Here's another stupid rule I never understood. "No hats on inside." And what would happen if you kept breaking that rule? The teacher would take it from you and you wouldn't get it back till the end of class or till the end of the school year. So what choice do you have? Get it taken from you or don't wear it inside? I would pick the don't wear it inside or else it will get taken from me.

And kids complain about them being taken from them? God how stupid can they be? I was smarter than that as a child. I listened because I didn't want things to be taken from me while other kids rebelled. My mom says I follow rules because she always punished me for not following them when I was real little and other kids aren't taught to follow them so that's why they don't do it and then they say their teachers are mean because they make them follow the rules. But to me they weren't mean.

To me a spoiled brat is someone who doesn't like to be punished so they call the police and make up a story by saying they are being abused.
At my bf's job, someone told a story about how she told her 15 year old son to clean his room and he went to the police and said he was being abused and the officer just laughed. The story was probably obvious BS because the kid was a bad liar.

And running away from home just because you didn't like getting a consequence.

Kids who aren't disciplined and run wild.

People who hold grudges against their parents just because they were disciplined.

My god there are worse things my parents could have done to me as a kid; make me sleep in the garage, make me eat scat, starve me, beat me, shove ammonia down my throat, burn me on a gas stove, lock me in the bathroom with a bucket with clorox mixed with ammonia, etc.
So taking my bike away, TV, computer, my barbie dolls, not being allowed to leave the yard, no dessert, no friends, being sent to my room or stairs, not being allowed to do anything until I put my clothes away is trivia compare to real child abuse. Now that be something to be mad at your parents about if they did that horrible stuff to you than what my mother did to me. My dad hardly punished. He only yelled or hit. My mom did most of the punishments so I'm closer to her than I am to my dad. She took me to most of my doctor appointments and worked with me.


My god even Temple Grandin has told about her frustration about kids running wild and not being taught to behave or listen. Yeah we both hate spoiled brats. She was also disciplined as a kid by her mother. Autism was never an excuse same as my disability was never an excuse. My mother knew I had something but she didn't know what it was then.
I once had to take a mini fridge to a hotel room at work and I see their kids jumping around, making lot of noise and they are up on the ledge and my god my parents would not allow my brothers and I to do that as kids. they would just yell at us and make us sit down somewhere if we couldn't stop goofing off. The room attendant who had to clean that room after they checked out, she was mad because it was a mess their kids made and she wanted to slap the parents for not doing their job. They even broke something too.

Ha, that's a hobbyhorse of mine, but for a different reason!  My class have a rule that if they want to play in the playground they have to wear a hat - reasonable here where the summertime temperature could cook an egg  (it's forecast to be 35 C *again* today, groan) and if you don't bring a hat from home we have spares.  The problem is, there are a number of preschoolers who just *won't* wear them, and deliberately drop them over the fence or bury them in the sandpit.  In which case the rule is they have to stay in the shaded area of the verandah.  And the kids that tend to accidentally-on-purpose lose their hats are also the ones that want to buzz about in the sunshine the whole time!  Interestingly, it's the Aspie kids in my class that get upset if they *lose* their hats, because they know the rule is that outside you wear a hat! But the kids that "lose" their own hats are no respecters of ownership and will often snatch the AS kids hats off too, which leads to squabbles or out and out fights.  In this case, it's rarely the AS kids who start the problem, but they are reacting to having their hats stolen from their heads.
I should add, the same goes for shoes.  When I was growing up, you had to wear shoes to protect your feet from bindies.  I sometimes wish I could plant a few in the playground  - we'd have less trouble keeping shoes on then!
Alison

I'm not even going to read any further than this, meltdowns are NOT tantrums

I'm new here, but I just wanted to say that my son was diagnosed with Aspergers just over a year ago and in the 2.5 months of school before the diagnosis, he was suspended from school twice for refusing to comply with the teachers and principals, much like this little girl.   Then in the spring, the neighbor called the cops on him for hitting her daughter with a jump rope.  They pressed charges and he was arrested ~ spent over 20 hours in custody and now has a juvenile police record for something that could have been avoided.  People *will* act in ways they feel are appropriate when our children do not meet up to their expectations.  I am not saying it is right.  It's not. But our society is extremely intolerant now and feel that they need to call the police or other authorities "to keep worse situations from arising" and, as one state person told us, to "teach your child a lesson."  Did this little girl learn anything?  Probably not, but as we found out, at least in our school, if the mom signed any form or slip saying she reviewed the handbook, it's probably binding and that's all the school needs to say she was either informed or in agreement.  

Mom to 1 Aspie, 2 more with SI Disorder and 2 NT's, as far as we know!

I wonder if all this police stuff is happening because they have gotten so sick and tired of parents not doing their jobs they are now using the police?


I mean in my neighborhood, kids bullied and their parents just didn't care and they didn't care if their child misbehaved in school. My mom says they were lazy parents but I think they thought it was okay for kids to tease and bully and be bad because they're kids. Now schools are using the police. I used to think "it's about time schools started doing it because parents don't do their jobs, they let them run wild and don't discipline them" but now I am realizing it is getting out of hand. Calling the police on a six year old because he slapped a girl's butt on the playground and trying to charge him with sexual harassment. C'mon six year olds don't understand that stuff and all they needed to do was inform the boy's parents and tell them so they could talk to their kid about it and teach him because it's their job.

Even my own mother thinks its okay for schools to call the police if the child is being violent and is hurting the teachers. I remember we were talking about a 5 year old being arrested and my mom said the school did the right thing.

