kazjam

Thank Sally you make me feel so much better. Im hoping to take my son out for coffee later today......I have the psychologist lined up to see and I will def get in touch with school after reading what you have said. Yesterday it just all seemed to be getting all on top of me.Thanks for listening.

Sorry this is long. My son started being a problem at 11yrs old. Problems started at school. He was diagnosed at 11 with aspergers. He was expelled from one school who I thought didn't help him...the next school he did school refusal then I got him one to one tuition at a college but he started to refuse that too. By last year he was lying around all day in my house.....sleeping all day....on xbox all night....mouthy...impossible and violent. In the meantime my husband died and I just found it impossible to cope so one day after social services wouldn't help to remove him from my house...he tried to strangle me...I called the police and he has been at my mums ever since....just over the road. I see him occasionally I take him out but he is very difficult and maniupulative with me. In sept I got him into a boarding school as he is quite clever but had wasted away his education. He started to do well but by Christmas his report said he was smokiing and he is in with the wrong children and I fear we are back on the slippery slope downhill. I didn't see him over christmas as I refuse to have him in my house....only a very short time on christmas day when someone else was with me in case he kicked off. I feel cruel. Alongside this my mother is not helpful. She lost my dad some years ago and then relied on my brother so he is 45 lives at home and they are like a married couple and they are jealous of me. For since whenever I can remember they have poisoned my son against me saying I put men in my life before him...which is totally wrong....but I think it has been drilled into his head so much he believes it and is part why he is angry and violent to me. The psychologist sees all this....he is the only one who understands and he says they have groomed my son and they are very controlling. My son now wants a car and to come home and whenever I see him thats all he will talk so our times out are ruined as i refuse both. Today I took him out and he was getting so difficult he asked me to buy him cigarettes and Im ashamed to say I was so scarred he would turn violent on me that I did...but this means I now can't see him on my own again as he will resort to violent blackmail to get me to do what he wnats. Other people dont see this sometimes as he can come accross as a lovely boy so polite....but there is this other side. I am so depressed about it all. I live in a small group of houses near my mum and she and my brother have told the neighbours Im awful to have kicked out my son. Also I met an american online when my husband died who helped me all year messaging me and on the phone and he came to stay at Christmas and I had terrible guilt. I would have loved my son to have been there with me and met him and us had christmas together but I couldn't due to his violent behaviour towards me. I feel though that again my son will be told I am putting a guy before him which is so untrue as I was with my husband 15 yrs and my son is 17yrs so he had a constant presence of a male role model all that time. Its so complicated. What I feel now is I am bereaved....I have no husband to help me....I had no job but luckily I have a little one now.....but I would like to just walk away from it all....my family and son just now. I'd hope my son will see the light and we can patch up our relationship but I just can't see how that can happen. I think maybe due to the aspergers he will always be like this....I don't know.. I find it so hard. I love my son but I can't be with him because of how he is and other people...my family are making it so worse by poisoning him up against me. I don't know what to do. I'm sorry I am talking to the psychologist later this month and trying to get a counsellor too to talk this all through

I will probably get some stick for this ....but I think the introduction of TAs has been a bad idea for education and will lead to a lowering of standards. Putting aside conditions, asd etc etc. the main reason I child is at school is to get the education....basic maths, english etc.....then other subjects....to reach the best of their potential. I think any other reasons for being there...eg. socialising, mixing, additional subjects, pe etc etc are only incidental to why a child is at school. TAs do not need the same qualifications as a teacher....have not had the same training.....and have not gained the same level of expertise. Yet in many schools they are taking the class. When teachers are ill or on courses they often do the planning and leave a TA in charge. A cost cutting excerise. My brother is a qualified teacher of many years experience and has on many occasions asked a TA to take off a group of children...and they have come back to him to say they don't understand themselves how to do parts of the work. He can then waste time showing the TA. Yes a TA may be able to cope with 99% of what they are asked to do......but the 1% they don't know and will never realise the significance of due to lack of qualifications and training could be the 1% that will have a detrimental effect on a child. Its like going to the hospital for an operation....the doctor is ill......so the nurse does the operation instead. I think they are a dreadful idea. I think the same applies with people teaching ASD children and those with statements. It is basically take pot luck. My son has had an excellent TA and then a useless one. I think a better idea would be to keep the well qualified teachers and then have an expert to help alongside the teacher with these children......someone with proper medical training and not necessarily any teaching expertise.....someone with perhaps psychological background. Education is so important for every child and for the future of this country. It makes me very sad to see the way TAs are being used more and more. We should stick to properly qualified teachers and people who are qualified to know what they are doing with children who have conditions.I hear the analogy with football teams but to me this is a childs life and so much more important. It only needs one TA without the proper knowledge .......who misses something.....or makes a mistake due to lack of knowledge.............to set a child back years. I am speaking from experience. I believe the actions of a TA lead to my sons school refusal for many months.

