Back to School!

Cutie has been back in school for a week now. This year he has an amazing teacher who really seems to enjoy teaching!  He is happy in his class, but a few social issues have started to pop up.

Last year he had a best friend- in fact, he thought they would get married.  She matured a bit over the summer and was surprised that he had not.  She is no longer speaking to him and he is confused as to why. Cutie has been noticing lately when the other kids make comments about his speech or call him weird.  Usually, they are just simple observations that the child has not yet learned to keep to themselves, sometimes they are trying to hurt his feelings.

One of the other issues he is having right now is understanding bullying.  With Cutie, everything is ALL or NOTHING!  They have been discussing bullying at school and he has taken what they say too literally-

Yesterday he came home and said (paraphased so that you will understand what he said better)

"MY teacher is being a bully- that means she's a bucket dripper.... she tells us that we all have to give her our lunch money and then she takes it."

We spent an hour role playing to show him why the teacher takes the lunch money and how she keeps it safe because kids lose things-  he does not really believe me yet, but more practice and he will get it!

I thought I would write about this because if your child also has autism, maybe they are dealing with the same thing, maybe they are not there yet and maybe they never will but if they are then it is good for you to know that this is all normal for kids with autism and they do eventually get through this phase!

Whether the outcome is good or not varies, I know in Cutie's case he will be fine because he has so much help and we all collaborate together to figure out even small details of how to teach him this type of material!

You don't have to face this type of confusion alone- talk to the school psychologist and the Special Education teacher and ask if they can include goals for this very thing in your child's IEP - if they will/can not, you can also ask if they could help you get, make or borrow relevant social stories.