I need a friend really baaad! **about Autism/AS**

My son is 6 and has Autism and we got the same reaction as you are. My knowledge it is perfectly normal. You gotta understand schools are more structured than your home usually is. So they go from this set strict and busy schedule to home where they get to make there own choices. Plus I am a volunteer at my sons school so I see first hand what goes no......and I think alot of what you see at home does happen at school but it is accepted as normal because they have a disibility. My son has had tantrums under tables yet the school will say they see no issues at school its strange. Hes even locked himself in a bathroom once and almost put the school in lock down to find him. If I wasnt at school I never would have known about it. The only way to know for sure is to be very involved at school and thats not always easy to do. I would recomend emailing the teacher at least weekly for updates. Well if you ever have any other questions feel free to message me personally if I can help I will.

I am almost in your boat. My 7 year old daughter has autism. I always get that "had a great day" note, and "she's such a pleasure." Yet comes home and near looses it. I'm obviously no expert, but here's my insight, and what we do to "fix" things at home. In school they are trying so hard to be "normal" and stand out as little as possible. They try to filter out the overstimulating sensory information, and behave to the best of their abilities. This gives school personal room to question us as parents, and our reasons for having our children evaluated in the first place. It really stinks. Now the bus pulls up and your kid steps off and starts crying. The day was horrible! The gym teacher used the microphone even though he knows your child can't handle it. Your child forgot to use the bathroom and had cramps for part of the day, and sitting in that chair all day made their rear end hurt. Here you are, the person this child trusts mosts, and they let it out. Everything they held in all day is now on your plate. What we do to aviod/calm the after school meltdowns: We have a platform swing inside, snack is always ready and on the table, and I always remind her to go straight to the bathroom. On gym days without fail, my daughter spends a good 30 minutes on the swing just spinning. If she had a bad day she will usually be *mad at me* right off the bus and I know she needs to calm down. She is allowed to rock, spin, stand on her head, or any other stim of the moment that many schools do not "allow." If she's had a really bad day, we get right into a strict routine; Bathroom, swing, violin practice, video game, dinner, shower, homework, story, bed. On better days, she's pretty much free until dinner provided she gets her chores and violin practice done. Basically, you need to be his understanding shoulder for those hard days. Do not expect too much with regards to appropriate language, and let him stim; Encourage him to stim. I've found that it helps reduce the sensory overload.

I have worked a lot with kids with autism especially in that age group. For kids on the autism spectrum, getting through a school day is HARD! If what the school says about his behavior at school is true, he's probably on his very best behavior all day, especially if he has to behave a certain way to earn rewards or avoid consequences. When he gets home, he's emotionally exhausted and just lets it all out! My advice would be to just let him... maybe get him into a safe room in your house with a lot of sensory things that calm him, let him have a snack in there, and just spend some quiet and relaxing time in there so he can unwind. What kind of class is your son in? Inclusion, or a general special ed class, or an autism class, or... If he's that upset about going to school, maybe they aren't meeting his needs well enough. Can you request a meeting with the teachers to talk about what they can do for him? Could they maybe give him more frequent breaks throughout the day, or let him spend some time each day doing something he particularly loves to do? If you're concerned, the teachers SHOULD put their heads together and try to come up with a plan to help your little guy. Good luck, and keep us posted!

I am not a parent of a child that age but I can imagine your frustrations. Any parent however does not want to see their child upset or hurt. If you are not a member already I would highly recommend cafemom to you. It is a website and its all moms talking about specific problems with their child or different things. From other websites to children with autism. Its not a paid site or anything but you will meet lots of great moms that can better relate than I can. It is simply cafemom.com. Check it out. Seriously. If you join add me. My name is Ilovekianalynn. Good luck.

