Ups and Downs.

One of the issues J has is that he cannot cope with being teased. He gets upset and angry when this happens as he does not know what to do. 

Conversations with him over the past few years have frequently gone like this. 

"How was your day at school?"

to his response of....

"X, Y or Z teased me and I hate that f***ing school so get me out of it". 

Then would follow an evening of increasing stress while he raged. 

So far since he started at Grove House we haven't had this raging all evening. The days have been far from stress free for him but somehow he is leaving it all behind in school.

I feel a little sorry for the teachers as all the children are new and having to adjust. It's stressful for all the children and the reactions to this big change in their schooling is impacting on their behaviour in some cases. 

For J this has manifested itself in a very short fuse with the boy teasing him. 

Yesterday J managed to ignore "the boy who teases" and I gave him lots of praise for this as he finds this ignoring if teased very difficult. 

That was yesterday though and today was another day. 

So "the boy who teases" said something provocative to J and J responded by thumping him. The teacher got a thump too as she intervened to stop the boys fighting. J was mortified about that and to be fair I don't think he would ever knowingly hit a teacher...and never has in the past. They are the people he looks to for safety. 

The deputy head who phoned me was fantastic, once J had calmed down he promptly said "I shouldn't have hit X (the boy who teases) but he provoked me".

This on its own is good as he recognised that he made a poor choice. The school are going to get him involved in writing a plan for when teasing happens. How he can ensure he doesn't hit out. 

This is good but I am still concerned, I've never known J to hit other children who have teased him. 

In the past he has raged and left the classroom or playground when teased, I have never known him to fight back. 

In a way it's good that he IS fighting back but thumping someone is not the answer. And that's where the work begins on helping him find other appropriate ways of responding.

Aghhh! Damn the autism which makes it so hard for him.