Bullshit

I have officially lost my cool. I just yelled at F’s teacher.

Actually, I really screamed at her. LOUD. With everything I had.

I’m still trying to work out if I’ve lost my mind, too. I don’t think I have though. I think that everything I did this afternoon, bar the actual moment where I screamed at the teacher that she was talking BULLSHIT, was fair enough.

I sent F and his friend L to the oval to kick the footy and play while I spoke to the teacher. She didn’t look pleased when I walked in.

**

‘So, how did you go today?’
‘I’ve spoken to the boys involved, and F was at fault, too.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘He snatched the football from the other boy and kicked it.’
‘Yes, he shouldn’t have done that. But W still shouldn’t have hit him.’
‘He hit him with a flat hand.’ She demonstrates, holding up an open palm. ‘Like this.’
‘So? He still shouldn’t have hit him.’
‘Well, maybe F shouldn’t have BULLIED him.’

I am a little shocked. I don’t think a boy snatching the footy from his friend classifies as bullying. I’ve seen those kids on the footy oval (and in my backyard). Yes, F shouldn’t have snatched the footy, but it hardly classifies as bullying.

‘You still don’t hit someone’ I say. ‘You don’t respond with violence no matter what.’
‘He’s a PREP,’ the teacher sneers.
‘So? I don’t care. I don’t want anybody hitting my son, whether they’re a Prep or not.’
She rolls her eyes.
‘I should have been told about this. I spoke to my mother this morning. She’s a teacher. She says that schools are supposed to have policies about what to do when children are hit in the head. That would mean telling the parents.’
She is silent for a moment, obviously taken aback.
‘F and A were interrupting my class, talking about this on Thursday. They were being disruptive. I don’t handle disruption in my class.’ (Freudian slip? I think she meant to say ‘don’t tolerate’.)

‘F has had a very tough week, which is why I’d especially think you should have told me rather than me hear it from him. He’s had a very tough week emotionally.’
She ROLLS HER EYES. I see red.
‘You’re saying he didn’t have an emotionally tough week?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she drawls.

This is where the yelling comes in.

‘You don’t think so?! We have had a tough week! He has just learnt that he has Asperger’s. It has been a very tough week emotionally for both of us. How dare you tell me that MY CHILD has not had an emotional week? What do you know? I have seen him vomit when he got back from the doctor’s, I have seen him cry like I haven’t seen him cry in ages. He has been sick. Don’t you dare tell me ...’
I step backwards towards the doorway.

‘Don’t you yell at me’ she says.
‘You know what? I don’t want to talk to you.’

I turn to leave. At the door, I swing around and scream, really scream:

‘That is BULLSHIT!’

And I storm across the schoolyard, past F’s friend’s mother, talking to a cluster of other parents. I’m not ready to collect the boys. I feel like I am having a nervous breakdown. I still want to yell and scream. I have had enough.

**

My feet take me to the school office, where I pace up and down in front of the empty principal’s office. A few students loll on the new plastic lounge chairs outside the office. The school secretary’s glass window is empty, too. A young male teacher in a tracksuit is talking to a mother. I hear her say she is waiting for the Deputy Principal (also in charge of ‘special needs’). I start to leave, then return. I pace in front of the staff room, then back to the office. I hover. I am literally shaking with anger.

People are eyeing me cautiously.

‘Are you looking for someone?’
‘Oh, um, yes, but I think she might be looking for her too, so I’ll go.’ I wave at the woman who waiting when I arrived.
‘No, I’ll get her,’ he says. ‘Or maybe [Principal]?’
‘Okay.’
I eye the open office as I wait. Maybe I can slip out and wait in there, where no one can see me. Just in case I start crying.

The principal arrives and sweeps me away. She gets me a glass of water. The deputy arrives, too. I explain what has happened over the past couple of days.

I explain what I have just done and, lawyer-like, apologise for having yelled (NOT for what I said) and ask them to pass on my apology for having yelled. I tell them that I am appalled that anyone could say what she said to me, and very concerned if that is F’s teacher’s attitude. I tell them I want F to be listened to and that it is not okay for anyone to hit him, Prep or not. I explain that I was particularly annoyed that this last week, when the teacher KNEW what had happened on Monday, she did not tell me what had happened or even look into it. I told them that all I wanted was for the two boys to talk to each other and to be told what they did that was inappropriate.

The two principals say all the right things. (Almost.) They defend the teacher to a fault:

Of course no one should say that, but she wouldn’t have meant that. Not like that.

She’s had lots of special needs kids and knows exactly what she’s doing.

She must not have known what happened that day or of course she would have told you.

