Autistic teen not ok at school advice needed

[ForAquaPanda]

Hi i am posting for advice from anyone who has been through something similar or perhaps from an autistic adult who has some experience of my son's situation at school.

But of background: Son is 15. Only diagnosed with Autism when he was 14. He has always been quiet but had friends in primary. Things got worse for him as puberty hit. He is bright and in year 10. Predicted high grades. He is never in trouble, works have and takes school seriously. School have made the practical adjustments you might expect, laptop, extra time in exams, classroom pass to go the the SEND room if needed , but they haven't pastorally been very good. He feels ignored and unwelcome and says the school don't care about him. I have emailed in multiple times and don't feel they've responded sufficiently. I often email and get no response until i chase. Responses tend to focus on one issue but ignore others i have raised. As far as I am aware he's not been offered any one to one support with anyone at school and no one has really talked to him about his experiences. They offer him things in communicatiulon with me (access to the library when he needs a quiet space for example) but it doesnt happen. Are they expecting him to go and ask for this? Because he would never dare do that. Do they know him at all?

Son has 1 best friend at school. He had 3 others in a little group but they have all left because of bullying or being unhappy. He mentions a couple of other names but doesnt seem to have their numbers. Socially he rarely goes out and doesnt show a great deal of interest in having a social life. I worry that without school he would end up.isolated and lose the friendships he has.

He hates school and recently this has got worse. He never really tells me exactly why, he's vague, unwilling to talk about it or describes a situation that seems to be missing key details. I didnt think he was being bullied or targeted but now i am wondering. Examples of things i do know about: He says people make "comments" but when i try and get details he wont elaborate, he says this happens in 3 or 4 of his subjects directed at him but I dont know what kind of comments, his laptop was broken by some girls one lesson, the school said it was an unfortunate accident, my son says he didnt see it happen as he was handing out books. , last week his pen was stolen, he said he didnt know who by, he has a best friend who is also ND and when they walk around the school he says random people comment on their hair, coats, style of walking etc. Not that it should matter but there is nothing distinctive or unusual about their hair, clothes or style of walking. If i ask him if he is being bullied he says no. But this all sounds like bullying to me.

It all came to a head on the first day back after christmas. I got him to school, he was in a state but he went, however he texted me at 9:15 to say he had escaped because he couldn't stand it anymore. In the morning he had snow balls thrown at him, people laughing at him for his appearance (he says it was random girls he didnt know but why would they?) Then a teacher shouted at him and his friend for walking to slowly. By the time he got to morning form he was stressed and overwhelmed. Then the teacher started talking about the school being inclusive and he said he just felt angry and at the end of form time he walked out.

He is now on a part time timetable but miserable. Over the weekend i realised he is clearly very low emotionally. He is not himself and hasnt been for months but seem worse than ever. So i pulled him out of school this week.

While this has all been going on i have applied to a few other schools and at the end of last week he received an offer for a school which is really good and near my place of work. He would drive in with me. We went to look round yesterday and i loved it. He seemed quite positive too from watching his reactions as we walked round. We met the sendco who seemed lovely and said all the right things. He agreed it was a good school but has refused to go saying he wouldnt cope with the change. He also says he wouldnt make friends and everyone would think he is weird. I only have a couple of days or we lose our offer of a place. I am gutted.

So my questions are:
1)should i push further to get him to this new school for a fresh start?
2) if he stays at his current school.how can i make it better for him?
3) if he is signed off what are the school's duties to him? How can i ensure he gets the grades he deserves while i work full time and dont have the skills or expertise to tutor him
4).if he ends up stuck at home how can i ensure he doesnt get deeper into depression and isolation and fall further out of socialisation?

Anyone with advice please share but be sensitive and kind.

Both of you are still getting to grips with the diagnosis.

It can take years to work this out do try not to panic. Learning and school can happen when he is more mature

No matter what the schools or society say.

A stressed scared child
Can't learn anyway and MH will
Tank.

The school sounds good but it's still a school with pressure and sensory issues and charging seems
Immense to him
So I'm Not suprised he says no.

Home
Learning.

So Many resources online. Is a tutor possible?

Friends
That's the hard one. Can he volunteers somewhere. Sometimes friends of different ages are better fo autism
As they don't feel so judged As sports team helper. Scouts or a charity shop. Maybe you can volunteer together in the community or church a few times a
Month.

I hope this helps.

I have a autistic dd who crashed
Out of school at 17 with terrible
mH and she is still not in education but she teaches herself
Things and loves art. She was doing maths yeatetday!!!