Not sure if this was mentioned...
http://the-newrepublic.blogspot.com/2009...cured.html

Oh, and the best response to that:
http://biodiverseresistance.blogspot.com/

"when parents say,
"I wish my child did not have autism,"
what they're really saying is,
"I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead."

Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.

Imagery like this, regardless of the (supposed or genuine) benevolence in its intent, says that we do not have the right to exist as the people we are."

Are you truly saying that AS kids don't have tantrums, ConLang?  In a word, bollocks.  I did, my daughter did, and all the AS kids I teach have had, at some stage.  It's true that meltdowns and tantrums are not the same thing, but it's NOT true to say that AS children don't have tantrums and can act extremely unreasonably at times.  We're only human, not angels.
Alison

But was the girl going into meltdown over the cow shirt?  I don't think it was a meltdown.  She tried to leave the school -- her second mistake.  Kids just can't leave the school or usually even the classroom without permission.  This is because the teachers are responsible for the children during the time they are expected to be at school.  Otherwise, if kids could just leave when they wanted to, parents would come to pick them up and the teachers would say -- they left a few hours ago and I don't know where they are.  Not leaving the school or classroom is a rule that has important safety issues about it.  

Third rule breaking -- teachers tried to restrain girl from leaving school.  She resisted and hitting, kicked and spit on teachers.  

If she was having a meltdown and just lying on the floor crying -- well that might be allowable.  I can see that as a meltdown.  Autistic people can have meltdowns without committing crimes, assaulting other people, destroying property, or injuring themselves.  Likely, self injury is most likely to happen in meltdowns.

She tried to leave the classroom, not the school.


Heck teachers grabbed me if I tried leaving. I can remember running away from my student teacher to try and go outside for recess but she ran after me and grabbed me and put me back in my seat for me to finish my school work. My mother told me that was wrong and weird to do and I needed to stop. So I stopped running away from her. I remember laughing as I did it because I thought it was funny. If I got put in a room, I also knew not to try and leave or else I get grabbed and it hurt. If I fought back, I probably would have been in more trouble at home by my mother.

Since the mother said she doesn't excuse her daughter's behavior she says, I wonder if she gave her a consequence for fighting back. The mother was upset about the police being called. I think I would have been too if it were my own child because I would have expected them to call me instead of the police too.

Maybe the mother was at work, out shopping, in the shower, didn't have a phone etc.  

But with some "no hands on" approach that schools have -- they just will call the police instead of having to deal with some parents' lawsuit against them.  

I just have a huge question about self control.  How do people teach their children this?  Can people teach themselves it?  Is there some easy step by step approach?

I used to be baffled all the time in school when I was told "you need to control yourself", "you need to change your attitude"  but no one could ever tell me how to do that.  I think I eventually got it under control now (the meltdowns) but I don't really know how I ended up with those coping skills if you want to call them that.

The kid I'm working with... the way his parents 'controlled' the tantrums was to just let him take it as far as he liked & not try to control. "Here: throw this chair too, you'll feel better, can I throw one with you?"... Obviously this has limitations in a school setting :-) but it worked, crazy as it sounds.

I think he just gets frustrated & it's a way to put himself in control of the situation, just like a neurotypical tantrum but I'm discipline does not work on him. Basically just by paying attention to him, he stopped needing to act out. I can't say where meltdowns & tantrums coincide but agree they are a different thing. Meltdown is when he just curls up, fingers in ears shaking... but then I've seen him role play that too:

He does this role playing acting thing with all sorts of short TV scenes, or something said in a tense social moment which is memorable, or just some goofy word and animal sounds. He'll practice these scenes over & over and assign lines for me to recite, coaching me on the exact inflection he's looking for <grin>. His dad is Aspie and I don't know, maybe I am a little, anyways I get his way of doing things & he's really fun to horse around with. More extroverted than me and a lot better eye contact. It's still rare to have a 'normal' conversation with him but in the mean time, abnormal conversations are good <g>.

typo - omit the "I'm"

Looking at this thread, I see something tragic that seems to be escaping everyone - and it has little to do with autism.

It's the modern phenomenon of professionals "passing the buck". See, the irony is that the school called the police most likely because they wanted to avoid any liablity in any possible lawsuit. They probably have a school board policy that is a student hits or kicks, that is what they are REQUIERED to do. I know my childrens school district has such a policy.

The logic is that if things escalate to the point where a student is trying to hit/kick/bite or otherwise inflict bodily harm on staff, and the staff may need to defend themselves, there now exists a situation where physical harm is more likely to come to the child - if the staff are concerned now more concerened with not being injured themselves, more forcefull restraint may be needed. It may be justified, it may not. But if anyone percieves that it may NOT have been... That is the sort of thing lawyers love.

SO, why not pass the buck for handling combative children to the local law enforcement? Let THEM get sued if excessive force is used.

Yep, that's the real, and only, reason te cops were called. God forbid the school has to make a tough call, such as possibly backing down and giving up some of their absolute control, or possibly choosing to restrain her for an extended peiod of time just to make the point that they make the rules and she must follow them.

See, by passing the buck to the police, they get the best of both worlds: Behave according to OUR rules, or THEY (police) will punish you. It's out of our hands now. We warned you of the consequences, but you wouldn't listen. WE can't help you now, it has now become a police matter.

Sort of like a mother pulling the "wait until your father gets home" line...