Playground Problem?

[emdav]

Hi, I posted this on the Community Board and am posting it here as well based on advice to do so.


I would like some honest feedback as to whether you would find this situation problematic. My son is in the first grade. I have been at the school 5-6 times this year and gone to see my son at morning recess. Each time, there have been approximately 100 first graders and one adult monitoring them. I have even been outside before the teacher made it to the playground. In that case, there was no adult supervision for several minutes.

My son is high functioning autistic and struggles on the playground because it is an unstructured social situation. His teacher tells me that he is having behavioral issues on the playground.

I was at the school today and his teacher was watching the 100 kids. I saw my son and another boy shove each other but I was unsure who started it and they stopped so I did not intervene. The teacher did not see this. The teacher tells me ds is pretending to be an animal today but is not sure which one. As she is telling me this, I see ds and another boy fighting. Again, I'm not sure who started it but I'm quite sure it was my son. Another boy joins in and starts hitting my son. They weren't stopping so I ran over to break it up. Ds tells me he is being the Incredible Hulk. I explain to him that Incredible Hulk is not appropriate for school and he can play that only at home. I have him apologize. The teacher tells the boys they may not hit and that is the extent of the discipline.

My thoughts are these:

1.) The supervision on the playground is inadequate.
2.) The discipline is inadequate. (I wish ds had been hauled off to the principal's office.)
3.) If the teacher knows, ds is behaving inappropriately on the playground, he should be given more support on the playground.


Any thoughts?

 

[debbi801]

First, I have to chuckle, because my 1st grade, 6 yr old DS (Asperger's) goes back and forth between being the Blue Power Ranger at school and being a wolf at school. I couldn't tell you how many notes have come home about him refusing to do something or acting out because he insisted he was a power ranger. I know that doesn't really help you, but at least you know you aren't the only one going through this.

My son also has playground issues, for the same reasons you mentioned. But at least at his school, all of the first grade teachers are outside during 1st grade recess. There is no way 1 teacher can watch 100 kids, even if they were all NT. It is a safety/liability issue waiting to happen.

Does your son have an IEP in place? If so, can you request that something is added to it regarding add'l support during recess? My DS has a para-pro at school and she's required to stay with him during recess to help him socially and also make sure he doesn't run away from school.

Good luck. I don't blame you for being worried. I wish I had more advice.

 

[ireland_nicole]

ITA; there is not way that the playground situation is safe, or in terms of FAPE, Your child- and the others- need far more supervision. As well, I'm concerned about the lack of intervention when the boys are "fighting." This could easily be the start of "bullying" behavior in the boys, and the culture of the school is actually promoting it. I think your instinct is right on this one.

 

[bookwormde]

More support for your child during unstructured times and a bulling policy needs to be written into his IEP

bookwormde

 

[1stluvispooh]

We are so living parallel lives! My DD 8 and in the second grade had been having problems with hitting particularly on the playground and at lunch. There were 3 things that I knew were contributing to this. Even though I have told the teachers repeatedly that it is best to write things out for her they would just talk with her. So our problem lasted a good 2 weeks until I started sending her to school with a notes that said. "If someone makes you sad or mad tell a teacher. NO HITTING" Now 1 of the problems was that the kids she was hitting was playing "Kidnapped" had he choose to "Kidnap" DD best friends, a set of twins that are in a differ class(that is yet another problem, Hey an ASD kid has a best friend lets separate them! ) I don't know why no one, and I mean even the principal was involved, just tell the kids that kidnap was NOT APPROPRIATE! I mean I can see other kids getting upset by this. We were lucky they usually suspend kids for 3 days for hitting but since DD is on the spectrum they didn't do that. Although DH was afraid it was going to happen and quite frankly I was starting to wounder if we should change schools.