hot sticks

[Liahona]

difficult child 3 told me today that he punched someone in the face and then they left him alone. I got more of the story out of him piece by piece in a kind-of backwards fashion. Put all together this is what happened.

A 2nd grader with a monkey shirt and another 2nd grader brought some matches from home and was trying to burn difficult child 3 with them. They also tried to punch him in the face and kick him in the penis. They also tried to burn another kid. I am not sure what order those 4 things happened in or if they succeeded in hurting difficult child 3. (I was trying to not scare him and make it worse.) I do know the last event was difficult child 3 punching one of them in the face. Then they left him alone and difficult child 3 went to tell a teacher. difficult child 3 says the playground aide took the matches away from the 2nd grader, sent them back to class, and called their moms. He also told me that this kid has been trying to hurt him everyday before school starts. Not a word of this has come from the school, so I get to call the school (maybe show up there) and try to figure out if difficult child 3 really did tell the teacher and if the teacher/aide did do what he said she did. Because there has been mis-communication between difficult child 3 and the playground aides before.

Part of the confusion has been that difficult child 3 didn't know what matches were. He called them hot sticks. We had an avalanche of junk fall out of a closet and I hadn't put away the matches yet (don't get me started on what husband keeps in places the kids can get to.) I was questioning difficult child 3 about "hot sticks" because I didn't understand. He pointed to the matches and said "those, they brought them from home."

difficult child 3 is still confused about who to punch and when, but I'm so glad husband told him to stand up for himself. We'll work out the 'don't hit your sisters' rule.

 

[TeDo]

I hope he did tell on those kids and I am even more proud that he defended himself. In our old school, difficult child would have been suspended for a week for punching a kid no matter the reason. The other kids would have gotten a slap on the wrist. Yes, even in 2nd grade. I am so sorry he's being bullied so bad by these kids. That's another things I would bring up when I GO TO THE SCHOOL first thing tomorrow. Poor difficult child 3.

 

[DammitJanet]

Im glad also your husband told him to stick up for himself. I hate bullies. I didnt get a chance to reply to your other thread but I had an awful experience with the same type of thing with my oldest son. He was the epitome of the stereotypical geek in late elementary school and middle school. In elementary school he did fine because he went to a very small school and the teachers were wonderful to him plus his younger brothers were there to beat the snot out of anyone who messed with him. However when he entered middle school it was a whole new ball game.

This middle school basically was basically made up of Indian kids, then a percentage of black kids and probably 10% white kids. Not very many because of the area it covered. Billy stood out like a sore thumb because he was academically gifted but learning disabled. Heck I had to fight the Sped teachers to even understand that existed! He wore a pocket protector, read a bunch of books constantly from the classics like Homer, Plato, War and Peace, etc. He wore these huge black birth control glasses that medicaid paid for back then because he had to have such thick lenses. He constantly had his shoe laces untied. In other words, he was walking bully bait.

One day not long into the school year, I got called to come pick him up because some kids had beat him up at school, beat him in the face during gym class and broke his glasses. I stormed down there and his face was all swollen up. Glasses smashed to smithereens. I had to take him to the hospital about his face. Glasses couldnt be fixed so I had to pay for a new pair. His cheek bone was slightly fractured.

I went back to the school and demanded the names of the kids who did this to him so I could sue the parents to make them pay for the bills. They wouldnt give them to me. Said they were handling it in house. I said I wanted them prosecuted so that the courts would make them pay restitution. No go.

Two weeks later same thing happened. This time the school brought him to me at work. He was beat as he was getting off the bus. Again glasses broke but they took the glasses with them this time. I asked if the bus driver saw the kids. Nope. No one saw a thing. I was furious. I demanded that something be done. I had Cory with me when I went to the school. The school told me that Billy needed to learn to stand up for himself more and fight back. Now you have to understand Billy. He is a big boy but he cannot fight a bit. He telegraphs his punches. He would get beat to smithereens and then get suspended. I told them the only way Billy could stand up for himself was to bring a loaded handgun to school. Was that what the wanted?

Cory sat there and listened to this whole exchange. And we wonder why he grew up to hold his own in fights at school. He heard the authorities in school tell me that my oldest should do just that.

I ended up removing my oldest from my school system and turning him over to my mother which was the biggest mistake of my life. If I had realized I could have transferred him to another school in my district I would have done that but I didnt know I could do that back then.