This is not your fault!!! It might be caused by your genes, but that is not your fault. I found myself feeling the same way when I was in school. I didn't want to leave my school when my dad decided to move from California to Alaska. I never did the banging head on the floor (as far as I can remember), but there were times that I didn't want to go to school and said I was sick. The kids were always mean to me. I didn't find out about autism/as until I was in my 30s. Actually, I was first diagnosed with ADHD at 36, followed shortly thereafter with Tourette Syndrome and about 7 years later with AS. Good luck wih this.

Oh how we feel your pain.. Our grandson is 11 and does structured work at school everyday.. Has this helped, yes, but today we found out about a class field trip that they aren't allowing him to go on. They can't even give us a reason for this other than they don't think he's ready. He is kind,friendly,doesn't show anger,etc. Just his attention skills are short.. He doesn't have to drive the bus,just sit there and ride. We even will go with him... The school has even said we could keep him home if we wanted. Up to this year he has always been on field trips,no issues. They said last week he had a melt down because there was a fly in the room(he's afraid of flying bugs). They say change isn't good for these children,but he wants to go..Parents have lost control to the schools..

My son doesn't have Autism but we went through something similar with him not wanting to go to school and being unruly afterwards. He was having problems feeling accepted by kids in his class. Even though he has a ton of friend there were kids picking on him so he acted out when he got home. It took me going down to the school to actually figure out 100% what was going on. If I were you I would schedule a meeting with all of his teachers and the principal, request updates from the teachers, and be really involved at the school.

Perhaps he needs more structure in his home life. One person who works for me as a PCA has an atism spectrum disorder. She doesn't like change either, like your son. But because my life is not planned in advance, she sometimes has to adjust to doing things she might not like because I need to do them- go to the mall (too many people), be with me when I'm selling stuff (social interaction).

Im not a parent but any parent is going to care expessially if they have this. I guess you can love him and hope he tells you.

Oh momma I know what your going through. My son is 3 1/2 and he has Autism. He goes to Early Childhood here at our local school and he is a angel for the most part while he is there. My husband works 2nd shift and I am left to deal with Caleb's Meltdowns and fits alone. I also have a 20 month old son who likes to make Caleb mad, Nathan will walk up to him and take his toy or hit him. Caleb is a loving boy but he does change his behaviors for different people and it is something I was told is normal for them. I wish I knew what to tell you on how to change this but I do not know that answer. If you ever just need to talk send me a message.

You know, it could be that you're seeing tantrums at home and not at school because he's working so hard to keep it together at school, he just has to "let it all out" when he gets home (much like we do when we get home from work.) It's also possible, however, that he goes through behavior like that at school, and it's just not reported. You should periodically stop by your son's school to observe him at various times throughout the day to really see how his behavior is there. Is it really that he has "no behaviors" at school? It would be interesting to see how he responds to change at school if he doesn't respond well to change at home. If it really is the case that your son's behavior at school is different from home, there's part of the Autism Supplement that discusses In-home training. It is for when a child behaves different at home than at school. Perhaps you could ask for an In-Home Assessment. The school will have to do one if you request it, and if it's found that there really is a difference in his behavior, they'll come up with objectives to be done in the home and will send someone out to make sure those objectives are met. If the school refuses in-home training for some reason, it may be worth it to look into hiring a behavior analyst to do a functional analysis of your son's behavior and come up with a behavior plan to do at home. This should help you out emotionally, and help your son out because it will reduce his frustration levels. Good luck, and I'm sorry you're having such a hard time right now. ((HUGS))

Take a look at the bright side. Asperger is high functioning and they are very smart. At least one less stress to worry about his academic because he is smarter than the average kid. Many Asperger children grows up to be very successful with the right treatment and therapy. Have you consider enrolling him in music therapy- if that is offered in your area. My daughter is getting social, and behavior therapy through the local regional center. I also enrolled her in weekend art class. I try hard to keep her on a schedule that took away some of the tantrums. I notice school has schedules, for example 8:30-10 reading time, 10-10:30 recess 10:30-11:45 math time, group time and table time where they have assignments to do. I try to do the similiar things at home. I recently purchased a timer. This lets her know when it rings it is time to clean up, end the project or task on hand and start a new one. I realized it work well, she has become more compliant and less agressive. Teacher aides at school usually do not pay enough attention to the child and not realize that ASD kid are misunderstood because they lack the communication skills. As far as I know ASD kids HATES changes. The aide is wrong! I wish you luck. From a struggling parent who is in need of a friend to share plans, failed plans and new plans. Regards,

