When I was in school I was extremely quiet and withdrawn, they had no trouble with me disrupting the class, it was usually a few NT kids who loved to argue with the teacher, show off, make stupid jokes etc, and they disrupted my education....
That's my experience too, Amy. However, it may be that some kids with AS are disruptive - perhaps thay have ADHD, too - and so the same principles should apply as with NT kids: if it significantly disrupts a class they should be taught separately, it's best allround, IMO.
In many cases, it would be worthwhile, I'm sure, to apply a swift kick up the arse (starting with idiots who want to ban spanking and promote the use of "reason", and then the parents who so eagerly swallow this garbage thus avoiding their responsibility to apply appropriate discipline).
I agree to an extent with that statement, but would be cautious as far as kids with ASDs are concerned. Certainly we've gone too far down the road of "all violence is wrong", a situation ironically perpetuated by a government who kills innocent civilians to further it's ends and is complicit in the torture of same to extract intelligence. Not that that is necessarily "wrong" if it's in the national interest, but it is nonetheless ironic.
What's so "appropriate" about using violence to sort out problems or conflict?
What's so innapropriate? You can't get away from the fact; violence and the threat of physical harm is the ultimate deterrent. The result of liberal policies in parenting are clear. Children are, to all intents and purposes, untouchable. If some little *** puts my windows through with a brick, I'm helpless. To intervene, or even attempt to remonstrate, would likely land me in court. When I was a kid the sort of "antisocial" behaviour that we are subjected to now would have been dealt with by a smack 'round the lughole.
Badger, I am glad you see my point. I am totally against whipping or caning a child, it's barbaric. And I have to admit I lost it a few times (and which parent doesn't occasionally) and hit my kids in anger. But in those cases I apologized after, letting the kid know that what I did was not acceptable. It sure isn't easy to raise kids. In my case it was very hard, because they are all NTs, and didn't understand my intense need for privacy at all. I didn't understand why I was so 'weird' myself, since I just figured out I have AS this year! One of them resents that the four oldest ones were never able to have kids over (I just couldn't handle strangers in my house), but Susie, my youngest, can (not always). That's because getting therapy for depression allowed me to be able to tolerate strangers here for a limited time.
In a way I am glad I didn't know, because I would likely never have had all of them otherwise. But I survived, and I am almost done raising them. I love visiting my oldest daughter (for a weekend, I can't handle more), who has four kids. It's nice to play with them, but when I have enough, or the baby cries, I just send them (hand him) to their mother. They are not my responsibility. Being a grandmother is nice.
Uschi
I think disruptive kids should be sent to the head's office. If it is the same child being disruptive a lot, then the parent/s need to be talked to - there could be a medical problem.
I don't agree with hitting kids with straps, rods, ironing cords and the like and that mother in the doctor's article who whacked her poor daughter with a wooden spoon sounded like a real b..... However, some kids respond to love and cuddles and some don't.
Spanking should be there as a last resort. I think also that people who don't have kids don't realise the kinds of stresses parents are under and how they are only human and can sometimes smack in anger. I think bullies should get smacks because it's amazing how quickly they will usually back down when somebody is stronger than them.
From my limited experience teaching sunday school, the kids with Attention problems do sometimes cause interuptions with the teacher but they just have to be kept busy - not expected to sit still and listen for twenty minutes at a time. They just can not do it. The worst kid is just a "smart-***" with no problems learning that I could tell. He would start poking or bullying the other kids. The little smart-*** thought that if he was bad enough, he would be sent out of class. Of course he would rather be playing or watching tv at home than having to do any work. I caught on to that. So if he couldn't stop hitting someone else, then he could stand facing the corner for a while. I let him know that his behaviour was his choice.
I have heard some of my teacher friends describe Aspies as the perfect victims for bullies. I was violent in school. I remember at age five, the principal being called in for my temper tantrums. I also smacked other kids, usually boys. By the next year, I had learned to control my tantrums and did not get violent with other kids unless provoked.
