
The school have a duty to ALL children in their setting. Maybe you and the girls parents need to sit down with the children, they may not even know!
It's quite hard for you to tell him to make allowances if you don't know what's wrong iyswim. She could be a child with special needs that means she doesn't understand the impact of her behaviour or she could be a child with SN who is a little toad!

What's a snow speeder btw??

lissielou, I would be livid if that was my child too, SN or not. If the teacher and school cannot keep other children and their educational equipment safe then they need to flag it up with the Local Authority and demand more resources.

Allowances should be made but this should be managed and not to the detriment of the wellbeing of the other children.

If you're going to go in and speak to the teacher about it don't be fobbed off by any 'poor little disabled child', unless it is to agree that you should indeed feel sorry for that child for their inadequate support, and poor prognosis as a result.

thank you, his presence does seem to trigger something. we have parents evening in a week, so I will speak to his teacher then. I want him to understand that she's not doing it to be naughty, iykwim

Are you sure?

lisad, its a star wars vehicle. its his pride and joy!

the teachers are quite firm with her, and she has one to one with a TA. she has been in my group on day tips and was lovely, very affectionate and sweet. she just has a real issue with ds and its upsetting him. its hard enough being the new boy.

lisad123 Thu 29-Sep-11 16:58:55
Are you sure?

weeeellllllll.....

My son gets fixations with certain children in his class. I wanted to get the children together out of school to try to develop better relationships with close adult supervision but other parents were not willing to do this. Things are usually dealt with in schools after negative incidents instead of when children are calm and cooperative.

Sounds naughty to me. Targeting your son's toy like that is horrid.
Obviously I don't know the girl or her needs, but your son is suffering and he shouldn't be, poor chap. Probably because he is non confrontational he is seen as an easy target?
Hope you get it sorted soon!

it might be that its because he is new? maybe she cant deal with the change if you know what i mean. sn or not its not acceptable for any child to feel how your son does at school or be physicly attacked. id be horrified if my son attacked another child or theyr possessions.

Well, I can't answer your question. Because until you know why she is doing this, you can't explain it to him. And afaik, school can't tell you why she is doing this, because if they knew they'd have the start of a plan for stopping it, and at the moment they are just ignoring it and hoping it goes away.

School need help. Round here the best bet would be the Learning Disabilities Nurse, they're sort of like a cross between a SN Health Visitor and a hands-on CAMHS outreach service. Though I doubt it works in the same way everywhere, these things rarely do. But, turning it round and thinking of it from this little girl's POV, she can't go about behaving like this all her life, it will get her in BIG trouble and it is likely to get worse as she gets older (more stress, more hormones) not better. So it's in her interests for school to have a plan to tackle this. Even if the plan is "remove her from the situation" or "identify triggers and avoid them" that's at least somewhere to start from.

I think I'd try to talk to the other mum, though that's a really tricky thing to do right. She may not be aware of this. She may be aware but feeling overwhelmed because she is helpless to change it. She may have been told the same "it's OK because she has SEN" story. So I think you have to go in very carefully and find out what her take on it is, before you decide what to say to her. But to get back to your original question, she probably has the best idea of why her LO is doing this.

The school need to unpick what is happening. It sounds to me as if the girl has ASD. There may not be an obvious answer why she is behaving like this, but my instincts would say that it could be something as simple as the fact that your DS is new and so school has changed IYSWIM? My DS for example is finding it hard to cope with the fact that there are several new kids.

I think you are brilliant handling it like this and being very understanding. It is very hard to know what to do to help your child in this situation, but the school should be doing more. I think you should point out to them that they have a duty of care to protect your DS. I say this as a mum with a kid with ASD who can be aggressive, however, if my boy is hitting people there are consequences, as every child has to have boundaries. It is largely thanks to his school's firm, consistent approach to bad behaviour, backed up by the same approach at home that he is learning that it is not acceptable.

So, first I'd talk to the school about the above. Also, although it sounds weird, I would suggest, if you think the other mum could handle it, to approach her and see if you can arrange a playdate on neutral ground (park?).

A mum did this when my DS was being aggressive with her son and believe me I was so grateful that she was willing to work at it in a proactive way. A couple of playdates, and I wouldn't say they were best of friends, but it did iron things out and my DS calmed down with him. We worked at it together and found a solution.

Good luck. Hope you get somewhere!