Autistic Kid was reported to mimic gun posture to peers.

[jorderj]

Hi everyone,

 

I previously posted how my Autistic son struggled in Seventh grade. 

My DS is in seventh grade. He was homeschooled from his fifth grade to sixth grade because of pandemic. He went back to public school in August and quickly found his fourth-grade acquaintances. He thought those boys were still his friends and so he sits and plays with them during the lunch break and recess. Then he tried really hard to fit in but failed. Those boys made tricks for him to getting him in trouble or having a complete melting down at school. They continually tell him in public that his lunch stinks no matter whether it is homemade or store bought. They told him to having a trick or treat together without showing up. But my DS is still after those boys asking for justice and apology. He wanted to force them to be his friends.

 

I reported to the school a couple of times. The special education teacher and I are working with his to tell a true friendship. The special education teacher even took him to have quiet lunch with her or have him sit on the other table with nicer kids.  But once he is by himself, he keeps on going after those boys. So, three weeks ago, after lunch he confronted the three boys. They had an oral fight and ended up with punching each other.

 

Last Friday, after lunch he was again after the three boys. The three boys laughed and mimicked his awkwardness in the chorus. He was very upset and had a quarrel with them again. One boy hit him and He hit back. Then He made a gesture of gun shot to one of the kids. He later confessed to me he learned from the book The Outsiders. The school taught The outsiders in the ELA class. I was told he is very into the book and the character.

 

The school emailed me about his gun gesture and have not tell me what they are going to do with my DS since they are still doing some investigation.

 

I am struggling now. It is a good opportunity for my DS to learn the lesson and take the consequence of conducting the threatening gestures and words.  I know some autistic kids were misunderstood and shot by them from Internet. But on the other hand, I do not know whether I need to move him to a new school or have him homeschooled. Our current community is not friendly to the immigrant. There are only 3 to 4 Asian kids in the school. The academics are regarded as useless. Kids talk about sports, computer games, social medias all of the time. The school does not have any academic related clubs which my DS is stronger in. Is moving to a nice neighborhood and school an escape? Some people told me there are all kinds of people in the world. DS has to get used to it.

 

I am also debating about homeschool. DS does great when homeschooled. I used the curriculum adapted from well trained mind. He made tremendously improvement. I dislike the curriculum in his current middle school. The public school cuts grammar, vocabulary and some other basics which are so important. The writing curriculum is terrible. They pay so much attention on critical thinking without training the kids the basic of writing. So DS ends up chunking out garbage and garbage of so called creative writing. The math program is more terrible. They teach middle school math using stories like scenario. The books are terrible and misleading than AOPS or even Holts. I just felt my DS did not learn anything academically at school. But surely he learned his lessons from his gun gesture. 

 

Do you guys homeschool? How do you support kids with social part?

 

Any suggestion is welcomed.

 

[Rosie_0801]

Yes, there are all kinds of people in the world. Yes, your ds has to get used to it.

But evidently he's not capable of it right now!

 

Your son needs to be out of that situation. If you want to homeschool, you can put him into extra curricular activities for contact with other people. Martial arts would be a good choice. It's physical, which is good for body and brain, it's supervised and formulaic, and there will be lots of talk about appropriate use. When he's grown up a bit and could benefit from and be trusted in something less structured, maybe scouts. You might need to shop around for a troop that suits.

The other part of socialisation is the meta-skills. He needs to learn boundaries, to put his in the right places, as well as respecting others' and what to do when others don't. You can get books on that. He needs to learn other models of human behaviour, like love languages and apology languages (look up the 5 love languages website for quizzes.) Treat it like sociology class. He needs to learn how his brain works and how other people's brain works. There are non-fiction ways to tackle that, but don't discount fiction either. Fiction shows people's motivations.

[PeterPan]

I can tell you for certain an autism school would EXPEL him for that, without warning, gone. Unfortunately, he's about to learn some real world natural consequences.

Of course we homeschool, but not everyone is well served by it. There are quite a few good therapies and interventions available through the school system. You need to see what placement best serves him, and you're going to have to wait to see what the school decides to do. Autism is NOT an excuse and this will be an unpleasant but necessary lesson. Pulling him tells him that Mama will rescue him from his mistakes, which is NOT the lesson you want him to learn.