But they do seem very understanding and acknowledge that times are tough, that they want to know all about this and approach it as a team, and that F is a wonderful child.

**

When I leave, F and his friend L are in the corridor, looking for me, football under F’s arm. I walk them to the bikes.

‘Where were you? What were you doing?’

I tell them that I got angry with the teacher, that I lost my temper and yelled at her and that I shouldn’t have done that and I will need to apologise. I figure it’s not a bad lesson – that anyone can lose their temper, but that it’s not right and one should apologise.

‘So, did you sort it out with W?’
‘Yes.’
‘He beat up F. He hurt him,’ says L.
‘I know. And you were the only one who stood up for him and helped him, I hear. Thank you. You’re a very good friend.’
‘W lied at first’ says L. ‘But eventually he had to tell the truth. He stood there and cried.’
‘Oh yeah.’ I am unsympathetic. ‘Did he get told off?’
‘Not really. [Teacher] was pretty nice to him because he was crying. She was very mean to F.’
‘Really?’
‘Yup. She yelled at him.’

‘What happened?’ I ask F.
‘She told W to apologise and he wouldn’t and she didn’t make him. So I said to her “You’re letting him get away with it just because he’s got a sweet and innocent little face”.’
‘Oh dear.’ I do remember saying something of the sort myself last week.
‘Yes,’ says L. ‘Then she said to F ‘GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!’ And he hid under the table.’
‘Oh.’

Anyone with any knowledge of Asperger’s or experience with an Asperger’s child would:

a) Not say something so literal – his response was textbook stuff
b) Not bark orders like that – they don’t do any good
c) Realise that he was, in fact, telling the truth – even if he was doing it somewhat rudely – and take that into account when telling him off.

My thoughts? The teacher is a bitch. The school sucks. And I will have to figure out a way to ingratiate myself again so F doesn’t cop it.

**

Oh, and apparently W and his brother have been banned from playing with F. Which would explain why I ran into their parents on the street yesterday, walked RIGHT PAST THEM, and they pointedly snubbed us – me, F and The Husband. Oh well. That’s a bummer for F, but a blessed relief for me.

It is interesting, though. Why would one ban their child from playing with a boy because their child punched said boy in the face three times and tried to kick him in the stomach?

Another planet

‘Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong on this planet,’ he said as I was tucking him into bed over the weekend.

I immediately recognised it as a line from his book, All Cats Have Aspergers.

I don’t know if he was really thinking that or just trying it on for size.

The lighter side

I was on the couch in the lounge room; he was playing in his room with the boy next door.

‘Oh, M, YOU certainly don’t have Aspergers,’ I heard him say. Pause. ‘I mean, M, you’re NOT Aspergers.’*

Later, I casually asked him why he had said that to M.

‘Because,’ he said, ‘M was reading and when I started talking to him, he stopped reading. He was easily distracted by me. He wasn’t so focused on his book.’**

He’s right, you know.

I think it’s a good sign that he’s working this thing out in his head.


* We tell him he doesn’t HAVE Aspergers; it’s not a disease. He IS Aspergers; it’s a way of thinking.

** We used the example that when he’s focused on reading or Lego, he blocks out the world. He’s in his own world and nothing can get in. That’s a part of it. (I’m like that, too.)

R.E.S.P.E.C.T. (at school)

This morning, I was so incredibly angry with the school that I thought I was going to explode.

I imagined storming into F’s classroom, taking his hand, and leading him out of there (‘I WON’T be bringing him back!’) I imagined storming into the Deputy Principal’s office and redirecting all my anger at F’s teacher at her. I imagined telling her just what I think of the school and their shitty response so far to F’s Aspergers. I thought about telling her (at high volume) just how pissed off I am that she personally blocked the tests he was lined up for in Prep, thus delaying his diagnosis by two years. I idly planned to turn up to the school’s open morning tea in a couple of weeks, where parents are encouraged to come along and share their enthusiasm with prospective parents, and tell all those prospective parents just what I really think of this bloody school.

Instead, I turned on my heel and stormed out of the schoolyard. And when I got home, I phoned F’s father to tell him exactly what happened.

Which was ...

