provoking other kids for no reason....

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2003
provoking other kids for no reason....
3
Fri, 05-11-2007 - 1:41pm

I've started taking my DS to homeschool roller skating events. I thought he was blending in just fine in that atmosphere. He looked no different from anyone else. But, today there was an incident. I noticed two older girls giving him problems every time he walked past them. He had zoned out into his own world and was not responding to anything they said or did to him. I stepped in to see what the problem was.

One of the girls told me that he started it by pointing at them and calling them witches. I know that's something he is capable of doing. He will provoke without warning, without reason. The girls were acting the way anyone would act if someone called them rotten names out of the blue. It made me fearful. He can say or do the wrong thing and a neurotypical people are not going to respond as if they are dealing with a disabled person. They see someone acting like a jerk.

If anyone else has this problem of their kid provoking others, how are you dealing with it?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-03-2004
Fri, 05-11-2007 - 2:37pm

Hi. We are also homeschoolers, BTW.

What I have found is that these provocations are NOT obvious to me, until I do an investigation from my son's point of view. Remember, our kids can have trouble missing social cues. I also have to tell you, however, that OFTEN my son really IS responding to a teasing or slightly nasty social cue. Those NT kids are slick when it comes to covering up the way they started the interaction in the first place...

But when I check with my ds, who is PDD-NOS, very verbal, he can tell me what happened and I can either correct a misunderstanding on his part or help him deal with what set him off. What I'm trying to say is that these things don't come out of nowhere, but from a missed set of connections, and sometimes it is our kids who are making a mistake ... and sometimes not.

With practise and professional assistance, my ds is getting better and better at handling these situations on his own without my help. And he is almost 10 years old now.

Sara
ilovemalcolm

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Fri, 05-11-2007 - 7:38pm

My DS was about 5yo and standing in the

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
Avatar for njbeachma
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-22-2003
Mon, 05-14-2007 - 9:56pm

Hi, I'm not sure how old your DS is but last year when my DS was 5, he provoked constantly! His was pure anxiety...get them before they get you. He totally misread the cues and thought every kid was out to get him, even when they didn't notice him. We worked on it constantly because his "not knowing what to do" in social situations brought it out. In small groups with one or two kids it wasnt bad, but at class trips and crowded playgrounds, it was horrible. He would especially provoke younger kids and toddlers.

This year we saw it a little, but in anxious situations he would turn on me and be outright mean to me. In January, we started him on Clonidine for his anxiousness and it has been a huge difference. I'm not advocating medication, just letting you know what we did after social stories, consequences, and everything else failed. He is incredibly social and caring now with other kids. In really overwhelming situations he can still get a little nasty to me but nothing to the extent of before.

Good luck.
Shelley