I tell my ds frequently and warn him frequently that he is now at an age where his diagnosis and IEP will NOT protect him. If he does certain things, he will end up in the justice system and have consequences just like anyone. So you need to be frank with him and go through the consequences of what he did. I'm not sure why you think they're even excusable. It is NOT acceptable for a person with social thinking and perspective taking disabilities to make light of threats. They reflect the thought that it could, on some level, be acceptable, and we must PROTECT our kids by being very firm that these things are NOT acceptable, not as jokes, not at all, not ever. 

Edited December 7, 2022 by PeterPan

[Rosie_0801]

37 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Pulling him tells him that Mama will rescue him from his mistakes, which is NOT the lesson you want him to learn.

If this was a one off, I'd agree, but the larger pattern looks more like he's just not developmentally ready for this level of independence or to take the proper perspective to whatever consequences the school or anyone else may, or perhaps worse, may not, enforce. If the kid can't or defensively won't understand what is wrong, he'll give up and turn into a walking victim narrative that nothing makes any sense and everybody is mean to him all the time for no reason, etc. That is a lesson we don't want him learning.

He's chasing inappropriate people. If he won't learn not to, he needs the inappropriate people taken away. The school sounds unsuitable both academically and socially, so he should only be there if there are no better options, which doesn't appear to be true.

[kbutton]

15 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

If this was a one off, I'd agree, but the larger pattern looks more like he's just not developmentally ready for this level of independence or to take the proper perspective to whatever consequences the school or anyone else may, or perhaps worse, may not, enforce. If the kid can't or defensively won't understand what is wrong, he'll give up and turn into a walking victim narrative that nothing makes any sense and everybody is mean to him all the time for no reason, etc. That is a lesson we don't want him learning.

He's chasing inappropriate people. If he won't learn not to, he needs the inappropriate people taken away. The school sounds unsuitable both academically and socially, so he should only be there if there are no better options, which doesn't appear to be true.

I agree, especially considering that he got the idea about guns from a book he was taught in his ELA class! 

He sounds all over the place developmentally, and he needs more explicit teaching from a lot of directions.

[Storygirl]

@jorderj please "like" this post, or otherwise let me know that you read it, and then I will delete.

I can really sympathize with your situation.

***Personal details deleted***

DS18 (ASD) chose the wrong group of friends, and they have at times purposely led him into trouble and at times will set him up for a social failure.

******

So, yes, your son needs to understand that his behavior was serious. I don't remember now what we did specifically, but we gave DS an additional consequence at home to underline the seriousness of what happened. Even though we felt he was set up by friends, he still had to face the consequences.

This is so very, very hard as a parent. But it's important to address. I'm sure you are working on it, but I wanted you to know that you are not alone.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Storygirl

[Storygirl]

About what to do. Very hard decision.

Our family did switch school districts to get DS into a better one (but not for the reasons in my previous post -- those incidents came later, in the new school district). That is not a completely crazy option, because people do switch school districts and move for many different kinds of reasons. But it's expensive. Only you can decide whether you can afford it, or whether it would be a good overall decision for your family.

I would not consider moving to be an inappropriate "escape" or allow others who have such opinions to influence you. Sometimes when people are in a bad situation, the answer is to change the situation. Adult people do this all of the time. If they are in a job that is toxic for them, they quit and find a different job. If they are in a relationship that is unhealthy, they can break it off. But young people don't have the option to quit going to school, unless their parent makes the decision on their behalf.

So, switching school districts, looking into private schools in your area, or homeschooling would all be things I would be considering. There is no guarantee that things will go more smoothly in a new school, but it may be worth trying. In our case, despite the many challenges DS has had during 8-12 grades in this school district, we still feel that it was a good choice to leave the other one. DS will have challenges wherever he goes, because of his disabilities. But there are some environments that would be particularly bad for him, and we have worked to avoid them. Homeschooling, for example, would be a bad choice for us (he was homeschooled until fifth grade), so we didn't consider that as an option. But we did look into private schools and multiple school districts to find one that we thought would be a better fit for him. You can tour private and public schools and ask questions.

In your case, since homeschooling worked well for him before, it may be a good option.

BUT I think that you should get him help from a private speech therapist to learn better social communication skills. He might do well attending a social skills group, as well. He does need to learn the skills. Whether you pull him out or keep him in school, he will need DIRECT INSTRUCTION in social communication. He is unlikely to just pick up the skills on his own and improve on them, whether he is at home with you or interacting with peers at school. He will need to be taught, and it will probably be something that will take a long time -- not just a six week session or two of help.

I didn't look at your previous thread. Does he have an IEP? Schools can and do provide speech therapy for social communication through IEP services.

