Need some help re. a child at school

[Fliight]

I hope this isn't too much of an intrusion but I could really use some help regarding a little boy at ds's school.

I posted about the problem before but things are not improving. Basically, the little boy has AS and this appears to involve some fairly severe behavioural issues.

He is very intelligent, can communicate well and can cope with school on a day to day basis, it would seem. They are in yr2.

The problem is in how he behaves towards ds1. I hesitate to call it bullying because I'm sure it isn't intended that way, but it's how it appears from an observer's point of view. He is really belligerent with ds, tells him off all the time, shouts at him, physically holds him and will not let go.
He won't allow ds to play with other children or to contribute his fair share of ideas to a game, it all has to be done in the way this boy prefers/needs.
Ds apologises constantly to his friend, at least he did when the friend came to our house. Before that I didn't realise what was happening and it was a big shock.

I approached school before the Easter break and his teacher took it seriously and in fact said to me it had happened last year as well -which they never bothered to tell me about.
She has spoken to my son and his friend and asked them to separate - which apparently ds's classmates have been asking them to for a while, clearly the other kids find the relationship and its power imbalance disturbing as well. (ds is afaik NT - if this is relevant)
Ds was marvellous throughout the holiday until it was school again and then his behaviour reverted to what it had been like during term - basically he comes home in a complete state, is stroppy, belligerent to me and his brother, really not the kid I am used to.
He has previously told me this is because his friend is awful to him all day...I'm not sure but it seems to be a pattern, ie he behaves to us how the friend behaves to him.

He can't handle this boy's issues and behaviour, yet school seems to be taking a back seat on it.

My mother (font of all wisdom...ha) has actually said I ought to give the school an ultimatum and threaten to withdraw ds unless they actually keep the two of them separate. I know his teacher hasn't been there this week because she was stuck abroad - and she is the main one handling it afaik.

But what can school do - this little boy has no other friends, just ds who started in yr1 and was immediately sat next to this boy. They get on in a very odd sort of way but it's desperately unhealthy and I feel as though ds is being asked to take on behaviour nobody else can manage.

I'm sorry and hope this doesn't offend parents of children who have AS - I very possibly had/have it myself though socially I was very meek, never aggressive. Part of me feels this child ought not to be in mainstream school if he has the capacity to upset the other kids this much...it's having an awful impact on our lives, and I don't think I'm overstating that, sadly. It's been going on for months.

I want to add that ds gains a lot from his friend also - he teaches him things and they have a certain closeness, everyone says 'Oh how sweet' but tbh they don't know the half of it. I thought it was sweet until I saw the flip side

I would make an appointment to see the teacher and have a very frank discussion with her. THe other boy wont gets his needs met either without evidence so you would in a roundabout way be helping him too.

Does the other boy have input from a specialist teacher for ASD? Perhaps they could offer advice to the class teacher about managing this behaviour and how to reduce the impact on your ds.

Thanks. I've already written her a very long email regarding it and she has talked to the class as well as ds and his friend. But it doesn't appear to have helped much, not yet anyway.

Ds is crying a lot because he 'doesn't want to separate' and 'you're keeping us apart for ever' which is a sign to me of just how weirdly attached he has got. He knows and has admitted to me how bad this friend makes him feel, but he turns it round as he can't bear to think his friend is being nasty to him.

I'm also not sure what school can even implement to help this boy.

Lilalien, that's a good idea - I don't think he has had any specialist involvement so far. Maybe that would be a good thing? I'm really scared about his parents and how they will take it, too - we have a fledgling relationship but I have made excuses about stopping play 'dates' for fear of offending them

his mum was worried about how her son treated ds when they were at her house, too, and spoke to me about it.

But you can't just say 'I'm sorry, I can't have your son here any more, he is too nasty to ds' can you.

I might suggest they get some outside advice. Thankyou.

The teacher will not be able to discuss the strategies they are using for the other boy in detail because of confidentiality issues. However, they do have a duty of care to your ds and to ensure that his needs are being met too. I would persist in asking how they intend to support your child in this situation. It may be that they can help him develop some strategies to manage the relationship himself if he doesn't want to be separated from his friend.

