Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

I must preface this post by saying I love the teachers and their aides that work with Tommy. He would not be where he is today without their sacrifices.

Last week one of Tommy’s teachers was out. Substitutes and unplanned schedule changes can really throw an Aspie for a loop. Tommy was with a familiar teacher but we had a report of unusual behavior from Tommy. It just did not sound right. An email came in to request a time that Tommy could serve detention for his behavior. I did not respond because something did not feel right. When the second request I replied with the following message:

>Hi Guys,
> When can Tom serve his detention for the low he earned last Thursday?

Hello!

I am sorry for the lack of response to your question. I am not sure what to say here because of Tommy’s adamancy that he wasn’t as bad as reported. In times past, I would tell him he was absolutely lying but neither the lying behavior nor the total irreverence that was described in last weeks actions match the behavior that we are observing and that you, yourself, are reporting to us of late.

That coupled with the fact that {teacher} and Tommy were alone and the story cannot be collaborated, that the reports from {teacher}’s daughter and {teacher} herself regarding History do not match the stories of Tommy and {friend}, that the story regarding the {incident long passed between Tommy and teacher} changed from detention to suspension because a headache developed overnight (which is silly), and early in the year I was told from an adult, and disregarded as hearsay, information that {teacher} had a heightened intolerance of Tommy all make me want to argue that Tommy should not have a detention. In this I am not trying to belittle or be disrespectful of {teacher}. I appreciate what she does for Tommy. I appreciate the difficulty of her job. I like {teacher}! I simply do not have any degree of confidence in the accuracy of {teacher}’s reports. I have never said these words before because I have nothing to collaborate them just like we have nothing to collaborate last week’s story (unless I am mistaken).

Tommy has spent a life of being accused of things he did not do because of things that he has done. I have found myself more than once harshly punishing him against his adamancy that he was innocent only later to discover that he was truly innocent. Tommy is good at heart and has matured in ways that I only wish some regular ed children could. Our society frequently beats a man when they are down and a person can only take so much beating before they are relinquished to change into that which their accusers claim in the first place. That said, and with the amount time that has passed since last week, it would be my recommendation that we give Tommy the benefit of the doubt and let this one go. However, you are the teacher and the rules are the rules. If you still wish him to have a detention, let me know and I will let you know a good day.

Thank you and please understand that I mean nothing assaulting, mean or belittling in my words! There is no emotion written into these paragraphs.
Doug

I really debated not sending that letter and re-read it many times before sending it on. I really did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings (which it did) and I had hoped to be as pragmatic as possible. The school responded by not giving Tommy detention. Instead they have him a full day of in-school suspension. Yes Knox County, that’s a mighty fine penis you have!

We have had such vicious fights with Knox County Schools that our names are known in the administrative offices and I am sure nice things are not said. We have had m-teams and ieps go from brief meetings that barely legally qualified to 3 hour sessions with 14 cranky people trying to deprive our child of his rights. We have come close to getting legal on several occasions.

Knox County Schools has grown and changed for the positive. Despite budget and resource challenges, Knox County Schools has created and provided decent Asperger programs. Our child has grown too. And our meetings have become less frequent and needed fewer people.

Yesterday we had an m-team to discuss Tommy’s problems in history only to find that there really is not a problem. I actually felt guilty for having pulled these people away from their jobs for our silly meeting. Are we missing the fight that much? No, Tommy seems to be holding onto some things being falsely accused of disturbing his history class’ mock trial while everyone else has moved on. With Tommy reporting to us that he was still being blamed, coupled with the lost/theft of his ring, the confusion over transition planning, our lack of involvement with the school this year, and other frustrations led us to believe it was time to have a meeting. We were wrong. Tommy is really doing well! He has grown into quite an impressive young adult.