I have been in touch with IPSEA.....I have found out that legally he has to be put in for the exams. The tutor is not doing the full 25 hours....only 6 and is not able to do every core subject and other subjects to the GCSE standard or syllabus....which I feel classes the education as unsuitable. I was paying for independent but the college is double (almost) the cost. I have another question. Whilst my son had school phobia and refusal for 7 months at the independent school...of which the LEA were aware.....he was sat at home with no education for nearly the whole time. Legally should the school or LEA have diverted his education of statemented hours (at least) to some kind of home tutor? I think if this had happened then maybe the problem would have been nipped in the bud...or a better outcome found sooner. I would like to know the legal position on this. Does anyone know.

My son has a statement for the last 3 yrs. He has aspergers He has been to two independent schools....one didn't recognise his condition the other failed to take measures...both cancelled my contract. As a result over the past 4 yrs he has been at home with no education for 12 months. The second school cancelled the contract recently as he had school refusal...due to his condition. He is half way through a gcse course. I am desperate...and as soon as he was kicked out i contacted the LEA. In the last 75 days they have been responsible for him he has had 6 hours of education with a home tutor. I think he is entitled to 10 hrs each week for his statement but really 25 hours per week. Whilst he was at home for the last 7 months with school refusal they were aware and did not step in with his statement hours. The school have withdrawn his gcse exam entries...which he is due to take in a few weeks. I am waiting for the LEA to give him a school but they will give a mainstream which will never work. In the meantime as I am desperate I have found a small college who will educate him properly in 5 subjects and let him sit the gcse exams. I want the LEA to stop the tutor who is not suitable and pay for this college at least until the end of the summer term so he can do the gcses. I have had to borrow to pay hundreds to the college and to pay for his exam entries...again hundreds...and to buy excercise books. I am convinced this is Disability Discrimination but having already been to a tribunal a few years back I know this will take ages. What can I do........I am desperate and cant continue to fund the college. I think my son should have the education and right to sit his exams like any other child. Is there any way to by pass or fast track a sendist tribunal in dire circumstances like this. If I don't do this they will put him in mainstream in year 11 and on a different syllabus to what he has done in year 10...he will never manage......plus the changes will just make his condition even worse. Please help and advise

Thanks...this is what I was thinking. I will keep trying their help line!

Hi...my son is 13yrs old now and was diagnosed last year with Aspergers. He too can be VERY controlling and he will also be violent ....kicking, trashing things etc. It can be very wearing and also nearly tore my own family apart. What I have found works is to find something my son really really likes....in his case this is his xbox computer...which he would play on constantly if I allowed. This is the only thing which I can use to negotiate with him over....as other things eg. tv, trips out, swimming etc he is not that bothered about giving up. You have to find something they really really like above everything else. After identifying this I sat down with him...when he was in a calm mood and we both wrote out a list of rules together. This was things like He is to respect his parents He is not to be violent He is to do his homework before anything else each night. 15 mins of music practise He also has rules for us To spend time with him To listen to him etc. etc. Once we set down the ground rules we then told him he has a set amount of time each day on the xbox eg. 2 hours. If he keeps to the rules and behaves he can gain extra blocks of 15 mins. If his behaviour is bad he loses in blocks of 15 mins. I can now recognise if he is going to lose it....I try to divert him before he loses control completely by referring to the rules on 15 mins being lost. In 99% of cases this works. Sometimes he has gone beyond the point of rationalising with him. In these cases I used to react and confront him and try to deal with it ....but this does not work. I now let him carry on with his bad behaviour. I don't interfere at all. I walk away if I can.....at home I lock myself into a room. This makes him calm down much quicker. If I am out I let him kick, punch me etc.......and I do not react or retailiate. This can get stares from other people but its best if he is doing this to me. If I hit him back I would be in big trouble! As there is no reaction he normally calms down a lot lot quikcer. Yes...this does feel like giving in and in some ways it is. However you then wait until he is calm sometime later and mention that what a pity his behaviour deteriorated like this and that he has lost 15 mins. as a result. Most times he acknowledges this and apologises. Doing this his loss of control and tantrums now happen much less. Also it is very important to constantly praise good behaviour. Or if not praising (as he should be good all the time!) at least mention how nice it has been to be around him that day as he has been so good. Hope you can find something that works for you. I think it is very hard as each child is different. I spent years getting it wrong and tearing my hair out. Even now it is hard but I am coping better.