My parents taught me to ignore verbal taunts or give back a much wittier response. Any physical assault was to be returned twice as hard. If some kid hit me first, I would hit them back twice and hard. Most kids did not mess with me or my siblings. I do remember two incidents that happened when I was thirteen as a teacher witnessed. A boy took my hat and put it on top of a pole. I judo flipped him and he got my hat back. Another time, I was enduring the usual verbal assault by a girl when I just had enough. I tipped her and her desk over in front of the class and teacher. The teacher did not comment. The girl never talked to me again. If any of that had happened today, I would have been expelled from school because of zero tolerance of violence policies. I would have ended up going to a school full of violent bullying kids, with me, as the perfect victim.
As for the rod spoiled child thing. The image is a shepherd guiding the sheep with his rod - not the shepherd spanking his sheep with a stick. I have heard all the arguments about this. The threat of punishment works for some kids. Any parent who has to spank their kids more than twice a year is doing something wrong. Spanking in anger can easily go too far for some people and end up in abuse.
Kids need to have a set of expected behaviours and concequences for misbehaviour and they have to be able to understand them. They have to learn to reckonize that they have the choice to behave as they do. Kids can learn to recognize when they are feeling like they are going to lose control. Too many kids have learned that they can get away with misbehaviour because they do not get caught or punished when they do get caught.
It is stupid parents who do not have any rules at home that cause most problems. So come into my class and I have rules and everyone better obey them. I would not touch a child but after a while they are going to be convinced that it is much better choice to obey the rules.
...it may be that some kids with AS are disruptive - perhaps thay have ADHD, too - and so the same principles should apply as with NT kids: if it significantly disrupts a class they should be taught separately, it's best allround, IMO...
It depends what you mean by "separately".
Admittedly, I was 'disruptive' at school. In primary school, we'd have a reading session, after which I wouldn't want to go back to regular lessons, I wanted to continue sitting in the reading corner and continue reading my book. Although I can't really recall 'disruption' as such, I'm guessing it must have tested the patience of my teacher who had to persuade, cajole, entice me away from the books and back to the table.
Also, at high school, I was considered 'disruptive' to the point where they sent me to an educational psychologist. Pupils with low abilities and learning difficulties all get thrown into the educational trash can that is the 'remedial' class... I even had a friend who just had dyslexia who got sent down to remedial....
But what can they do with a 'disruptive' pupil with an IQ of 150 who regularly achieves the top exam grade of the whole year in varied subjects? They can't throw you into the remedial class because you're not having 'learning difficulties', you're just bored and unchallenged so mess around because you don't really need to pay too much attention, because you know you can just flick through a textbook and your virtually photographic memory allows you to regurgitate the information at will during later exams.
What's so innapropriate? You can't get away from the fact; violence and the threat of physical harm is the ultimate deterrent. The result of liberal policies in parenting are clear. Children are, to all intents and purposes, untouchable. If some little *** puts my windows through with a brick, I'm helpless. To intervene, or even attempt to remonstrate, would likely land me in court. When I was a kid the sort of "antisocial" behaviour that we are subjected to now would have been dealt with by a smack 'round the lughole.
It's not the ultimate deterrent at all. As someone who was subjected to physical violence by a parent to the point where I was taken into care due to childhood physical abuse I can categorically and absolutely say to you that it's not a deterrent. A means of creating another generation that perhaps believes violence is the answer, maybe.
Yes, through violence, I developed a Pavlovian response that means I gain and maintain good eye contact with people who are talking to me -- "look at me when I'm talking to you" *whack*. Did it teach me about general risks, dangers, right from wrong? I don't think so. You cannot tell a child: It's wrong for you to bully and hit your classmates, when you're reinforcing that with violence. Your child doesn't learn not to be violent, your child learns that it's okay to be violent, because you're leading by example.
No amount of attemps at disaplin worked on me as a kid. All sorts of things were tried without success. Having to sit in a corner, having to stay in my room, being spanked, etc. If I didn't understand the reason why I was suppose to do or not suppose to do somethiing, not even attempts at trying to make be fear punishment worked. I just wasn't afraid or lack the understanding of fear like any emotions.
I probably could drive parents nuts with the concept that parents are the last people to know whats best for there kids because there too emotional/physically/mentally involved in the situation to look at the situation objectively enough to know what would or wouldn't work.