So I do have
Lived
Experience. Try
Not to spiral. It's easy for us to go down a rabbit
Hole
Of doom and that makes it worse for them

Just saw this on FB and thought it may help you

Let’s Talk About “School Can’t” — The Part Nobody Sees

Every time I write about school can’t, parents message me in tears, not because they’ve failed, but because someone finally put words to their lived reality.

School can’t is not:
✘ defiance
✘ manipulation
✘ entitlement
✘ “picking and choosing”
✘ a parenting issue

School can’t is a nervous system response.
It is the body saying, “I have reached my limit.”

And once you see it through that lens, the entire story changes.

What school can’t actually looks like?
It’s the child who wants to go but physically can’t get out of bed.
It’s the one who gets dressed, then collapses in tears by the door.
It’s the teen who tries to walk through the gate but freezes.
It’s the child who holds it together all day, then melts down the moment they get home.
It’s headaches, nausea, shutdowns, irritability, panic, overwhelm.
It’s the child who can’t explain why, because they don’t know either.

It’s a body-level NO, not a behaviour-level no.

Why school can’t happens (especially for PDAers):
✔️ Constant demands from the moment they wake
✔️ Transitions, unpredictability, noise, expectations
✔️ Being evaluated all day long
✔️ Social pressure + masking
✔️ Loss of autonomy
✔️ Executive functioning overload
✔️ Sensory overwhelm
✔️ Feeling misunderstood or unsafe
✔️ Burnout that nobody knew was building

School can’t usually arrives after years of coping, pushing, masking, trying, and absorbing more than their nervous system could hold.

The hardest part for parents:
It looks invisible to the outside world.
You hear things like:
“Just make them go.”
“They need resilience.”
“You’re enabling this.”
“They’ll fall behind.”
“Everyone has to go to school.”

But your child isn’t fighting school.
They’re fighting their nervous system.

And you’re the one holding it all, the guilt, the pressure, the fear, the judgment, the unknown future.

What actually helps?

Reduce pressure, not increase it
Force makes school can’t worse, not better.

Create safety first
No child learns, copes, or connects in fight-or-flight.

Look for early warning signs
Irritability, avoidance, shutdowns, lateness, tummy aches, school refusal mornings, these are communication.

Explore alternative pathways
Part-time loads, online learning, interest-led education, TAFE, homeschooling, flexible timetables, all valid.

Support recovery from burnout
Rest is not giving up.
Rest is the bridge back to stability.

Use collaboration, not compliance
“What would make school feel safer?”
“What’s the hardest part of the day?”
“How can we work together?”

Know that this isn’t always permanent
Children who experience school can’t can thrive. just not under pressure.

And to the families living this:
You’re not failing.
You’re not imagining it.
You’re not creating the problem.
You’re witnessing your child hit a limit that most people never see
and you’re choosing compassion over force.

That makes you a safe parent, not an enabling one.

#SchoolCant #PDA #SchoolRefusalIsNotRefusal #Neuroaffirming #NervousSystemSafety #PDAParenting #MindCo #AutonomyNotCompliance #BurnoutInKids

Ex teacher.

i also have a child with AuDHD.

firstly, moving schools in year 10 or 11 is very hard. Socially the friendship groups are pretty much set and it can be very difficult.

where did the boys who left his school already go? Did they go to the new school?

secondly, one to one support at secondary is like hens teeth. What sort of support do you want? You say he is bright and has high grades so presumably not a 1:1 TA to support with lessons. Some schools these days as cahms is so shit have their own counsellors which he could possibly be referred to but the demand is honestly so high this is usually just six weeks or so of an hour or half hour a week.

he’s obviously anxious. Can you sit down and talk with him about what he is anxious about specifically? This might help you with what to ask for.

Being an autistic teen at Secondary school is hard, DS managed to mostly fly under the radar but he didn't have any friends at all really. He spent all break times in the library which was his refuge. Transitions are also really hard and deciding to go to a whole new school where you don't know anyone is incredibly daunting.

I personally wouldn't just pull him out of school though, I'd rather help him try to find solutions to as many issues as he can and weigh up the two school options. Firstly I would talk to him about what his current school could do or what he could do to make it work better for him. i think it's important that he's also helped to look at what he could try to do to help himself as that will be a great skill for his future.

I'd remind him that if he has the guts to just walk out of school against all the rules then he is stronger than he thinks. I would keep talking over and over how to handle the situations he is likely to keep coming up against - talk about how immature people can be at school and how generally if someone is being mean or picking on others it is because they are unhappy and need help themselves. If people laugh or make comments about you the best thing you can do is feel sorry for them and wonder why they are so unhappy. If a teacher yells at you - don't worry! - teachers again are stressed to the max and some end up being pretty shouty because of it. Just do what they ask and don't worry about it. I found DS found it really helpful to have these sort of interactions explained to him over and over so he could learn that a lot of things weren't really about him - they were about others who also had their own struggles that he wasn't even aware of.