I approached F’s teacher to tell her that I wanted to make sure that the meeting between F and W, where they would talk out Thursday’s punching incident, would still happen.
‘But he was away on Friday’ she said.
‘Yes, he was sick. That’s why I want to make sure it happens today.’
A sour look. Pursed lips. Stony eyes.
‘I’ve had some conversations anyway, and it didn’t happen the way you think it did.’
‘Well’ (I felt my tone become cutting, feel the anger rising in my throat, my chest trembling with the effort to keep it under control) ‘That may be true, but my son was still punched in the head and I want something done about it.’
‘That’s not what happened. There was blame on both sides.’
‘Yes, he made a smart comment and he was punched. That’s still not appropriate and I still want it resolved.’
‘I don’t know that that was it. There was blame on both sides. It’s alright, I’m very fair’
‘LOOK, I know that F can exaggerate. But I know when he’s telling the truth. He was very, VERY upset on Thursday. He cried like I haven’t seen him do in months. I want F to feel like he’s been listened to, and he wasn’t on Friday.’
‘He wasn’t here on Friday.’
‘Okay, on Thursday. He was not listened to on Thursday. He wasn’t listened to by the yard duty teacher, who fobbed him off. And nobody was going to tell me about it. I wouldn’t have known that my son was hit in the head if he didn’t tell me. You weren’t going to tell me.’
‘You have to trust me. I’m very fair.’
‘If my son is hit in the head, I want to know about it. He came home with a splitting headache.’
‘I’m very fair.’

She flounced off to the classroom. I flounced off in the other direction. Meanwhile, I have no idea what apparently happened. All I know is that he was, in fact, hit in the head, and that the school want to fob me off about it.

All I want is for them to set up the promised meeting between the two boys so they can talk about it and resolve it and so that F knows he has been heard. If he did do something else wrong, then they are free to punish him, too.

But there is no way in hell that it’s okay to decide that the Asperger’s boy exaggerates and is oversensitive, so his story doesn’t need to be heard. And that if there are two competing voices, his is obviously the wrong one.

AND ... why would I trust someone just because they tell me to? Especially when they have quite obviously shown they are NOT fair. It’s my son we’re talking about. As if I’m going to say ‘okay, it’s not my place to question your ways’. It is my place and it will always be my place to know how his problems are dealt with and to see that they are dealt with to my satisfaction.

My parents were/are teachers. My sister is studying primary teaching. The Husband, his brother and I have all completed part (not all) of teaching degrees. I get that it’s a hard job. I get that they’re not social workers. I get that they have a million kids to deal with at once. I get that parents can’t demand the world. But I can ask that problems at school – especially physical violence – are appropriately dealt with.

And maybe ... just maybe ... that on a week when my son has received some very tough news, that he be treated with some small degree of consideration. Even – and I’m pushing it here – that that same consideration be extended to me. Which means? That we are both listened to with respect.

Fat. Bloody. Chance.

A-Day & further schoolyard blues

A-Day was last Monday, actually. We finally had the appointment with the expert psychologist (who cost quite a bit and had a six week waiting list) who gave us our official diagnosis regarding F's Aspergers Syndrome.

And yes. It's an unequivocal yes.

The 'unequivocal' was the greatest shock. She said: 'He's not borderline, there's no doubt about this. He's right in the middle. He's a classic case.'

I'd always figured that if he was Asperger's, he would be on the borderline.

But I trust this woman. She knows what she's doing, she's an expert in the field. And she took us through exactly why she had reached her conclusion, and it made sense.

So.

**

Telling F about it was the hardest part. Though, I did have to raise it all with him a fortnight ago, so in a way it wasn't as tough as it could have been.

His reaction has been mixed. Not delighted, but not too bad either, considering. Nobody enjoys being told there's a label that fits them.

The explanation was of the 'it's the way your mind works, it's just the kind of personality you have, there's nothing wrong with it' variety. You know: 'These things are harder for you, but these things are easier. You're so interested in the things you really love and you're really good at, and so much of your brain is concentrating on that, that there's not so much room left for the little things in life like remembering where you put your shoes.' And yes, we did 'Albert Einstein had Aspergers and he was the smartest man who ever lived'. (He admires Einstein.)

The next day he got into a fight in the schoolyard over a footy and swore at a kid, in a way he hasn't since first term. And had a fit of perfectionism over a painting, scribbling over it in black and demanding his teacher not hang it.

He said 'It feels weird, being Asperger's. It just feels wrong.' Does it help to talk about it? 'No. It makes me feel worse.' Does it help that other people in the family have it? 'No.' Does it help that kids in your school have it? 'A little.' Does it help that another kid in your class - we don't know who - has it? 'Yes.'

The next day was fine. Dad and I came to school to help with reading, which he loved.

