Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

Dad reports:
Tommy missed his bus then had a big hissy because “it’s not fair!” and when I replied with “yes Tommy. It’s not fair to the bus driver when you aren’t ready.” he yelled at me and said truthfully, “I don’t want to be lectured right now. I’m upset!”

This screws my morning but when does one of Tommy’s moments not throw a monkey wrench in the whole works.

Today I’m supposed to have an extremely important meeting from 1:30-2:30 then spend the afternoon in discussions regarding an issue that could cause my project to be thrown out the window. By some miracle, I’m supposed ot pick Tommy up at 3:30 since the aid, that was assigned to the bus specifically because of Tommy, won’t be on the bus today.

How do people with less flexible jobs or single parents survive an Asperger child?

Dad reports:
So the high school uses block scheduling. This means Tommy’s classes are an hour and a half long. The premise is that for half the year you get really intense English. Then the next half of the year you won’t have English but will have really intense math. I contend that for a class like a foreign language this would be great. Lab classes like chemistry could take great advantage of block scheduling. However, fundamentals like math I don’t see effectively fitting into a block scheduling. Math needs to be constantly practiced, not crammed in half year blocks of knowledge. Also, the brain turns off after so much and an hour and a half is too long for math for regular students much less an Aspergers child. Now thrown in a class that is an hour and a half long that Tommy either doesn’t like the material, the teacher or the students and its a formula for disaster.

Dad reports this morning:
Yesterday the school called to say Tommy disrupted his 3rd block class and threw something which hit another student. They wanted him picked up. I asked if he had calmed and they said yes. I suggested maybe we weren’t picking our battles and that it would be in the best interest of the student to have him go to his 4th block and continue his work. Apparently they did that and all worked out. I suggested in-school suspension if 4th block didn’t work out.

I fear being sent home will become a reward. Child’s mind: “I don’t want to be in this class. All I have to do is act up and I can go home and sleep.”

This morning Tommy is refusing to get out of bed. The puppy and I just went in to rouse him and he barked at the dog (pun intended) and griped that he didn’t like her “sitting on him”. In actuality the dog was standing over him but not biting (nibbling) nor sitting on him. I encouraged him with food and the desire for him to not be late or miss his bus. I went on to say “I can’t drive you to school today.” All he did was growl at me. Al I was trying to do was get him to sit up.