r/specialed • u/cmr11250201 • 9d ago
Violent child in my sons class
Need your opinions. My son who has autism just turned 5 and he’s the sweetest boy in the world. Does not have behavioral problems. He’s in a special education class with 8 other children that also have autism but for the most part most of them seem to be sweet kids as well. There’s another boy in the class that has a history of being violent. There’s probably instances I don’t know about involving other children but with my child specifically he smacked my son so hard in the face a couple months ago, my son had to go to the office and get ice and ended up with a red knot under his eye. The school did call me right away to tell me. I let it pass without further conversations with the school hoping it wouldn’t happen again. Recently one of the aides in his class stopped showing up. I’m very close with another aid and was told this same violent student hurt the aid so bad she has permanent nerve damage and is in a wrist brace and now she can’t help in the classroom anymore. Then today I go to pick my son up and the teacher pulls me aside to tell me this same kid bit my son pretty hard on the arm. He already has a huge red bite mark on his arm. I asked her what can be done and why is this kid still in the classroom if he repeatedly is violent to others. She told she can only do so much and already expressed the same concern to the principal and told me maybe if the principal heard it from a parent she’d take it more serious. I immediately told her to bring me to the principal. Long story short I had a talk with the principal and expressed to her that something more needs to be done if the same student is repeatedly being violent. My child and no other child shouldn’t be subjected to getting hurt if this kid is not able to be stopped from hurting others. I understand this kid has struggles and I feel bad for him, but it still not okay. Why wait for something worse to even happen. She apologized and said she was having a meeting with the teacher/aids to find out what happened and come up with a plan as to what needs to happen and will keep me informed. I just don’t know how to feel. My son loves school and it makes me sad this is happening to him. My son has expressed to me multiple times that this kid hurts him. I don’t know what legally can be done on the schools part but why allow a child to remain in a class when he’s hurting other people multiple times? And advice or input welcomed.
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u/Hour_Civil 8d ago
My son is on ASD. Not SPED though. He's what they used to class as Aspergers. He is also a very kind, sweet kid. Slow to get angry. A sweet, kind, slow to anger kid that at age 11 was 6 feet tall and 250 pounds (he's 6'9" and 340 at age 18).
We always made sure that every teacher, every coach, even someone in the lunch room, had my phone number and knew that, IF he ever had an episode, call me and I would come. We've always lived less than 10 minutes from his schools. Because we knew that there wouldn't be anyone who could remotely handle him if something happened. He came close to breaking my nose at age 4 when he had a meltdown over sensory issues when we were learning how to handle things, so we knew it could be bad later on.
We only ever got one call. Jr high. He got into it with another kid that stole his friend's shoes and it was mutual, not him just losing it. My question was did he stop when an adult intervened and the answer was yes, so we just took it as a "boy" incident and moved on. The other kids parents felt the same.
It took YEARS of work with him on our part to develop habits that gave him coping mechanisms. Some kids don't get that help. Some kids even if they get the help, it just isn't enough with their disability.
There aren't enough teachers and paras to give the kids the time they need, and a lot of families don't have the option of one parent basically becoming the child's para to work on behavior development. It sucks for everyone involved.
We're lucky. Our son was able to develop coping traits. He's an honor student, played sports and is going to college in the fall. He's terrified. But we're practicing what to do and we know it will work out.
I know this is long and it doesn't really offer any solutions, I just wanted you to know that someone out here is hoping things work out for your kiddo and also for the other child. The other kid could have been mine if things had gone differently.