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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a 12 yo with audhd. Generally he does fine at school. Recently, he and his friends have been using 'autistic' as an adjective to describe themselves and each other, when they're acting weird. Among his friend group, it hasn't been perceived as an insult and seems to be something of a cultural trend or norm, and in some ways i thought it actually had some benefit as normalizing it in an odd way. Recently however he called his brothers best friend (who is 9) 'autistic'. The 9 year old (who is not autistic) was understandably upset by this. We spoke at length about it as a family and had the 12 year old speak with the 9 year old to apologize. A couple teachers from the school then reached out to us and asked that my 12 year old, as an act of 'restorative justice', watch a video about what it's like to be autistic, and complete an exercise outlining what it feels like (per the video) and why it might be hurtful to be called autistic. These teachers didn't loop in any of my child's usual team. I found it baffling, given that my child has been there since he was 2 years old, that they didn't think to check first with anyone, and pointed out to them that asking an autistic child to watch a video about what it might feel like to be autistic, and then complete an exercise about why it would feel hurtful to be called autistic, was obviously not a good idea. Instead of admitting this, the school doubled down and said there were resources in what they'd sent that would be useful, and asked us if we 'object' to the exercise, to then suggest something 'more appropriate'

I have found this chain of events to be..... suboptimal.

Less asking for advice and more venting, to be honest. I'm sure we'll end up in a good place with an appropriate exercise for him but the whole thing has just been complicated and a little weird. [/quote]

I was going to say I can't fathom the level of stupidity that it would take for a TEAM of school staff to suggest this but I quickly remembered the insane comments/conversations I had with my dc's school admin particularly at IEP meetings. I am so sorry you are dealing with such amazingly clueless and uncaring school staff. They deserve an award for this one. [/quote]

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