A phone call from the school counselor.

Last week I sent an email to Tyler's main teacher and his Speech teacher. I told them about the event causing the email, but explained that most importantly that this represented an on going problem. I expressed my frustration in what I felt was six years of failed policies. How I felt that bullies get off and victims are left holding the bag. How time and again Tyler gets punished for being bullied while his tormentors go unchecked.

I went on to explain how then people are bewildered when high school students shoot up their schools or commit suicide. How they tell themselves that they had no idea the student was so unhappy or how bad things were for them. It starts HERE. Here in elementary school. We are teaching bullies that it's ok and we are telling the victims to keep their mouth shut.

Bullies even get the green light to physically assault someone, because if the student tries to defend themselves they will get in just as much trouble as the bully...if the bully gets in trouble at all. You can't even call them a bully, or call it bullying behavior. Why? Because it might hurt their feelings? So, I told them they really needed to re-evaluate their bully policies, because their system is clearly broken.

Due to the holiday I didn't fully expect a reply any time soon. Come Monday though... I figured I'd hear something. Well, I never did get an email back...from anyone. However, the email I sent to the teachers made it's rounds through the school. I don't know who all it went to, but I know the counselor got it from the principal. 

I got a call yesterday afternoon about two. My phone was in my room though so I missed the call. I didn't notice it until about 3:30. Too late to call back, so I called this morning and left her a message. She called back:

We talked quite a bit. She insisted that things were getting better with Tyler, but it would take time. Funny. She wasn't the counselor here until some time last year. She wasn't there for the two years the school was rejecting Tyler's two separate autism diagnosis'. She wasn't there when the school board came in and said he was, indeed, autistic. She wasn't there when they insisted that Tyler was SO high functioning that he'd be in and out of the program within months (it was the end of the school year and they expected to not have him back into the program come the new school year) and would suffer NO regression.  Now it will take time.

She threw out the one thing that makes me SO stinking mad for anyone to mention like it somehow makes EVERYTHING ok. He's such a happy kid. Every time I see him. He's smiling, and just...happy. Umm, that's his personality. He's happy with life, with himself, he's infectious, vibrant, and he just loves life and people. BUT as much as he likes to talk, talking to people about random things is not the same thing as sharing your inner most things with. He will NOT just walk up to anyone in that school and share those things with them. That's my job. That's our relationship. He uses me as a filter, of sorts.

I told her about two teachers who contradicted each other. One who said that oh Tyler loves to talk of course he'd come tell her if there was something wrong. Then the very next year his teacher admitted that yes Tyler loves to talk but that there was no way Tyler would share those things with anyone. That he'd tell me, and I would have to email them. I told her about how earlier this year Tyler had gotten upset in class because of something going on with other students and he demanded to call me. He was sent to the office. He was sent to the Nurse. The Nurse asked him why he HAD to call me. He then explained to her that he had autism and that talking to me just makes him feel better.

I didn't tell her about the whole conversation with the Nurse. Which included him explaining to her that I wouldn't come take him home like he'd like, but that I would tell him it was ok and such. He'd feel better. Then, he'd be ok. But, I told her for myself that I would handle it in just that way.

In some meeting, in some year, they all get to feeling the same... I had explained to the group that Tyler would not just come to you and tell you he was having a problem with a student. He wouldn't come to you and tell you he was having a specific problem with his work. I asked them that if they could just take a moment out of their day to ask him VERY specifically about his day, that it would go a long ways. Ask him if he's having any problems with another student. If you already know of a particular student he's been having trouble with then ask him specifically how things are going with that student. Ask him if there's anything about what you're teaching that he might be struggling with. Just, ASK him.

No one ever did. No one has time for such things. Tyler went back under the rug, and his problems went back to mounting.

I explained to the counselor how Tyler views his days as good or bad based on whether or not he had any trouble with a student that day. I told her how yesterday he came home and said it was a good day because nothing bad happened. She seemed surprised to me to hear that my little sunshine was basing the goodness of his day off these bad events with students. I told her that well, that's just the way he views his school life.

Then, without even knowing all my previous attempts at getting the school to be proactive in figuring out how things were going for Tyler at school, she asked.

What if I talked to Tyler every day to ask him how his day has been? What if I asked him if he'd be ok with letting me be that person for him? So that maybe he wouldn't come home and dump these things on you, and then I could help him start to process those things. Then maybe he wouldn't feel like his whole day was ruined.

:-O I would LOVE it if someone would take the time, it only takes a few minutes, to just talk to him. On a daily basis? He NEEDS that. He needs to be able to know that he has a designated time to sit down and tell someone about his problems. If you read yesterday's post, you'd have seen that this was exactly why Tyler didn't tell the teacher about the boy hitting him.

She said she'd talk to Tyler today and see if he'd be ok with it. Tyler will say yes, if for no other reason than to get the few minutes out of class ;) but I hope it proves useful to him, and I hope it isn't a novelty thing that comes and goes and gets discarded. I hope she asks him the right questions. I hope she sticks with it and forms a relationship with him that makes him feel like talking to her about those inner most things that you don't talk to anyone else about.

*crosses her fingers* Here's to helping the individual child and not trying to cram him into a box!

Stuck Between Rules and Bullying: Which rule to break?

Bullying. What more could possibly be said on this subject that hasn't already been said a million times? Bullying & Autism. Once again, what more could be said that hasn't been sung by the masses? Autism & Rules. Heh, that's the name of the game, isn't it?! But, what's it like? You know, for the autistic. To be in that moment. Stuck between autism, the rules, and bullying.