I have just been notified that my son qualifies for the lowest rate of dla - for the care component. Does anyone know if I will , as a result, therefore be entitled to any increase in my child tax credit payments. I have tried to call the advice line for 2 days now with no answer. Thanks

Thanks.....it has been very traumatic especially as the school employed a barrister to defend themselves. A big weight is off my mind but I still can't settle or sleep properly until I have the decision. When it is completely over I will give as much help as I can on the forum to anyone who is going through the process.....from my own experiences.

I wonder if any of you know the answer to this I represented myself at a sendist tribunal earlier this week.....my son was suspended and then in effect expelled due to behaviour arising from his aspergers. The judge said at the outset that I had to get through several hurdles to be successful and that I could fall at any one of these. He then gave a list of the hurdles ...if you like. They were numbered eg. 1. did my son have a disability 2. did the school know about it 3. were reasonable adjustments put in place etc. etc......there were 6 things in total. I actually ended up there all day and got to no. 6. What I want to know is if I had fallen at no. 1 or 2 would the judge have ended the tribunal there and then....as there would be no point in carrying on if those points were not proved . Or would he have carried on , as he did, even if I had not adequately answered parts 1 and 2 etc. Does any one have experience in this. The reason I am asking is I have to wait 10 days now for the decision. I am wondering if other people may have got the decision on the day if they had fallen at any of the hurdles? Thanks.......10 days is a very long time just now....and the preparation time very stressful plus the actual tribunal very intense. Thanks

From my own experience if you keep a close watch on what has happened before the anger .....you can usually pinpoint an underlying reason. Perhaps something that happened earlier in the day, an hour before...or even just a matter of minutes before. With my son....it is usually an incident that happened at school, a change of routine to what was expected etc. Once you have pinpointed this you have to make sure that you minimise situations like this happening in the future. Now I have got really good at recognising that an anger outburst is going to happen......you have to try and divert away from it......try diverting onto another subject.......walking away to another room......and DONT react to it. After a while we found that just doing these things made anger situations much less of an occurence. I will then raise the subject at a later more appropriate time and say how disappointed i was with the behaviour and then let it drop. If I am too late to stop an anger outburst then I walk away immediately and now have a room in the house where I can lock myself into ......this stops me reacting and makes my son calm down much quicker. I think if you react it makes the situation much much worse.

Thank you so much Paula....you make me feel so much better Mostly I am ok ...especially now I know for sure what is wrong....and I know what I should be doing. It's just those times which we all have every so often when it all gets a bit much and you start to wonder where it will all end. I've lost count of the times I've thought it would be easier if I lived on my own , in the middle of nowhere, just me , my cat and a mountain of good books!! Then I have a really good day with my son and everything shifts back into focus for me again. I love him to bits but find it hard when I'm fighting so many battles for him. My son is nearly 13 yrs old now. Really things are looking up......the new school is commited to him and wants to keep him. There have been a couple of incidents but they have dealt with them well and been very firm with the bullies.....this has been great and I'm sure it's why there have been so few incidents at this school than the last....where I used to get phone calls every day. Its good to hear that you've had the same experiences with other parents thinking you were useless....even my own family used to say "bad parenting" to me! It seems to me that very few people actually recognise the symptons of aspergers.....considering that schools must surely see this quite a lot it has staggered me that the teachers have not picked up on it ...or maybe they just have so many different conditions and temperaments to look out for it can all become too much! Anyhow...thanks for cheering me up....I feel a lot better about things now.

