My dp is the coach of an under 9s football club, and would welcome some advice about one of the children.
The club has a very child centered philosophy. No shouting is allowed from coaches, parents or the children and there is an expectation - usually met - that they will behave kindly and respectfully towards each other. When we enter tournaments and competitions, we don't select a teams and b teams - all the children play in rotation, so everyone gets a turn to play, and go in goal and so on. This means, obviously, they we probably lose more often that if we took a more conventional approach, but the children have much more fun, and we win often enough for them not to be discouraged. The children are all 7 or 8.
Anyway, halfway through the year, a boy - let's call him Jack - joined. His mother said that he had behavoural problems, but was to be treated exactly the same as the others. He is a good player, and in training everything is usually fine. It's at matches that the problems arise. When he's on the pitch, he will suddenly sit down, or wander off or get very upset if a goal is scored against us. We work very hard at getting the children not to be too upset, (or at least to try not to show it) but Jack gets angry with them for not being upset, and will sometimes bash one of his team mates in fustration!
Dp has, up to now, always watched for his behaviour to change, and when he sees it coming, to substitute him, so that he doesn't have a melt-down in full public view, or get hurt if he lies down in the middle of the game, or push his team mates over the edge of tolerance if he stops playing in the middle of a match and hands it to the other team!
He has now been given a diagnosis of autism. Thatis all his mother has told us, and she is unable/unwilling to give us any more guidance about how to support him. She is determined that he should be treated exactly the same at the others, but dp doesn't see how he can. At the moment, he is pre-empting problems by substituting him BEFORE his behaviour changes. He always says something like "Jack, you look tired - have a break".
But his mother wants him to be left on the pitch until he behaves badly, and then be hauled off to think about it (which is what would happen top any of the others - they would sit out til they had cooled off an apologized). She says he has to learn to behave appropriately. She does not seem very open to discussion.
The trouble is, this would happen in every match, and anyway, his behaviour isn't the same as one of the NT children having a "red mist moment" and DP isn't happy with effectively punishing him for something that's outside his control.
I'm sorry if this is a ramble - and thank you if you've got this far. And thank you even more if you have any ideas. We really want the club to be part of the solution, not part of the problem - we jsut don't know what to do for thebest.