How frustrating it is, as the parent, to try to teach an autistic child coping skills, the proper way to respond to certain things, what to do about bullys... When, no matter what, there will be a factor that wasn't a part of any lesson. Go to the teacher. That's the first rule. No matter what, tell the teacher.

But....

So, at the beginning of the year Tyler had been having some issues with a particular student. As the weeks have passed on those things have seemed to abate. Then, a new student arrived and things have since climbed far beyond the previous issues with the first student. Most days there's something. It's because of that I refused to allow the school to take him on a three day trip away from home. Three days? Completely off his schedule? Locked in with the bullies? No place to run? Forget it!

Tyler stays after school three days a week for tutoring. It's offered to everyone and only certain students are required to go if they are struggling. I have Tyler going to help make up for any missed class time from him going to Speech. He goes to Speech to work on social and life skills. So, Tyler's tutoring is on a voluntary basis.

Last Monday there were some students hanging out in the classroom waiting for tutoring to start while the teacher escorted the rest of the class outside to be picked up by their parents. The new student that Tyler has been having all kinds of trouble with was in there. He began hitting Tyler. Anyone who knows Tyler knows he doesn't like to be touched, especially by other children, but this wasn't his first rodeo with a student attempting to physically hurt him.

Tyler, by no means, is a small child. He's a big boy. The kids who pick on him have no idea that it is his autism, and his autism alone, that saves them from getting the face pounding of their life. Tyler has always shown great restraint when it has come to kids laying their hands on him at school. Now, if this wasn't school, they may not be so lucky. May autism take mercy on the kid who ever finally evokes his fury.

True to Tyler's fashion, he said nothing to the teacher when she returned. I heard all about it after school. I sent an email that night. I didn't discover until later on in the day on Tuesday that I had apparently typed in the email address wrong (I didn't get a mailer demon back, that's why it took me 24 hours to realize it hadn't been received by the teacher.). I sent out another email knowing it would be far too late to do anything seeing as how the kids would be out of school until today.

Today at school Tyler got talked to by a lot of people. All telling him he needs to tell a teacher. First rule, remember? Insert the following conversation:

D - Tyler, is the reason why you didn't tell the teacher because you didn't know that's what you were suppose to do?
T - No.
D - Exactly. So, why didn't you tell her?
T - Because tutoring was about to start. And, that would have been "off task". You can still get marks in tutoring you know?!

See? Always some factor you didn't consider during your lesson. He didn't tell the teach because there was another rule stating that if you are "off task" you get in trouble. This issue would have derailed tutoring. How much more "off task" can you get? Well, guess I can't tell the teacher this kid hit me.

I've been sitting here thinking. Why can't they ever stop and think, just for a moment, about him having autism? How easy Tyler is to understand if you just educate yourself to what autism really is and then look at how it applies itself to him. They might actually be able to help him!

While thinking about what I think is wrong with the whole process I had myself a little light bulb moment. I always relate to Tyler. He is so much like me, but in a much more loud and vibrant kind of way. But, I identify with him. With all the rush a memory could muster, it dawned on me why Tyler behaved the way he did in this situation. And, many others like it.

Once, when I was in third grade, my class had gotten on my teachers last nerve. She demanded class room silence. She stated that unless you were bleeding or the sky was falling there wasn't to be another sound out of anyone. To put the period at the end of her very real statement she wrote it in big letters across the blackboard for anyone who was confused as to the times talking was now appropriate could refer back to.

NO TALKING UNLESS YOU ARE BLEEDING OR THE SKY IS FALLING!

I had bought myself one of those nifty pencils, at the "school store" (a little shop set up in the cafeteria) , that when the lead wore down you pulled it out, stuck it back into the top and a new, very sharp, piece would pop out. I sat there at my desk doing my work, ever so silently. The teacher then told us to get something out of our desk. With my pencil in my hand, my elbows bent, I began the process of going into my desk to get said item. That's when my neighbor bumped my elbow. Shoving my brand new, very sharp, pencil right into my leg.

I raised my hand.

Teacher - Are you bleeding?
Me - *looks at my leg* - *shakes head*
Teacher - Is the sky falling?
Me - *shakes head*
Teacher - Then no talking. Get back to work.

But, gosh, my leg did HURT. It wasn't bleeding though. There was a little ring around where the pencil went in, but the hole was sealed shut when the pencil broke off. But, it really does hurt.

*rinse and repeat the above conversation*

I don't recall now how many times we went through that. The rules stated I couldn't talk, but there was something seriously wrong. I was in mental agony as I tried to work out what I was supposed to do. I finally fell on the technicality of "sort of". I mean, there was a LITTLE blood, although I wasn't actually BLEEDING.

After making my "sort of" plea I was allotted a moment to explain myself. She was then absolutely flabbergasted as to why I didn't say something sooner. Umm, you said NO talking. Remember? Not unless we were bleeding or if the sky was falling. Remember? You said that. You even wrote it on the board so we wouldn't forget. How did you forget? Maybe I should have pointed to the board for her...

I know what it's like being stuck between two rules. Not wanting to break either. Not knowing which one to obey and which to disregard.

There are always factors that are unforeseen. On both sides. I just wish the school system was more willing to look with their eyes, instead of trying to make everyone fit into boxes that their book says they should fit in. Maybe then, they'd understand what it's like. Maybe after having that understanding they'd be able to help individual kids.

*shrugs* But what do I know. I'm just a parent...