Trouble at playschool

[BaresarkBunny]

My ds has always loved going but the for the last couple of weeks he's been saying that he doesn't want to go. Round the dinner table he told us that he keeps getting pushed over and ticked by a group of boys.

When I went into playschool the next day I spoke to his key worker who was concerned becuase this was really not like him. They have been observing and do theink there could be a problem with a certain boy but they are not sure if it's just rough play or something worse. They are going to observe the situation

They are going to try and reinforce the message that playing with other children is good but if another child goes to far he should say stop and tell a teacher. I've been trying to explin this to him but he doesn't seem to understand. He says this boy is his friend and always wants to play with him.

Ds has an ASD. Any ideas on how I should approach this with him? Sorry it's so long.

Could it be that your DS is maybe a bit more 'sensitive' to being knocked etc than other children his age? My DD is asd and she REALLY struggles with this, so what to most children would be a tap on the elbow is someone punching her in her mind. The other boy may be just playing with your son but your son could be taking the touch in play out of context. It became a bit of an issue for my DD when she was at primary school, but it's magnified tenfold now she has to navigate busy corridors at Secondary (she's almost 12yo now). Not saying it is this, just that being 'extra sensitive' to what would be 'normal' touching to another child of that age often goes along with asd's. If your DS is saying he doesn't understand, it's because he probably doesn't. If he's only at pre-school, and my DD doesn't get that a certain amount of jostling is normal/expected at school, and she's nearly 12, I wouln't have a CLUE how you'd get through to a much younger child with asd.

By the time your DS's classmates are about 6/7yo, they will be able to understand that it's not something your DS can cope with, but unfortunately, other pre-school children won't be able to make allowances for your DS in the way an older child can. I find the best time for that is Junior school, then it gets pants again in Secondary. MY only solution in the end was to take DD out of pre-school as she couldn't cope with this particular problem.

I was worried about it just being him being sensitive so I was a bit nervous about telling playschool.
Playschool don't seem to think it's him being sensitive. (I wouldnt have a problem if they did think that as I know it can go hand in hand with ASD)
It just that some of the behaviour is a bit 'sneaky' to be just rough play.

Sorry forget to add, thank you for your reply.

my ds was in same situation and i used role play at home with him i would pretend to push him and then say if you don't like it go and tell teacher and we would have big teddy i would go with him while he told teddy what had happened then i got him to push me while i said stop i don't like that and then done it to him after a few times he was able to tell teacher that he had been pushed or hit but it was all done though role play

the other children were not being mean on purpose there play was more rough and boyish where as ds play is learnt play he doesn't play fight or pretend to be a transformer etc he plays as his learnt

his at school now his 4.9 and one boy in particular pushes and is mean to a few of the boys in class ds again is back to not speaking out so we are role playing again now to tell teacher or to tell the boy his not being nice