I have just got an aspergers diagnosis for my son. In one way I feel good as I have something concrete now and it feels much easier to actually know and understand but on the other hand I feel sad that my child has to have this condition. We have been through a couple of years of hell.....he was bullied horrendously at his last school and they never dealt with it but instead took a hard line attitude to my son and suspended him for 5 months.......in this time he was at home with his 70 yr old grandma getting no education. I fought to get him back to school but in the end he had to leave. He is now in a much more caring school but even at this school he is being bullied.....I saw a couple of kids sneering at him last week when I went to the school play. It breaks my heart but he deals with it himself and bottles it up and won't talk.....I think I only can guess at one half of what he is going through. He still explodes at home but now I can deal with it better as I know what is happening. But the other day he had another outburst while we were out and my husband intervened.....my son was kicking and lashing out at me and my husband pulled him off me to stop it. A man who only saw the end of this took my number plate and next thing had reported my husband to the NSPCC and we end up with the police at our door. Luckily we explained about the aspergers and my son admitted what had really happened. But I am just sick....it is one thing after another. I wish it had been my son kicking this guys wife and seen if he would have then called up the nspcc. I feel like he is a do gooder and doesn't know one half about living with a child like this.....I wish he had come up to us in the street and tackled me not just bring more problems to my door. I wonder where it will all end. Will my son manage to keep his place at the new school, will he be able to control his outbursts with help, will I even have a proper relationship with him as he has no emotions so it is so hard, will he ever make a friend who he can invite home like other kids, what will his children be like...I feel so sad for him and completely worn out myself. I am finding this whole aspergers thing so difficult how ever hard I try.

Hi I have had problems with my son going back for several yrs now. At his last 3 schools....(he was kicked out of the last one) and they are now emerging again at his new school. Luckily the new school is working to help him....but we only very recently found out that he has aspergers and this is what all the problem has been. I only wish I had known this several years ago. I am now wondering if he would be entitled to any benefits......so he can get all the help he deserves ......but he is only mild aspergers. Does anyone know what the criteria are. I was hoping that if I could get some help I could use it towards getting him help to deal with situations etc. But I don't want to apply if we would just be wasting our time. Thanks

I have now made a doctors appointment. I have nothing in writing from the Ed Pysch - only a conversation in which he said he had seen the same scenario 100 times or more and was convinced my son had the high functioning aspergers. When I say my son is not that bad, obviously I am biased as he is my son...but I do feel he has had a rough passage and been very misunderstood. Before christmas he was being badly bullied a school and bottled it all up. One boy in particular was awful...calling him gay....taking his bag,...encouraging other kids to be awful to him. There is a set way for the kids to use the stairs at the school....one particular set of stairs can only be used to go up and not down. My son was going up and this other kid who'd been bullying was coming down when he shouldn't have been (I think this would have aggravated my son to start with!)...then the boy called him names, tripped him and kicked him. My son grabbed the boy by the leg and pulled him down 2 stairs in retaliation. The other kid said he'd been grabbed between the leg and sexually assaulted. There were no witnesses only the other boys couple of friends who backed him up. My son was suspended for one and a half terms for this. On the second day back at school the same boy made another serious allegation about my son which was proved to be over exaggerated and unfounded! This is why I say my son is not that bad as I do not believe for a minute he sexually assaulted another boy. After this he was isolated from all other children which made him go more and more into his shell. When he did go to lessons the bullying continued but school did nothing about it.....although they knew it was going on it was swept under the carpet as I think they had already decided to get rid of my son. He was never referred to a special needs teacher even though they have these. It just went from bad to worse and although I say he was expelled...this is not strictly true.....he is not allowed to go back to school as the school says i do not trust them anymore and so the contract between us must end! This is a private and not a state school so they can do this. In effect it is expulsion of my son but due to my sticking up for him rather than by his own fault.