I think for the sake of your son it needs dealing with because he's so young it could well set in stone the types of relationships he has in the future and how he relates to people. He's getting used to being a victim here and is now expecting this boy to be horrible to him. I fully understand what you are saying about the positives. I'm a mum to an ASD chap and also a SEN teacher. I have two pupils who follow in a similar pattern although no ASD involved but some complex learning difficulties. One is a dominant, jack russell of a boy who has low self esteem but is beligerant etc. He can be horrible to his best friend at school despite the fact that his best friend's parents pay for them to go out to places. He can be very manipulative. What I did was work a great deal with the best friend to get him to work out he power realities of he relationship. He now is more dominant and less subservient and the other one is now a much better friend. These though are at secondary and your son is a bit young but he needs some careful work doing on how to manage the relationship, how to say no, how to furrow his own path - including his friend if his friend wants to be included but not if necessary and learning that that's OK. As someone has mentioned, it's not doing the ASD kid much good if all he is learning is that someone is going to put up with his behaviours. Your son needs to learn the balance between tollerance and being a doormat. The school needs to be actively involved in this because that's where it is happening. From your part I would widen your son's circle of friends as much as possible to weaken the dominance this chap has over him. They need to be in separate classes if that is possible and just meet up in the playground.
This could be a really positive relationship for both. How do you get on with the ASD boy's mum. If you get her on board then she could do similar work with her son.
If it carries on as it is then I would really think seriously about moving schools. I feel sorry for the ASD chap but in a situation like this you always have to do what is best in the long term for your child - that's why we are parents.

All the best.

Yes, I would hope that would happen - but so far it doesn't seem they have enough resources really to manage that side of it. It's more a general 'this is what we do when we don't want to play with someone' type chat, but I don't think it has much impact on the other boy - he seems not to understand how to be nice to ds.

It's such a shame as I thought they seemed really close friends but now I realise how much it is damaging ds to feel he is constantly not good enough, failing and so on when really he's just coming up against some AS issues, and if I find the boy hard to deal with I can't see how ds can be expected to cope with him in an effective way.

Thanks for all your help - I have some idea now of what school can do, it's just a matter of getting them to do it!

sorry x posts, thatw as to Lilalien. Just going to catch up!

Flyingmum that's a great post and very helpful. Thankyou for all your ideas.

I've been trying hard to work with ds on saying no, being OK if his friend starts to cry when he plays with other children, not responding to blackmail etc. but it isn't helping as much as I'd hoped...a little bit, maybe. But as you say the other child has a lot of power and ds isn't getting the level of supervision or support he needs...his teacher actually said she hadn't seen it going on at school, and this is probably because it is mainly at playtime according to ds.

There is one class intake per year so they can't swap classes, sadly, or I would have asked for this. I don't want to have to cinsider moving schools but it could be our only option. The thing is that means yet more new-boyitis for ds1 and he'll probably get put next to the unpopular kid at his next school, too.

Really this is as much about ds as it is about the AS kid...ds is very vulnerable it would sem and very passive, so liable to be treated like this by anyone so inclined. He does however have a great relationship with all the other boys in his class - they like him a lot, he's very popular. But he can't seem to shake this dodgy relationship.

Thanks again for all the support and help, I really appreciate it.

I like his mum but she is very VERY shy, never speaks to anyone and she was really hesitant about our first forays into 'play dates' - it was one of the first we tried, as well, because i am fairly anti social as well! I just wish it had been a success.

I know she would be mortified about what's happening but I am too scared to confront this and talk to her about it. I think really that would only work if we wanted to encourage the relationship ebtween them, when actually my only desire right now is to stop it completely! I want ds to be as far from the other boy as possible - not to ignore the positives because they are there, but I feel that there is a really long way to go before the other child can actually have a non damaging friendship with a peer, which is just tragic but it's the way it seems to be. No one else plays with him, and I now know why.
I keep imagining him a bit older, say in his teens and behaving in a much better way and then them being great buddies, but at the moment, it's not looking very feasible.

So I don't want to approach ehr from a POV of 'I need your son to stay away till he learns some social skills' because that's justr eally hurtful

I would consider asking for a meeting between you, the other mum, the specialist asd teacher and the class teacher to discuss ways to manage both children's behaviour. Then the concerns are seen as coming from school and you can discuss ways to support your son in being more assertive and the other child in being less dominant.

It may also be worthwhile asking for the educational psychologist to be involved if it is having such a severe effect on your son in terms of his behaviour at home. You can get their number from your local parent partnership and speak to them direct if you'd rather.

If you are really considering a school move I think you should let everyone know this. They may be a bit more pro-active if they understand just how concerned you are.

Thankyou, it's a good idea bout the edu psych but I don't know if we have a parent partnership - never heard of it. I also don't know where the nearest specialist ASD teacher is. School seem to want to shove these things firmly under the carpet.

I'll see what I can find out about getting ds some help, anyway - at least that's within my power.

