seems to cope at school, lets rip at home...

[Alexandra]

Hi, M very nearly 9, has adhd and HFA,

 

At school he seems to cope, the word here is SEEMS

 

as his teacher says he is doing ok in school, but all hell lets loose when

 

he gets home, his paed says this is a typical autism behaviour.

 

he also won't tell a teacher if anything happens in school that upsets him,

 

but waits till he gets home, Why?

 

can anyone shed light on this and do any of your children behave the same way?

[butterfingersbimbo]

this is very common, they hold it all in and then they let it go at home cos they know they are in a asafe enviroment to do so. he must be having problems at school i think! he wont be telling the teacher because that will be drawing attention to himself and he probably hates it when everyone is listening in.

[Clare63]

<'> Yes this is very common, my DS is exactly the same, we have just adopted a system where he has a little note book to jot down his stress levels at the end of each lesson so we can try to establish if there are any points in the day/week that are perhaps causing him more stress (he scores his feelings 0 to 10 with 0 being felt OK - no worries and 10 being feel very anxious and can't cope) in this book he is also supposed to jot down his worries, so that the words come from him rather than from me reporting back to the teacher after I have a night/morning of his melt down. We have only being doing it a week so don't have much to feed back, he is happy to jot down the numbers for his stress levels but very relucant to put down his worries, saying he can't explain how he feels. My DS is the perfect pupil at school but his stress and anxiety is enormous at home, it takes over 3 hours to get him ready for school, I think they think I am neurotic as they can't really see what the problem is. Good luck.

<'> <'> Clare x <'> <'>

[Kathryn]

You're not alone!

 

Here's a link to another recent thread on this, and within that there's a link posted by Elefan, which takes you to an older but very good discussion on this: "The passive child, pretending to be normal". It's longish, but well worth a read, with quotes from Rita Jordan and Tony Attwood describing this kind of behaviour.

 

K x

[cmuir]

Hi

 

I'm having exactly the same problem with my son. The reasons are fairly well documented by psychologists, though getting those reasons to sink in with EPs/school is a different matter.

 

Basically, in simple terms, often kids try so hard to fit in, conform, concentrate, etc that by the time they've got home they've had enough. They're tired, grouchy, etc and that's usually when they vent.

 

Totally makes sense.

 

Because teachers/EPs, etc don't see this behaviour (or certainly not on same leve), they wrongly assume everything's okay.

 

I've tried to look at ways to help my son 'vent' or 'release'. He loves his gameboy, watching cartoons, bouncing around on a trampoline, etc. I'm particularly careful not to even talk about school until later in the evening - when he's ready.

 

It's difficult to say the least!

 

Best wishes

 

Caroline

[rach04]

my son does this but is showing it more and more at school so his mates say but do the school come to me nooooooooooo

[Bambi]

This was exactly how it was when T was in school hun and its very true how they bottle it all up and let rip to them nearest and dearest to them when released from school grounds, I would get attacked infront of other parents and in view of the teacher yet they still wanted to be ignorant. I know that once T is in a special school that this wont be happening because his needs will be addressed and a strong home/school relationship will be in place.

 

Bambi x

[Paula]

My son now 13 also does the same thing hed be great at his special school but let rip when home screaming yelling putting doors through in general because of something which had happned at school often something small that had upset him but he didnt react at school.

 

The teachers never beleived me when i said this was a major problem that was untill one night he let rip and i phoned the head teacher and said listen and held out the telephone he said whoes that i said **** he said oh right ..............ive been beleived ever since

[David Matthew Baker]

I would inform the school of the problems you are having at home. I often wonder what home life is like for the AS student I support at my present school. If I knew there were issues I would personally try to figure out the likely causes and do everything in my power to help. That said some of these students are a bit too good at covering up their problems at school from what I have read. The AS student I support seems to cope well at school but I have no idea if that is literally true that he seems to cope. I'm a bit wary at the moment of suggesting we have a quiet talk at some point at school. Does anyone perhaps know a way I could approach this? After all I'd hate to think that there were problems at home with him.

[Karen A]

Hi Alexandra I put up the post Kathryn mentioned and found that you and I have lots of company. <'> <'> You are certainly not alone.I know it is soooo frustrating.I think school think I am an over anxious parent,my child manipulates me or perhaps We are dysfunctional parents After all Ben is ok at school so they must be wonderful.

Sorry I am frustrated today. It is good to know I am not alone.Karen.