My son is always badly behaved at school

[Anonymous]

OP you need to get your child evaluated. I believe the school system is required to provide an evaluation of your child if you have concerns about special education (which can include social and behavioral). Call special ed services for your school system at the county level and ask how you request that. That won't be a full neuropsych eval but it will be a start and will slow down whatever actions the school is taking. Also get a private full eval. Have you compared your child's behavior before and after being put on anxiety meds? You want to make sure the med isn't having side effects that rev the system up even more (some SSRIs can do this). Is your child's therapist a behavioral or cognitive behavioral therapist? I would strongly suggest you choose only those types...your child needs a behaviorally driven approach. I recommend the book The Kazdin Method (or the other book by Kazdin) ASAP so you can get started before all of these appts. This book is a must. I know how stressful it is to get calls from school. FWIW, it gets better. In our experience, the less strict the response to misbehavior the better. See the book Lost at School for ideas how the school and you can plan the best approach. Best wishes.

[Anonymous]

Another great approach that may help your son socially is Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking. Books available on her website. This is a longer term approach but has been helpful for my child whose negative behaviors were also driven by anxiety and frustration (as a result of having some characteristics of high functioning autism/Aspergers--also ADHD--the labels don't matter--it's the behaviors that require the same approach). I especially like Social Behavior Mapping and the books for kids like Social Detective and Glass Man and Super Flex. Really fun books for that age especially.

[Anonymous]

Is this a public school? I'm really surprised they haven't done an eval and an IEP for him already. There are lots of supports they could put in place that would help him manage his anxiety/frustration and would take some pressure off his classroom teacher.

[Anonymous]

I have a 4th grade son that I now know was impacted by anxiety-> aggression when he was in K; 1st grade. It took me a long time to figure out that anxiety was the cause of his aggression. In our case, a change in diet (gave up Gluten) and a new parenting approach and maturity turned it around nicely. What PPL without a kid that reacts this way to anxiety don't know is that "getting tough" tends to backfire. Calm, understanding that responds to the underlying feelings, not always the "bad" behavior is what worked for us. Yes, you must set limits and keep others safe, but the only way to diffuse my kid when he's worked up is through empathy and calm. Angrily sending him to his room just produces more anxiety and a meltdown. You've got to do positive reinforcement with a lot of support from parents who are majorly taxed due to the behavior issues. Hang in there.

OP--if you haven't tried it. I'd give up dairy and gluten and food coloring for 1 week just to see if there is a noticeable change. In our case we did it for other health reasons but have kept it up because it had a major positive impact on behavior. My DS even knows he feels better so doesn't miss the cupcakes.