I can't speak for anyone else, but for our family - given that we weren't going to change our son - the best thing that happened was his being diagnosed with autism. Before that, we had various unofficial explanations for his behavior, and what happened was, even when his diagnosis was "updated", the older ones didn't fall out of the file. So for the longest time he was "labelled" as having Oppositional Defiant Disorder or something like that, and whenever he couldn't cope, he would be segregated from the class, or, worst case, physically restrained. It got to the point he was being restrained like once a week. Finally, in one incident he refused to go in the segregation room and long story short they strapped him to a gurney and took him to CT Children's Hospital. This was just wrong, and was escalating; I called an attorney friend of mine and we decided the first step had to be having him thoroughly examined; it was a long - 150, 200 questions? - questionaire that mom, his dad, and I ALL had to fill out separately, then a day long in person session with him and the doctor (of psychology). The report came back about two weeks later and uncategorically put him on the spectrum.
He literally has not been restrained ONCE since that date. We have monthly meetings with the school staff and we're all on the same page now with respect to how to handle almost any situation that comes up. Now we moved to a better school system (my old town is in the bottom 5% in the State; that's the school system that still employs the woman that was handed a box of bullets found on the school bus and put it in her top drawer and forgot about them). The staff know how to deal with him now and he has tools available to de-escalate any situation. He still has trouble focusing (it's maddening to me; he can name the turret diameters of every tank used in WWII by memory, but he can't remember what "Las montanas es muy bonitas" means in his Spanish class) but from a purely behavioral position, he's like every other kid.
Prof, you're much later in the scheme than I am (my stepson is 14) but I hope that you can look back and see this as a positive turn of events.
Topic: What made you happy today? (Read 97132 times)