Hmm, from the perspective of a parent with a child like th other boy now

Firstly he probably shouldn't be in MS but very few counties have suitable provision for kids with AS at primary loevel sadly, there is rarely the option

I'd say yes go into school again. They should endeavour to keep them separate, or if that would upset the sn child too much only have them mixing in controlled circs with support and separatio0n the rest of the time (last thing child with AS needs is boy not allowed to play with me pperception but if say tehy worked together in maths or whenever child has support he may not feel that)

From what I am reading sounds as if child needs circle of friends as ds1 has- basically a system whereby a group of people child respects but school also deem sensible is chosen (parents asked) and child ahs a weekly session with them and TA where child can feedback worries / upset etc and they can discuss that and feedback to him. About the only intervention that ahs ever helped ds1 tbh

Oh and wert to ed psych and other mum

good ideas but an alternative perspective

fiorstly a lot fo areas you won't get enar an ed psych: in ours for exmaple school chooses 2 chidlren a year to be seen and once assesed that's it. Wortha sking but be aware....

other mum- is she that way becuase shye has elarned it? I am very separate in the playground becuase I have elarned to be after being quite badly vernbally attacked over ds1 by otehr aprents; I was chatting to another parent who has a similar child yesterday and she does exactly the same. Personally I do appreciate being told of anything ds1 gets up to as otherwise I can't address it, but be aware that there may be history and your perfectly reasonable appraoch comes after many unreasonable (people baging on my doors to yell at me not unsual- we live near school so everyone sees where we live IYSWIM, not necessarily a safe thing)

Specialist teacher definitely a good diea, ours seems very useful indeed.

I agree with flyingmum- you have to do the best for your son. Our LA behavioural team will do social skills with children in these circumstances, starting with child and adult and moving on to a pair the a small group. Something like that would benefit both these boys.
My Aspie son was in a similar situation in Yr 7 where he was the aggressor and was constantly leading his more meek friend into trouble. In the end the other boy was moved to a different form. It was very sad for us, but we also knew it wasn't right for our DS to be having a detrimental effect on someone else.
At least the other mother has talked to you about what she has noticed so maybe you can approach the school as two parents who are both worried.
I wouldn't suggest giving the school an ultimatum. Things like that can blow up in your face. The last Head I worked for would have said "If you are not happy with the way we handle things here then you are perfectly within your rights to take your child to another school.It is entitrely your choice" which often left the parents grovelling and saying they hadn't meant to cause a fuss etc, or in some cases making the parent feel they had no choice but to move schools even if they had only been trying to force his hand.

Thankyou for all your thoughts. Clarissimo I see what you are saying about lack of provision. I have no idea what would be ideal for this child, but I think the least they could do would be to get him some sort of IEP sorted out and maybe a bit of one to one in the classroom and/or playground (playground more important imo)

The things he does are manipulative and upsetting but hard for your average 6-7yo to describe in terms of how bad they make him feel, eg grabbing and hugging ds too hard, demanding ds doesn't play with the others then crying when ds says he wants to go...how can ds go to a supervisor and say 'so and so is crying because I won't play with him and it makes me feel bad'. That's a bit beyond the kind of thing they'll be expecting and he'll probably get told to go and make friends again and play together nicely.
Anyway...yes I suspect our HT would say the same but considering I am a great fan of HE and my mother was against it before - and that was why I didn't do it, no support etc - if it's her idea, and they call our bluff and say 'Ok, fine, go then' I might get more out of her in terms of verbal support for teaching him at home. There has to be an up side to this.

I'm still not sure about talking to the boy's mum btw. I just cannot think of a good way of putting it. Though I am sure she must know something about the separating initiative by now.

Will see how things are this week...and make sure ds is getting to bed on time, etc, so I am sure his behaviour isn't just being grumpy.

It does sound a lot like a mild version of what ds1 gets up to sadly (namechange, its me Clariss though). And the Head should be able to see whats happening but if he's anything like ds1 black will be white in his eyes: we recently had a big meeting with the LEA about his behaviour and ds1 sat thre talking aw3ay absolutely unable to comprehend that he was not teh victim: did not occur to him at all. AS can be like that (not always) and many an adult is compeltely oblivious to that aspect of AS- it's to do with understanding social transactions, but combined with (in ds1's case) exceedingly good verbal skills and manipulative nature. Had ds1 been born in another time I would have been celebrating his skills as he would be on track to become the dictator to rival all dictators. Not mush call for dictators in S E Wales though (thank goodness)!

If our school is antyhing to go ny, good chance Mum doesn't know about separation thing TBH: as kids don't always transfer info between settings and sometimes teachers don't pass info on (am sure some do, just not my experience iyswim).

If you want to home ed go for it, but don't pull your child out becuase of one other child- the more stink you kick up the more help child should get. Am flabbergasted if he doesn't have an IEP- should be a basic enytry level thing for a child with AS, and either SA or SA+: many don't need a statement though he sounds so much like my Sam that he could well need one.

The school has s duty ehre to protect both kids and don't let them off. When aprents go at me, I always ask tehm to put it in wiritng to the school as that is the only way I can change anything. They rarely do sadly, but maybe you should? Give school the ammo it needs to get mroe support in palce.