[Storygirl]

Also, I have many times said, "I wish I could choose DS's friends for him," because he has so much trouble with it. He longs for peer approval, and he seeks it from kids who are poor influences on him. I'm hoping that when DS graduates in the spring, that his friends do not stay in touch with him. I want DS to have friends and a positive social life, but these guys are not really friends in the "I care about you," way.

We could not move again after moving here before DS's 8th grade year, so we are having to endure the friendship issues. The truth is that if we did move, DS would seek out a similar group of people, anyway, because that is who he is drawn to. So, in our case, that "escape" from the toxic peer relationships would not work. DS has planted himself in the middle of trouble, purposefully, and he would do it again. He deliberately chooses edgy people who like to take risks and challenge rules.

In your case, your son was drawn toward people that he already knew. One of the things for you to think about is whether he would gravitate toward peers, who would treat him badly, no matter where he is, or whether moving might fix that part of the social problem.

One more thing about the idea that you would be helping him "escape" the problem, when really he needs to learn how to deal with it --- there is some truth in that, because your son needs to learn the skills that he lacks, or the same problems will appear again in a new environment.

BUT also, there is value in leaving a toxic environment and cutting off ties with people who are a negative influence. Especially when your son is still at an age when he is learning how to handle relating to peers, and when you as a parent can still help him learn how to manage things better. What I'm sure you don't want is to leave him in an environment where he will be absorbing the wrong lessons from the wrong people. As many things as we have done to help DS, I wish we could have found a way to change that about his school "friends." We did take him out of an intense afterschool activity when he was 11, because it was a bad social environment for him, even though he liked the sport. It was a hard decision, because gymnastics was very good for DS at that age. But eventually, we decided that it was more important to help him learn to be a good person than a good gymnast.

[EKS]

This doesn't answer your question, but...

I have worked quite a bit with kids on the spectrum and one thing I've learned is that you need to be absolutely direct with them.  No beating around the bush, no assuming they know anything when it comes to social situations.

Did anyone, you or his teachers, tell him in no uncertain terms that those boys do not like him and that he is absolutely not to interact with them anymore?

If not, that's something I'd do ASAP if he continues going to school with them.

[wendyroo]

Do you absolutely have to move to change him to a different school?

Where I live, if I wanted to move my DS out of his current middle school, my first option would be transferring him to a different middle school in the district. And if I didn't like those options, there is a School of Choice option that would allow me to enroll him in many surrounding school districts. In all those cases I would have to provide transportation, but if homeschooling is a viable option, then maybe transporting to a neighboring district would be as well.

[jorderj]

On 12/7/2022 at 3:05 PM, Rosie_0801 said:

Yes, there are all kinds of people in the world. Yes, your ds has to get used to it.

But evidently he's not capable of it right now!

 

Your son needs to be out of that situation. If you want to homeschool, you can put him into extra curricular activities for contact with other people. Martial arts would be a good choice. It's physical, which is good for body and brain, it's supervised and formulaic, and there will be lots of talk about appropriate use. When he's grown up a bit and could benefit from and be trusted in something less structured, maybe scouts. You might need to shop around for a troop that suits.

The other part of socialisation is the meta-skills. He needs to learn boundaries, to put his in the right places, as well as respecting others' and what to do when others don't. You can get books on that. He needs to learn other models of human behaviour, like love languages and apology languages (look up the 5 love languages website for quizzes.) Treat it like sociology class. He needs to learn how his brain works and how other people's brain works. There are non-fiction ways to tackle that, but don't discount fiction either. Fiction shows people's motivations.

Thanks for your suggestion. We have been working on his social skills for years. He has a social skill group once in a week, speech therapist once in a week and also meet with a psychologist once a week. He seems to know many of those skills. But he just is not able to use or generalize any of them at the MOMENT. 

[jorderj]

On 12/7/2022 at 5:00 PM, PeterPan said:

I can tell you for certain an autism school would EXPEL him for that, without warning, gone. Unfortunately, he's about to learn some real world natural consequences.

Of course we homeschool, but not everyone is well served by it. There are quite a few good therapies and interventions available through the school system. You need to see what placement best serves him, and you're going to have to wait to see what the school decides to do. Autism is NOT an excuse and this will be an unpleasant but necessary lesson. Pulling him tells him that Mama will rescue him from his mistakes, which is NOT the lesson you want him to learn.