It sounds like he can go to the library at break and lunch times - would that be a good place just for him to hang out with his mate and decompress a bit? What about coming home for lunch (perhaps with his friend) is that an option - could give him a break and really helped DS when he did it for a while at Primary school.

It sounds like he doesn't feel school are interested in him - but what would make him feel like they were? I'd say to him that there are however many hundred students in the school, teachers have several classes a day each with 30 kids in and giving anyone any real individual attention is almost impossible. Again this isn't about him, it's just about a very stretched system where no one has any time. If though he is telling teachers that he is being picked on or treated badly and they are not listening or doing anything then that is not ok and he needs to either speak to another member of staff that he trusts or speak to you.

If DS can just walk out the school then I'd put to him that he can ask a teacher if he needs to go to the library - what's the worst a teacher can do? If they say no what can he do then? It was always useful with DS to play these scenarios out to the end and discuss 'the worst that could happen' and how he would deal with that. Often when you're autistic things aren't obvious to you that are to others, or things bother you that don't bother others and you need someone to just talk you through it, break things down into small chunks discuss what to do if this or that happens.

I'd also say to him that his friend is probably really missing him! I'd be really encouraging that friendship if he stays on, having the friend over and perhaps suggesting some things they could do together outside of school. (Unless he wouldn't want that and would find seeing him out of school too much.)

I would really also recommend getting him sat right at the front of his classes where if anything is happening to him it is much more likely to noticed. DS also struggled with filtering out distractions and found this really helped with that too. Schools aren't able to do much for academic well behaved kids though because they are trying to help all the others who struggle academically or have challenging behaviour. If asking to go to the library is too much then perhaps he could have a card that he shows rather than have to ask.

Then I'd talk to him about the new school - remind of the things he liked. Tell him that starting new things is always hard but frequently in life you have to start something new - and anything that is old and familiar was once new and a bit scary. Any job he gets will be completely new to him, if he goes to college at 16 it will be new, if he goes to uni it will all be new. Sometimes it's ok to be scared and nervous and do things anyway. Don't expect it all to be amazing at first, don't expect to have made a best friend on day one, just see if it's ok and if it's got potential. Could he do a couple of trial days there before committing - having that little step where he can change his mind if it doesn't work might be enough to get him to try. If he's really against going back to his old school that would be the thing I'd push for next with the new school - a couple of trial days so he can see what it's really like. Are any of his old friends at this school? If so I'd be encouraging him to get in touch if he hasn't kept up contact.

Either way I'd be sure to praise him for getting through anything that is hard for him. He manages to ask a teacher to go to the library? Fantastic, that is amazing and keep reminding him of any small wins like that and how he can do things he finds scary. If it doesn't pay off and the teacher says no - oh well that is still a win because he was brave enough to ask, and if he is supposed to be allowed to the library it can be sorted out with SENCO or whoever. Anything you can do to encourage him to build independence and resilience is going to help him.

Good luck OP! DS is working and finding mixing with a small number of adults now so much easier than being in a secondary school with hundreds of other kids. I hope he find a way to get through and get the grades he deserves. Oh I also recommend the CGP books for GCSE's - all the info laid out really nicely. English is weaker IMO but for maths and science revision DS found them really useful.

I dont mean 1 to 1 support. I mean after what happened someone, maybe his form tutor or a pastoral lead, might have had a chat with him in school to check how he was feeling and whats been going on with him.

I'm sorry, OP, that sounds awful. It does sound as if there is an ongoing problem with bullying at his current school and they are indifferent at best or actively contributing to it. A bad sign. Especially if other neurodiverse friends have already been driven away.

I would just send him to the better school. Don't let time run out to take up his offer of a place there, you're so so close to changing his life for the better. He is unlikely to agree to a change voluntarily - but you need to look at the bigger picture on his behalf on this one. If he stays at the school he's at right now, it's likely to go down the path of school refusal and him being left increasingly isolated at home. Whereas a new school that tries harder for him could be a better chance at some sort of social group down the line, lile the one he had before his other friends were driven away, or at least a more peaceful atmosphere where he can learn.

Don't let the school place slip out of your hands...

I have an AuDHD teen and am a secondary school teacher and I think @savemetoo's advice is good.

I also think the school sounds a bit crap. The pastoral staff at my school would be doing better than this.