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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It sounds as though you have a very clear sense of what you think happened, but I am concerned that you might be only hearing it from your kid's point of view, or you might be making assumptions and filling things in with your imagination.

As a special ed teacher, I often have parents who will call me and explain to me why something happened when they actually don't even know what happened, and their explanation doesn't match the events.

Did the meltdown happen at camp?  If so, if it ended in a way that didn't come to the camp leadership's attention, and didn't result in your kid wanting to stay home, then I would take that as a win.

If the meltdown did come to the camp leadership's attention, then I would assume that they are already coaching the counselor.  If they didn't exclude your child, or demand a meeting, then they must be confident that they have strategies that will work in the context of the group.

If you want to talk to them, I'd go in understanding that part autism, particularly in young children, is a distorted understanding of social situations, and that there may have been very good reasons why they asked the kids to sit rather than moving to a more physical activity. Asking kids to do something that's incompatible with unsafe behavior (e.g. asking a kid running around to sit down) is a pretty common strategy with both children and with people with ASD.

So, if the meltdown rose to the level that there were safety issues, I would go in  with an open mind and say "I'd love to know more about this incident, so that we can figure out what skills and knowledge to target going forward.  Can you tell me more about what happened?"

I'm also going to say that suggesting that a kid who is willing to go back into a situation stay home has the potential to backfire.  [/quote]

This is all really excellent perspective - thank you and I hope you comment more here! My only caveat is that sometimes the child actually does have a valid additional perspective of the facts that the teacher does not have. This doesn’t mean that the upshot is any different (kid may not have coping skills required for the setting) but plenty of times my kid was able to fill in more details about what actually happened when the teacher just said “he just snapped all of a  sudden!” Kids on the spectrum are usually pretty honest so they are not going to actually lie even if their perspective is partial. You may work with younger kids or less verbal kids than mine though. [/quote]

PP you quoted, I absolutely agree that we need to listen to kids’ perspectives.  I am not thinking about situations where kids lie, and not accusing OP’s kid of lying.  I am thinking that OP’s kid is speaking from their perspective.  I can give some examples from my own experience.

We are lined up to go outside on a hot day, when I hear one of my kids with asthma cough.  I need a moment to figure out if this is something I can act on so I ask the class to stop, but when I do they are too loud for me to hear, so I ask the kids to sit down, which in my experience lowers the volume, I have a quick whispered conversation with the asthmatic kid, determine that it was just a sip from the water bottle that went down wrong, and we are ready to go.  NT kids pick up that something was wrong, they heard a note of tension in my voice or noticed I kept one kid standing and focused on them, and correctly assumed I was addressing something with that kid.  Autistic kid thinks this a group punishment and that I am favoring this kid, and they start to meltdown.  Dealing with that meltdown takes 10 minutes and suddenly kids are sitting longer than is reasonable and outside time is shortened, because we still need to be back inside in time to eat lunch and change for the pool.

Kid goes home and reports from their perspective “We were in the hallway and A, B, and C were being loud so we all had to sit down, except Larla,  It was so unfair!  We lost half our outside time!”  Kid isn’t lying.  People were being loud and it was a factor, and they did miss half of outside time.  But parent hears that and complains, and suggests solutions that wouldn’t work.  “If they were being loud, you should have gone out faster, because it was a sign they need to move” (misses the fact that counselor needed quiet to check on the kid, and that taking an asthmatic kid outside in the heat during an attack can be unsafe) or “if you’re going to make them sit, the least you can do is make everyone sit” (which ignores that counselor needed to talk quietly with asthmatic kid) or “Recess should NEVER be cut short” (going to the pool is a good reason to end recess).  [/quote]

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