 

[Liahona]

Update: I wrote a note to his teacher and called the principal and left a message. Then I called again and got him on the phone. He was frustrated with me. Kept saying things like 'as you remember in our previous conversation' while telling me there was nothing he could do. He did read the note I sent to the teacher. It was much more detailed then what I had told him (because he wouldn't listen to me and was getting defensive.) Then he talked to the playground aides who said difficult child 3 never came up to them and they didn't take away any matches from anyone. He talked to the teacher who hasn't heard anything about this. He talked to difficult child 3; who showed his autism. He got confused, his story kept changing, and he had a hard time talking. The principal wanted him to pick out the 2nd graders who did it. difficult child 3 did pick out 2 kids, but they weren't the right kids. He remembered the name of one of the kids. There is only one kid in 2nd grade with that name and that boy says he was playing soccer every day this week. The 2nd grade teachers don't know anything about it. The principal told me that when one kid brings matches that news of it spreads very fast around the kids, but no one had heard anything about a kid with matches. The principal doesn't think the bullying actually happened but that difficult child 3 is having some kind of emotional issue with school so he is telling me stories. The Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) is going to work with difficult child 3 with social stories that tell him how to get out emotions and the school therapist is going to talk with him. The principal does believe that difficult child 3 has autism now.

I'm worried. It sounds like the principal did a though job investigating and his explanation makes sense. BUT its not like difficult child 3. difficult child 3 will do small exaggerations. Nothing like he has been telling me though. When he does exaggerate he doesn't use that much detail and it is fairly easy to see through. When he does exaggerate it is normally based in truth. And he doesn't act like he has an emotional issue with school. He is happy to go to school. I keep asking him if he feels safe there and he keeps telling me yes. When he does tell me about the bullying he isn't scared or emotional it is very matter of fact. I think it helps that difficult child 3 hit them a few times and difficult child 3 has dealt with someone much worse than any 2nd grader, difficult child 1.

The autism specialist came today. We talk about this and she tried to get difficult child 3 to talk to her, but he hid. He then told us that he just made it all up. Then he told us that he was just repeating what he read somewhere in a story. I told him I don't think so. After she left difficult child 3 was telling me about his recess. He told me "this is for reals". This also worries me. Someone instead of just asking him what happened tried to convince him that it didn't happen. Or suggested that it didn't happen.

Janet, I'm sure you did the best you could with the information you had at the time. Hind-sight is always 20/20. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing wrong now that I'm going to regret.

I'm thinking of homeschooling difficult child 3 and difficult child 2. husband doesn't think the bullies will bother difficult child 3 much now that he stood up to them. He also doesn't think talking to the school therapist will hurt him since difficult child 3 has had a lot going on (when does he not have a lot going on?) I think I'm going to talk to the school therapist first and try to make sure he isn't an idiot.

Thanks for reading all this.

 

[TeDo]

Wow. I would say hold off on the homeschooling as long as the bullying isn't causing difficult child 3 issues like fearing or not wanting to go to school. I am surprised difficult child 3 hitting the other kid(s) didn't get anyone's attention. Working on stuff with the Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) and the school therapist might help in the long run. Personally, I would wait and see how this all plays out. If difficult child 3 starts showing signs of affects, I would hold off. That's just MHO. You need to do what's right for your kids.

 

[InsaneCdn]

The principal does believe that difficult child 3 has autism now.

Read more: http://www.conductdisorders.com/forum/f6/hot-sticks-50418/#ixzz275GSt9SJ​

Sometimes, it's these big-picture results that matter most. Maybe THIS incident wasn't handled the best way, but if the principal now gets the picture of where difficult child 3 is coming from, it should be a major factor in future issues - including the fight to get the right accommodations and interventions.

 

[Liahona]

We're going to hold off on homeschooling. If he starts being scared of school I'll re-think it. IC I'm not sure yet what accommodations difficult child 3 will need. He is doing so great in the mainstream class. I guess time will tell. Maybe he will just need social/recess accommodations.

I sat him down this morning and told him that I believe what he told me. He gave me a big hug and was very cuddly for awhile.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Sometimes, when our difficult child kids need "less", it's harder to get...
And yes, accommodations for "free time" can be a huge thing.