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Hello everyone,

I am a mother of two sons aged 12 and 14. The 12year old has been diagnosed with asperger's and the 14 year old is half way through his diagnosis. I'm sure he has it too.

Our 12 year old is loving, sensitive and so intuitive he sometimes seems to know what I'm thinking. But lately he has started going off for long cycle rides, often without telling me he's going. A couple of days ago he took off and was gone for over four hours. I was frantic as the roads here are busy with lots of speeding cars. My husband had to go searching for him and thankfully found him, still cycling. He is hypersensitive and can't wear a helmet because the itch drives him mad. Sometimes when he gets back from a cycle ride I have to padlock the bike to stop him going again, then it's like some demon gets into him and he's desperate to go. Yesterday he said if he couldn't go cycling again he'd go walking. I had to hang on to him to stop him going. He says he just wants to travel.

When he's calmed down he's really sorry for his behaviour and appologises to me over and over. He's not unhappy at home (I don't think) and has a good relationship with his father and brother.

His teacher reckons he is just being disobient and disrespectful towards me, but I'm certain that is not the case. She says he is lazy because he never finishes his written work and will not accept it's because he finds writing incredibly difficult. He also can't stand having to read out loud to his special needs teacher, because his reading isn't great either and he hates answering questions about himself but his teacher says that this year she intends to force him to answer her questions, she said "these autisitic children need to learn to obey the rules otherwise they will never learn to socialise." I don't like that attitude at all.

My son has friends at school and is good at joining in. He doesn't chat like the other boys but is full of fun and laughter which makes him popular.

He starts back at school today after the summer holidays (his final year in this school) which is causing me a lot of worry. He is really intelligent and clever when it comes to making and building things. But he just finds school work, (apart from history) boring.

His teacher is convinced she is right to be strict and isn't open to being told anything. She doesn't seem to realise that he cannot be browbeaten into behaving like other children. His special needs teacher is even more insensitive.

I would really appreciate any help or advice. Has anyone else had similar experiences?

Best wishes, Verinda

Your experience is, unfortunately all too common.

The attitude of the teacher is appalling and totally unacceptable. It is inexcusable in any teacher, but in a SEN teacher - well words fail me.

You have to go into bat for your boy. Does he have an IEP? Does the school have any AS policy/provision.

Any teacher (or anyone else for that matter) who thinks that browbeating is a valid strategy with a child with AS is very misguided.

Hello, thank you for your reply.

It's a really small school with just three classrooms and an extra room for the special needs teacher. As far as I know my son and his friend who is in my son's class are the only asperger's children in the school so their class teacher is also the principal.

The special needs teacher is only recently qualified so neither she nor the principal have much experience with such children. My son absolutely hates the special needs teacher, in fact she seems to be generally unpopular with parents and children alike.

Aren't special needs teachers supposed to be understanding, smiley sort of people? Ours is grim, inflexible and very strict!

If my son becomes unhappy we fully intend to do battle with the teachers. But the principal, (who does at least smile quite a lot) will not like her authority questioned, I don't want to fall out with her so will have to try to discuss and explain rather than get angry. She wasn't this bad last year.

It doesn't sound too promising.

Do you have the option of moving schools?

Not really, there's only one more year to go in this school and he wouldn't leave his friends, especially not his best friend who also has asperger's.

The secondary schools don't look promising. My older son has just started 2nd year and he's miserable, has no friends and the school is not helpful towards asperger students.

We are looking at another secondary school, it is much more asperger's friendly but quite a long way away. And our 14year older son has already stated he doesn't want to go, too far away and too many changes to take on.

When I was 10-12 years old and dealing with a bad school situation, every so often the stress would build up and I'd just need to get out. I'd go running off and walk in a random direction and basically walk myself into exhaustion, and then I'd call my parents to come pick me up. It was a way of dealing with stress.

Maybe try agreeing on a certain place he should go when he feels that way, someplace that's safe but fairly far away so he can let off steam by traveling there. Then you can go there and find him there, or if it's someplace with a phone he can call you once he's calmed down.

Other than that, I'd also recommend looking at whatever is causing him stress. The school situation seems like a pretty good candidate for that.

Hello, thank you for your reply.

He doesn't seem to be overly stressed but has been worrying lately about getting older, and worrying that I am much too old!

He came home from school today reasonably happy, but then it is only his first day back. He does have a huge amount of energy and never seems to get tired.

He has already gone off on his bike. I did tell him where he could and couldn't go and I will be very relieved when he gets home.