Me! Me! Look at Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Today, we had a meeting at The Boy's school. It was to discuss his worsening physical aggression, his now solemn refusal to do any work whatsoever at school, and was under the heading of a Team Around The Child meeting (which is where all the relevant professionals gather to give input and advocacy for the disabled child).

The violence is a matter that has been brought up several times over the last few months, and has seen us (Himself and I) trailing back and forth, writing letters of complaint, making telephone calls in order to get some resolution for him.

I am going to write about this properly at some point, because I really need to get out of my system the sheer incompetence that we are constantly encountering, the refusal of the school to assist, their ability to pass the buck quite spectacularly, and their inability to just admit that they do not want my son there anymore and assist us in placing him into a more agreeable learning environment for him.

I just need, at this point, to be extremely spiteful about one of the school's representatives, a woman who is employed to be well versed in the educational needs of special children.

As such, one assumes that she would have, at least, a minimal understanding of the conditions of the children she is paid to assist. As those of us with children on the spectrum know, it is one hell of a condition to get diagnosed and get assistance with, due to its tells.  It is a varied condition, affecting each child with it in a completely different way, and no two children are the same.

The only people that usually have a good handle on it are the people the autistic person spends the most time with; teachers, parents, siblings.  Thus it is always an excellent idea to accept input from parents, as they serve as the best advocates for their child.

Therefore, if a parent suggests a way that they believe will work, a way that they have tested at home, one would assume that said suggestions would be welcomed and taken on board.  If that is the assumption, one would be oh so very, very wrong.

Apparently, in the teaching profression just as in real life, there are those who have to be the centre of attention, who everyone has to look at, and who have to claim success and victory in areas where there is none.

For example, try explaining to someone who, as I said above, is the employed to co ordinate the needs of those children with special edcuational needs (let's say they had some sort of job title to that effect), what the theory of mind is in relation to an autistic child.

Let's then say that said person, who is clearly hypothetical and, were they to exist which they clearly don't, wasn't even at the meeting (which possibly didn't even happen), decided that they were the authority on your son, and knew more than you, your son's step dad (who has been brought up by him), a teacher from a specialist autism advisary service and The Boy's teacher.

You explain what your son understands about emotions (from years of you doing work using The Transporters, looking at photos, doing social stories).  You try to explain that he has always recognised when he is sad because he has been hit, that he understands that other people can be made sad by someone else hitting them, but that he has no concept of him ever causing another person to be sad by hitting them as he enjoys the action of hitting them and therefore assumes that they must also.  You explain this in deviated forms several times.  Then the representative from the advisary service that specialises in your son's disability explains the same thing, and your son's teacher has also said the same thing, said special needs co-ordinator states that your child does understand that what they have done is wrong because they dislike having to go to their room as part of their punishment, and declare that emotional literacy classes that they put in place (which were actually suggested and arranged by yourself) have taught him same, you need to make a choice.

Do you explain again that he doesn't understand that his actions affect other people's emotions? Do you explain again that his upset is caused by his perception of punishment (having a sticker taken away from his chart) and not his action?

Or do you, as his teacher did, just tell the SENCo that his upset is because he doesn't like the SENCo?

Would you then, as a parent, having endured a boorish pompous imbecile blustering on incessantly for several hours about how any and all acheivements that your son has made are down to her (disregarding that she has "known" him for three months, and has committed a cacophony of incompetencies that should have seen her dismissed from her post for same), and that all failures are down to your inability to parent and youre son's teacher's inability to teach, would you or rather could you, let that be?

Or would you embark upon a monologue of five minutes whereby you made it extremely clear to everyone gathered at the meeting that your child despises said SENCo? Would you embellish it to such a degree that everyone else present at the meeting sniggered childishly behind their hands, as the SENCo turned increasingly red and became increasingly frustrated that you refuse to stop?

I would adore to be able to tell you that I resisted the urge, but here is the one place I tell the absolute truth.

I was fairly unstoppable. I called her incompetent several times during the meeting.  I pulled her up on her mistakes, and the extremely bad way she has handled my son's case, and her refusal to accept any responsibility, and her inability to accept that it wasn't about her, it was about The Boy.

When I collected The Boy that, I explained to him that, from now on, he should associate bad behaviour with having to go and see the SENCo.  If he wanted to not see her (or Mrs Poo as we are currently not correcting him in calling her), he needed to ensure that he gets all of his stamps, and absolutely no lines.  Because a line didn't just signify bad behaviour, it meant having to go and see Mrs Poo.

Who wants to place bets as to how much more successful this is going to be?

I'll chuck a £20 on it...