Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Infractions and Choices

Autism brings with it so many variables, many in the behavior and social skills lines, that sometimes things happen that pretty much just seem to make a person's head spin.

What causes this or that -is it from the autism or dna or nature vs nurture? Some things can really be very mind boggling at times.

At home, we frequently have problems with Miss Maya who seems to think because she is the older child, she is the most knowledgeable about, well in her mind, just about everything! And as such, she also often becomes more than a bit of a bully to Kurtis -shoving, pushing, tripping him, and yes, even punching or slapping him or kicking him. Any and all of those things do tend to erupt from her and often on a pretty frequent basis.

But at home, Kurtis is generally relatively docile and when Maya begins to pick on him in whatever manner, he very rarely tries to retaliate. Mostly, his reaction is just to wail!

In school however, these two are pretty much then like Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde! Maya is as a general rule, very well behaved in school, on the quiet side and pays very good attention to the teachers and what is being said whereas Kurtis thinks his job in school is to provide entertainment as the class clown, he is very disrespectful of other people's space and often recently has become aggressive with other kids in his class and punching kids with nothing having been done to provoke these actions.

Academically, he seems to be doing very well -his reading skills are improving all the time and his math skills are very strong.

But behavior-wise, it's becoming a really frustrating thing not just for us here at home to deal with for 6-hours a day, five days a week.

It does get old, ya know.

Recently, Mandy was told that supposedly her former (now deceased) mother-in-law had Fragile X syndrome which, it is my understanding, is a genetic illness. I'm not very well-versed on this topic but wonder if perhaps some kind of genetic testing -like maybe mycoplasma rapid test -or some other tests would be helpful to figure out things that may be creating the issues we are now seeing emerge in Kurtis.

I wonder too if perhaps the fact that Maya is pretty bossy and a bit of a bully at home with him and he doesn't usually retaliate when she does things, that maybe he's building up aggression then and taking it out improperly then later with his peers at school.

I dunno right now really what to do to get this to begin to at least subside, nor does Mandy.

But I sure do hope that soon he will comprehend better the difference in making Good vs Bad Choices and not come home with any more "infraction sheets" from school!

1 comment:

Maggie May said...

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Kurtis is taking it out on the others because he's had this treatment from Maya.
Autistic people do have a job adjusting to the world they find themselves in.
My Grandson is having some difficulties settling in at his college class and yet he has got himself off to college by himself and pays for his own lunches......... things he couldn't do a few months ago. So its not all gloom & doom.
Maggie X

Nuts in May