I tell my ds frequently and warn him frequently that he is now at an age where his diagnosis and IEP will NOT protect him. If he does certain things, he will end up in the justice system and have consequences just like anyone. So you need to be frank with him and go through the consequences of what he did. I'm not sure why you think they're even excusable. It is NOT acceptable for a person with social thinking and perspective taking disabilities to make light of threats. They reflect the thought that it could, on some level, be acceptable, and we must PROTECT our kids by being very firm that these things are NOT acceptable, not as jokes, not at all, not ever. 

Thank for your suggestion. I totally agree Autism is NOT an excuse. I took this incident as a teachable moment for him to learn the serious consequence of this situation. No matter we move him to another school or take him back, he has to take the consequence of the threatening first.

I am just debating whether I should move him out of this kind of environment or homeschool him after he resolved the issue.

I went to school yesterday to talk to the Principle. I told her I totally support her if the school suspend or expel him because I want my DS to learn the consequence of threatening. But too bad, she does not want to do either. She told me she thought the boy was not a threat and made the comment from his disability. She offered to made some slides about the threatening and go over with my DS. That's it. I personally do not think my DS will realize how serious his gestures are.

I am thinking of  some consequences from our family. Do you have any suggestion?

[jorderj]

14 hours ago, EKS said:

This doesn't answer your question, but...

I have worked quite a bit with kids on the spectrum and one thing I've learned is that you need to be absolutely direct with them.  No beating around the bush, no assuming they know anything when it comes to social situations.

Did anyone, you or his teachers, tell him in no uncertain terms that those boys do not like him and that he is absolutely not to interact with them anymore?

If not, that's something I'd do ASAP if he continues going to school with them.

Yes. His special education teacher told him that his friends are not true friends. And some of the thing his friends ask him to do is to set him up. He was told not to interact with them. And the group of kids were told not to interact with him. It is my DS who planted himself into trouble and was after those boys.

[jorderj]

13 hours ago, wendyroo said:

Do you absolutely have to move to change him to a different school?

Where I live, if I wanted to move my DS out of his current middle school, my first option would be transferring him to a different middle school in the district. And if I didn't like those options, there is a School of Choice option that would allow me to enroll him in many surrounding school districts. In all those cases I would have to provide transportation, but if homeschooling is a viable option, then maybe transporting to a neighboring district would be as well.

Thanks.

Our school district is tiny. There is only one elementary school and one middle school. So there is no way to transfer him to another school in the district. And there is no school of choice option in my area. 

[jorderj]

Hi Storygirl,

Thank you so much for sharing your journeys. I feel the same pain. And your input gives me a lot of information and helps me rethink the whole situation. I totally agree my DS planted himself into trouble. He wants friends badly that he puts up with it.

He did have IEP at school. He receives 30 minutes speech therapy and 20 minutes counseling per week at school. In addition, he has 45 minutes private SP, 60 minutes social skill group and 50 minutes counseling per week outside. He used to have ABA 10 hours a week. But I discontinued it. So we spend years of years working hard on his skills. He knows about many of the skills. But GENERALIZE and SELF REGULATE at the moment are so hard for him. It seems he is never able to utilize what he had learned.

Right now I thought he was drawn to those kids because of he knew them in fourth grade. But I am now sure. I wanted to ask his teachers and other peers to find out.  This group of kids are regarded as bad kids at school. So maybe he is drawn to this particular type of kids.

 

 

 

[cbollin]

21 hours ago, jorderj said:

Yes. His special education teacher told him that his friends are not true friends. And some of the thing his friends ask him to do is to set him up. He was told not to interact with them. And the group of kids were told not to interact with him. It is my DS who planted himself into trouble and was after those boys.

I don't contribute a lot on forum.  But I have several children with autism and such. everyone is in their 20s these days. From my experience raising my own offspring with autism and language disorders.... Hearing "not true friends" is not the same as "they do not like you and they want to hurt you".  Your son may need to hear it that directly like EKS said.  He seems to need those foundational aha moments before hearing the conclusion about "not true friends".  And he may need to hear directly "they are regarded as bad kids do not interact".  not true friends is a little abstract as starting point and I think he may need to hear it a different way to understand.

I think the principal's offer to show slides and teach him one on one is a first step to work on the problem instead of jumping to harsher methods of expelling.  Expelling is such an abstract way to start with teaching how serious gesturing and guns can be for someone who may not yet know that what he read in a book for ELA was the bad and wrong thing to do.  And our autism kids often struggle with abstract as the first way to learn stuff.   I'd recommend you give the principal's suggestion a try and use the Visual cue (the slides) as first step toward teaching the seriousness nature of all this.   Sometimes those visual lessons stick longer with our spectrum kiddos.  And if it's given one on one by the principal, he may feel that it is serious in nature to be sent to the principal's office.   Then the consequences and lessons go up from there. 

