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Struggling to cope with DS

2 replies

MrsSnape · 02/03/2008 13:26

I have posted before about my DS (7). He's been a handful since he learnt to walk really but it escalated when he started school. He's just "silly" all the time and I know most kids ARE 'silly' but with him it litrally is constant. He shouts at constantly at school, messes around in class and during assembly etc and is OTT during playtime. This constant "Hyper" behaviour has resulted in him being thrown out of class and made to stand outside by himself, thrown out of assembly by the head, sent to the deputy head for a 'proper telling off', stood against the wall at playtimes but NOTHING bothers him.

His teacher told me she feels she has failed as a teacher because she simply cannot cope with him and she's not the only one, if he gets sent to other teachers they end up saying the same thing. You tell him off and he grins at you. You could stand there screaming and shouting at him and he'd burst out laughing or imitate your voice for a laugh. You can talk calmly to him and tell him why his behaviour is wrong and he'll stand there trying not to laugh before carrying on with it as soon as you're finished.

At home he's the same, he gets up, messes around with his breakfast, ends up making a mess, torments his brother, when he's supposed to be getting ready for school he'll stand there and start dancing around, pulling his trousers down and shaking his bum at us etc and he's just constantly laughing at himself.

I'm at the end of my tether with him, I know he could be worse, he's not a violent kid and he doesn't steal or abuse animals etc but you just cannot get through to him. The other day I got an earful from the teacher when I went to pick him up because he'd yet again spent the entire day disrupting the entire class. On the way to the car he darted across the road and ended up play fighting and rolling around on the wet field with his friends, in the car he refused to get in because he wanted to sit in the front, when he was eventually in the car he started kicking his brother in the back... and all the time my attention had been so focussed on him I hadn't even had chance to say hello to DS1 who was sitting there getting more and more wound up.

DS2 then blurted out "I hate you" and so I stupidly replied "oh? well I hate you too" I was so close to just taking him around to his dads and leaving him there...he's just "too much" iyswim??

How do I cope with him? He is supposed to be under the assessment of a behavioral expert who is useless (doesn't turn up at arranged meetings and when he does he just speaks common sense, such as "don't give him a lot of sugar" well...duh...)

He is due to be assessed by the education pyscologist but that could take months.

The frustrating thing about it is his teacher says he is highly intelligent, uses scientific names for animals and dinosaurs, explains about events in the news to the class such as the fires in california and the tsunami and the other day he explained what "DNA" was to a 9 year old....one time in maths the teacher asked a question which she only expected 2 of the most clever children in the class to be able to answer and DS shouted out the answer BEFORE them in an almost bored tone...she said she was gobsmacked, as was the rest of the class.

One day he screwed up a piece of work he had been "struggling" with for over half an hour because he said he simply couldn't do it so the teacher said "fine, you can do the same work during the playtime for being so rude" so when playtime came she gave him the same paper and said he could go out to play when he'd finished....she told me he completed it with perfection in less than 5 minutes.

But...he's under achieving "officially" and is expected to get level 1s on all his SATs.

What on earth is up with him???

OP posts:
flyingmum · 02/03/2008 16:28

I'm sure many of the wise ladies on here will respond to you but for what it is worth he sounds rather ADHD ish to me (the impulsivity, etc). I think he needs to be seen by a really good EP in the school setting rather than doing exercises one to one where he will probablly put on a good show and they will come up with the 'he's exceptionally bright but bored'. This could well be partly the case but what rings alarm bells for me (with my teacher hat on here) is the thinking that everything is a joke and very funny when being told off. I have dealt with 3 pupils (older) in the past that have had this similar response (and I'm not talking about the usual bolshy teenager here). All I can say is that they seemed to have that thing in your head that tells you 'there is someone really cross here - shut up and at least act contrite even if you're not' missing or the fear factor wasn't there. I don't know how you do this but a bit like we do with our ASD kids - you have to 'teach' them communication skills and social responses, I think you need to focus on this aspect and 'teach' him that he needs to be worried (he doesn't know necessarily what this feels like when ascribed to someone shouting at you so you might have to make an analogy with a time where he does feel upset about something) so that he can transcribe (transport - dunno what the word is!) the correct feeling and thus the correct reaction. It won't happen straight away. Perhaps star charts and reward charts are more the way to go with him at school rather than being sent out - which obviously is to stop him disrupting and allow the learning to take place but has little effect on him. Perhaps if he was given something he liked (computer time???) which could be taken away from him - this would give him he correct emotional feeling.

This might all be rubbish and I'm sure someone will be on soon who can give you better guidance than I.

All the best. Happy Mummy's day.

dustystar · 03/03/2008 12:59

He sounds a lot like my ds who is also 7. He has no dx as yet but many traits of AS and ADHD. He also has a statement and fulltime 1:1 support. You mention that he is supposed to be being assessed by a behavioural expert? Who asked for this person to be involved? Was it the school or is it something you organised or did your GP refer him? If you haven't seen your GP yet I recommend that you do and ask for him to be referred to a paediatrician.

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