**

Thursday, he came out of his classroom frowning. 'W punched me in the head five times' he said. 'And now I have a headache. And he tried to kick me here, too.' In the stomach.
(Summary: the football went over a fence, W collected it, F offered - in a cheeky manner no doubt - to kick it over because 'I can kick further than you' - W attacked him with multiple punches to the head and said attempted kick.)
'Did you tell a teacher?'
'Yes.'
'What did she say?'
'It was the yard duty teacher. She did nothing.'
F looked miserable. He started to cry.
'That's IT!' Fury is coursing through my veins. I won't lie and pretend that it's all related to the incident at hand. This is complicated, highly nuanced fury. It mixes all this week's tension, all my added worry for F, all my hatred for W (brother of A, son of The Mother, for those in the know) and my knowledge that W will definitely not be punished by his parents for this.

W is in Prep. He has the same teacher, L, who F had for Prep, an absolutely delightful woman who had a special place in her heart for my complicated son. She wanted to have him tested in Prep and the Deputy Principal said no. I am furious when I think of the added understanding that would have informed the last two years if her suggestion had been followed.

'I'm going to find L!' I smoulder. 'Don't worry, F, I'll sort this out.' His sniffles halt. I take his arm and fairly stalk across the yard to L's classroom, walking right past the culprit and his mother. I am far too angry to speak to her. And I can't bear the thought of listening to her verbal diahorrea today. Plus, it will do no good.

L is surprised to see us, but receptive. I explain the problem.
'Who was the yard duty teacher?' she asks F.
'I don't know her name.' F repeats what he told me earlier. He wrinkles his brow. 'She looks like a teenager, though. She's very SHORT.'
'I know who it is,' smiles L. 'I'll talk to her. I tell you what, I'll set up a meeting between you and W tomorrow. Here, I'll write it on the board.'
As she painstakingly writes their two names on the whiteboard, W and his mother enter the room ad sit on a chair behind her. I look at them awkwardly as she continues to talk. W is slumped on his mother's lap.
'Um, here they are!' I say.
'Oh!' says L. 'Speak of the devil!'
'What's going on?' asks the Mother.
L explains.
'Oh' says the Mother. 'We're here because he didn't get his pancake for lunch today and he had no lunch.'
'I'm sure he did.'
'No I didnnnnnnnnnn't' W dissolves into tears, snot running into his mouth.
'We'll talk about this tomorrow?' says L.
'Sure, fine.' F and I leave. I'm a bit pissed off that not getting a pancake takes precedence over punching someone in the head.

I see F's teacher and approach her.
'Did you know about what happened in the playground?'
'Um, YES' she says. 'But R says it didn't happen.'
I don't know quite what happens to me next, but I can say that all my pent-up rage and frustration were channelled in my response.
'I'm SORRY' I say, 'But I don't believe a word WB says. He's a liar. That child has ... I've had his mother phone me before and say F has done all sorts of things to him, and when I've finally got to the phone he's said maybe it didn't happen. SO ... I'm sorry, but I place no store by what he says.'
'Well, it was R who said it didn't happen.'
I kneel to zip up F's jacket, not looking at her, and stand again.
'Ok, I'd listen to him, but not to W. Anyway, we saw L and she's sorting it out. It's fine.'

And I sweep out of the classroom, F in hand. As we collect our bikes and pedal through the school gates, I assure F that I will make them take him seriously. Rather unwisely, I splurt: 'W is a passive-aggressive little shit.'
'Mum!'
'Sorry, I didn't say that.'
At the bottom of the street, as we pause, side-by side, waiting to cross, F's face crumples a little.
'Do you know what the worst thing is?' he whispers, dissolving into fresh tears, this time erupting from deep within his gut. 'When I was on the ground in pain, they said I was faking. And then ... then ... L was trying to comfort me, and they ... they pulled him off me. They didn't want me to feel better.' He is almost incoherent now. 'It REALLY hurt my feelings.'
I hurriedly pop my bike stand and climb off to hug him close. A dribble of kids in school uniform parts to flow around s and pass on their way home. I fumble in his bag for tissues and blow his nose. I am so sad for him that I want to cry too.
'I'm sure they didn't mean to.'

We gather ourselves and continue on our way home. He streaks ahead, and I can't help saying again, loudly enough to be heard by the mothers with prams behind me, but not loud enough for him to hear me again: 'passive-agressive little shit'.

At home, F goes straight to bed. I make him a hot Milo, but it goes cold on his bedside table as he, amazingly, burrows into sleep. When he wakes up, his forehead and cheeks flame with fever.

He stays home sick the next day, Friday, though I pack him off to his school sleepover that night with a bottle of Panadol for the teachers and instructions. I'm not about to take him away from social situations right now.

I fall assleep on the couch soon after dropping him off and therefore don't check the time I'm to pick him up in the morning before. The Husband and I wake at 8am, the same time we are meant to collect him.

We are late, but he is unfazed, sitting in a corner of the library deep in a book. And he had a great time. Thank god.