Also, keep records of these incidents.  When the time comes for your son to apply for help to get a job or to get things like government benefits for disabilities, having a record of ongoing behavioral and decision making will be needed.  He may very well need job coaches at work and having specific incidents to share when you apply might be helpful . Or at least where I live, that's the case.  

Here's a relevant party of my story as an assistant coach in special ed world.  In a special needs sports group that I'm part of, we had to deal with one athlete who made finger gun toward other athletes while also using racial slur toward them.  Pretty serious, right?  yes.   Director expelled the one who made the finger move and words for some time (after we returned in person during pandemic) in order to teach him a lesson about how serious it was and how the organization doesn't tolerate violence and racism, blah blah blah.  Turns out the athlete, really did not understand that saying that word and pointing his finger while quoting music lyrics was not how to greet new friends.   He had heard the music and was trying it out in socially inappropriate places but had no idea that it was as wrong as getting kicked out.  When he returned, other parents helped him and his mom to practice saying better things and trying again.    My point on that is that sometimes you have to take foundational steps before harshest punishments so the lessons stick.  The director's decision to kick him out didn't teach him much because of the timing of the pandemic played in it. not going places was part of pandemic lessons and not about what he had personally done. But when the other parents and coaches talked with him very directly "stop doing that". and gave cultural based reasoning, then he changed behavior. 

another thing to check in your community:  are there groups such as Best Buddies around? Or religious groups that have youth meetings for special needs community?  Sometimes social things like that can help with friends. Helpful for my homeschooled youngest with autism and ID.

Edited December 10, 2022 by cbollin

[PeterPan]

On 12/9/2022 at 11:10 AM, jorderj said:

She offered to made some slides about the threatening and go over with my DS. That's it. I personally do not think my DS will realize how serious his gestures are.

I am thinking of  some consequences from our family. Do you have any suggestion?

Actually I think her idea is brilliant. She is correct that an instance of grace coupled with INSTRUCTION will be helpful. He's going to need repeated instruction and no "consequence" would be as instructive in this case.

I would follow up her instruction with consistent reminders on expected behavior. Because of my ds' age, I literally remind him explicitly any time we go into settings what appropriate topics are and what are NOT appropriate topics/behaviors. My ds functions about 2 ½ years young, so I expect there to be a big gap between what he looks like he's ready to do and be responsible for and what he's actually ready to do for himself. 

On 12/9/2022 at 11:14 AM, jorderj said:

So there is no way to transfer him to another school in the district.

This administrator is really showing themselves as your ally here. I think I'd continue to work that relationship as long as you can. Is he getting autism-specific services in school? Does he have an IEP? If he does not, this administrator could be a member of your IEP team advocating to get him qualified under autism and begin to get him SERVICES. Services are a reason to be in school.

[PeterPan]

On 12/9/2022 at 11:32 AM, jorderj said:

He did have IEP at school. He receives 30 minutes speech therapy and 20 minutes counseling per week at school. In addition, he has 45 minutes private SP, 60 minutes social skill group and 50 minutes counseling per week outside. He used to have ABA 10 hours a week. But I discontinued it. So we spend years of years working hard on his skills. He knows about many of the skills. But GENERALIZE and SELF REGULATE at the moment are so hard for him. It seems he is never able to utilize what he had learned.

Ooo, just saw this. He's young. You might want to approach resuming the services. I'm finding with my ds that he needs to see things fresh from a more age-appropriate perspective. Instruction is always REPEATED, not one time. Also there are new things they can work on with him like Interoception (self-awareness) which would improve his own theory of mind and hence theory of others' minds, which would then improve his ability to see these tricky social situations. It's not nearly as good to learn a whole bunch of scripts for behavior as it is to get the self-awareness and others-awareness to be able to sort through situations for yourself.

[PeterPan]

On 12/9/2022 at 11:32 AM, jorderj said:

This group of kids are regarded as bad kids at school. So maybe he is drawn to this particular type of kids.

Or they're the only ones willing to hang with him. 

We've had our fair share (and more) of snubs, so I get it. Your ds may well be very nice to but too naive to sort through the social complexities. I put my ds in social situations these days but then I debrief him and talk with him about the behaviors he's seeing. We talk about kids who are FOOLS, how to know a FOOL, how to know if they're being a good friend, etc.