Warning - long post. Sorry.
Hi, and welcome. I'm sorry the mother sees you as a problem, it is always better, I feel, to be able to work with the school. There have been times when I have disagreed with the school but we always talked about it, often in writing to avoid misunderstandings. And I think if she's sugar-coating things it's because she's in denial to a certain extent, about his impact on others. The trouble is, SHE is the one who interacts with his specialists and if they're not getting feedback from school as well, they could be misdiagnosing. The level of violence seems extreme to me.
In Australia, a child being medicated during school hours means that the school MUST know what he is being given. Often the school is told anyway, for the purpose of full and frank communication. Of course there are a lot of things I preferred to not share with the school but if it was relevant to his management, of course I told the school.
Keeping a written record is brilliant. Usually I'm recommending parents to ask the school to support this. I recommend that a Communication Book travels between home and school, so both groups can put in anything of possible relevance. But to do this you would need the mother to not get upset when you report his actions accurately. If you could try to convince her that you're trying to help him by tracking possible patterns, with a view to finding a better way to help him overcome some of his difficulties? For example, if certain subjects set him off and his Communication Book helps identify the pattern, you may be able to find another way to ease him into the subject that is less confronting for him. Or if the combination of her information plus your observations demonstrates a link between worsening behaviour and him getting ill, THAT is useful, especially for his mother. difficult child 3 showed such a pattern - his behaviour would suddenly get worse for the three days BEFORE he developed obvious symptoms of a cold. It got so teachers would send home the message, "He was very obstinate and aggressive yesterday and today, I hope you haven't got anything important with him planned for the day after tomorrow because going by past patterns he may be getting a cold."
Also, when difficult child 3 had a cold coming on (he was also a problem during the recovery period) his teachers demanded less of him and excluded him more NOT as punishment but because he simply was able to work better away from the rest of the class. If he was unwell she wouldn't keep trying with him, she would immediately remove him, when on other days she might keep trying to keep him working but in the classroom.
Basically, kids like this have a hard time trying to hold their behaviour together. When they're tired or unwell, sometimes it's just TOO difficult. That's when you see breakouts.
You said, "he flips out whenever he is asked to do anything he doesn't want to do."
You didn't define "anything he doesn't want to do". Please observe and think about this - is it possible he is getting upset when he's asked to do something without having time to adapt to the change? What exactly is it that he doesn't want to do? WHY does he not want to do it?
difficult child 3 would refuse to do tasks involving writing, for several reasons - his hands hurt from double-jointedness plus he's very unco and has a poor pencil grip; and he dislikes the inevitable conflict in fiction (even though it does get resolved and he knows this intellectually) and finds story lines very distressing. As a result for a long time he tried to avoid them. difficult child 1 simply couldn't write stories because he couldn't hold a sequence of thoughts and ideas in his head (which you need to do, to write a story) until he learned to 'mind-map' (Edward de Bono).
Another BIG reason for a kid saying, "I don't want to do this new thing" is because he's got himself on a roll with whatever he is currently doing, and he needs time to adjust to making the change. If you force it and insist, "No, I want you to stop working on your maths NOW and come and do this next lesson" you will have major conflict, with these kids. They HATE task-changing. I've even seen this on a hot summer's day, when I've said to difficult child 3, "You can stop doing your homework now, let's go to the beach for a swim," and he will say, "No, I have to finish this." He could not accept, "You can finish it later," because it had taken some time and effort to get started and he didn't want to waste that. Mind you, he may not have been thinking anything so rational about it, it may just have been, "This is now, this is what I'm doing, I know this, I feel safe with this, I want to keep doing this until I run out, even if this is a bit boring, I do not like to change."
Of course, if you're trying to take him from something he obviously is enjoying (like playing computer games) to something he dislikes this will make the task changing problems far worse.
What I do to facilitate task-changing - I set a time limit, preferably one I've previously negotiated with him. I use brightly coloured Post-It notes and I write on one, "difficult child will stop Task A and begin Task B at x time." I stick it where he can't miss it and also tell him it's there. That way when he is reminded again he can't say that he wasn't told.
The aim of this exercise is to let him know that you are giving him ample warning of the need to make a change in activity. He needs to learn to see you as his helper, not his obstacle (which I suspect is his current view of you).
It's quite possible that you are seeing him at his worst and his mother gets him at his best. Usually it's the other way around, but there's something interesting here. She is doing something that works for him and you are doing what appears to him to be the opposite.