Sometimes it is difficult. I feel your pain and of course, I understand that is the last thing you want. I also asked myself the same question, what I am doing wrong. Why does she behave so well in school and so horrible when I am around. You got a honest and true friend here. Just vent out and we can take turns. I need one to. I have the exact same problem. When my little girl started kindergarten, I asked the school psychologist for an evaluation. Based on the observation, they noticed she sometimes goes in her own world and does weird things and stereotype behavior that others would see as offensive etc. But my worse part, they don't agree she is autistic. They placed her in a regular classroom. I am still fighting this process because she has more than a one hundred bathroom accidents since Sept 2007. She has the language and social problems which prevents her from communicating effectively with teachers and her peers. Same issue, at school; teacher says she is like an angel well behave. Follow rules, responds to prompts, will clean up after herself, transition to other assignments easily when asked to. So what happens at home? She refused to eat her dinner, refused to even get in the car to go home! She will bang her head, yell at the top of her lungs, and kick and bite me until I have enough marks to last me a lifetime.!! The list goes on and on. Each time I have a chance to make a wish, I notice myself asking for the same wish. "Please take the autism in my little princess away forever". About Oct of last year, I was at the park. It was the first park outing in a long time. I had to drop my son where he can meet his friends. Well, she said she wanted to go the park. So I parked the car and got out. Big mistake, within 1 minute, she started her tantrum. I don't know what trigger it. She yelled, cried and kicked, grab me hard, bit me, bang her head, scratch herself and bit herself. There was enough noise and action that a police officer walked up to me and asked for my ID and asked if I was her mother. When the police officer asked her "Is this your mommy?" She cried "NO". I was so shocked and lost for words. Finally a few seconds later, my little princess was back. She cried and came and embrace me and said "MOMMY, I want to go home". I feel your pain and trust me sometimes you lose everything else around you. Is it us parents fault? I believe not. In the process of all this, my marriage failed, almost down the toilet. I don't even have the energy to try to work out the marriage anymore.

My son 9y old autistic aswell,and as far as I knowe and experienced changes in a person with autism is terrible!I belive your son gets bullied for the reason becuase a wile ago my son came home totaly frustrated and told me a girl in his school both in the same Van when driving to school tuck his toy and dident wantet to retourn it.He got irritatet because the driver dident do anything to get the girl to give back the toy.Tuck me weeks to get it back and endet up contacting the school and freaking out about it.I told the school aswell the driver that its inacceptable and this better newer happends again!My son is hafe the time in regula class and the other hafe in the TSA group for children with autism. I constantly have to contact the school for one reason or the other..If i send my child to the special school they are responsible when i`m not there but if they dont do so they will get a call or a note every single day till the problem is fixt!I wont take any crap from noone anymore,you gotta stand up for your rights for your sons right or they will walk all ower him and your self.Its hard I knowe but every change in a autistic child is as if they would remove him from his safe place.I would contact the school and tell them unless they dident talk to you first you want zero changes for your son as of seating arrangements ect.My son faket belly hurts because of bullying of other kids.Our autistic kids are very smart and they dont just react for no reason every change you see in him should alarm you and usualy its begins in school where your not present. I wish you good luck with your special litle boy huggs

are you still on my lot? has things changed for you? Is he still behaving the same way? Where there any improvements?

I can understand your son's behaviour because it fits perfectly in the Asperger's type of child. Aspergers tend to like routine and for him changing his place during lunch time is puzzling and worrying. Try to re assure him that sometimes we have to break the usual routine. Talk it over with him. Seek help from his teacher. Tell her about his behaviour at home. This way she can help him more at school.