I'm not saying she is right and you are wrong - it's just from his perception. You really need to be able to talk to her, pick her brains and work as a team, but it sounds like she's not amenable to that. So you need to convince her (and him) that you ARE amenable. Not easy.
I got another clue from you - you said that you have strict rules that you expect all the kids to follow, in that certain behaviours earn a time out but if you give him a time out it leads to all sorts of problems which escalate to the point where you're now bending the rules for him.
I put to you - with some kids you NEED to have different rules. You are beginning to see this for yourself. Punishing a kid for explosive behaviour when it's the result of frustration, impulsivity and difficulty in communicating this any other way is like punishing a three-month-old baby for bedwetting. Where it would be appropriate to punish most other kids when you KNOW they have the control, it's not going to be for him.
What is the aim of punishment? Think hard and carefully. Now think - are you achieving that aim with him? Do not consider what the other kids will think in this; they understand probably a lot more than is usually credited. difficult child 3's classmates very quickly understood that difficult child 3 played by a different rule book. Any ideas we may have had to keep his disorder a secret - trust me, it's bleedin' obvious. So if they see him being handled differently - you may have to explain it, but they will understand. difficult child 3 was in a mainstream class but the teacher handled task-changing with a voucher system; a full sheet of vouchers and difficult child 3 got half an hour of computer game time while the rest of the class did lessons. The kids asked about it and the teacher explained (with my blessing) that it was needed for difficult child 3 because he is autistic. The other kids could manage well and therefore did not need the same reward system. Besides, the class time that difficult child 3 missed was maths, which he excelled at. He could miss some maths time and not suffer for it, while the other kids couldn't.
If you've been lurking you will have seen how much "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene gets mentioned. Have a look at it. Of course it would be best if you could implement this with his mother's support, but currently he seems to be reacting very differently at home compared to school anyway.
The beauty of this method - it works well on normal kids too (sorry for the inappropriate terminology but it's quicker). There is some description of this book and implementation in Early Childhood. I got my first copy of the book from the local library, then I put an order in at my bookshop. It made a huge difference for us.
Basically, people vary. The sort of handling that works will also vary. Kids like this - the sort of stern, consistent discipline that has stood you in great stead for so long will actually make kids like this worse. It also pushes their stress up which makes them more reactive, more likely to kick, bite or disobey and the discipline for that misbehaviour then accelerates the problem.
I cant be in the classroom with you to observe, but I suspect you're disciplining the really bad outbursts. And I do understand why you are doing this. The worst ones - I agree with you, I think they are basket A (read the Early Childhood thread on the book). But wherever possible, put behaviour like that in basket B or C. Backchatting or being rude - basket B.
What makes this book work best is if you can get a handle on what makes the kid tick. What upsets them? What do they enjoy? What frightens them? Why? Then you use this knowledge to show them that you are a support, you are a tool that they can take advantage of.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main aim you have for him is for him to learn? And controlling his behaviour is part of what you are trying to do, so you can also prevent him from disrupting the other students. But I think a big part of the problem is, trying to control his behaviour could be at least part of what is setting him off.
Giving kids like this some choice, some control over things that really are no big deal for you, can make a big difference to how he copes. If he enjoys maths but hates geography, but overall will refuse to turn in much work over a school day due to his behaviour issues, you may need to begin by letting him do one subject for as long as he wants to, even if the rest of the class is moving on to English or geography. Keep his worksheets available and if you can see he is receptive, give him his English or geography then. And let him work on THAT for as long as he can handle it. Task-changing can also be an issue for things they aren't enjoying much too (ie they will still keep working on a difficult subject for them, if they get 'on a roll'). It may help get him through curriculum work faster.
You say you're concerned that if you can't get his behaviour under control that he won't cope with Middle School - you're right. But chances are, he won't cope for other reasons and they won't cope with him either. Are there any other placement options for him for Middle School? Maybe the best you can do is help him cope NOW.
I don't know if your role extends to questioning the diagnosis. Purely for the sake of curiosity, check out the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire on
http://www.childbrain.com and see how he scores. Frankly, if he scores as Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) it changes nothing from your point of view if his mother insists it's ADHD. But it could help you understand him better. It will probably help you understand him better anyway, whatever he scores.
Speak softly and carry a tube of Hirudoid (for the bruises).
Marg