Argg, rant about school

[LaughingHyena]

OK in the grand scheme of things this is a pretty minor issue, yet it keeps cropping up and I need to get it off my chest.

DS is 6 and likely has ASD, he hates haircuts. I;m sure many of you will realise just how impossible they can get, so he has long hair. No problem for me, I think it's cute, his Dad also has long hair too so I think even without haircuts being a struggle he'd likely have it long.

The problem is he also has a name which is also used as a girls name. When they have substitute teachers they often get his gender wrong. Most kids would probably just correct the teacher and that would be the end of it but DS will not speak at school so doesn't. Several times this year this has led to a couples of the other boys in the class spending the rest of the day calling DS a girl which upsets him and results in him not feeling able to go into the boys toilets.

I've been into school and asked for a note to be made of his gender in the register (which I also did last year so assumed it would have automatically been done) and will let his usual teacher know when I see her at pick up tonight.

Any other ideas how we can get DS to stand up for himself over this, or get the message out to other adults who come into the class.

I;m pretty peeved this morning as I went in to make the request about the register and yet again the reply was yet again "well what he needs is a spiky boy haircut"

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

That would bother me as well.  I think you are just going to have to really keep reminding the teacher and office about this...over and over again, until they do it because they just don't want to hear it anymore.  I have had to do similar things with the schools over the years with my kids.  Does he have a good friend?  If he does, could his friend walk with him to the bathroom to give him a more secure feeling?

[Linda on the move]

Teacher's generally leave detailed notes for the sub. Request that the regular teacher add this to her notes. She's the one dropping the ball.

If your son hasn't had a eval, I suggest you get the ball rolling on one. It will allow the teacher to tell subs that your son is on the high functioning end of the spectrum (or whatever the DX ends up being). Labels are helpful when they provide for better communication.

[LaughingHyena]

I'm hoping we're coming to the end of the evaluation soon, we're supposed to have an appointment with the pead sometime in March and we expect to get a diagnosis then. There were still a few things they wanted to rule out last time we saw them. We are on waiting lists for ST and OT which again will hopefully mean we get to talk to them soon.

School wise his teachers are aware of what's happening and are pretty good at working with him, it's just when they are off we have problems. Anyway for now we have his gender in the register so at least the subs shouldn't get that confused. Parents evening and IEP meetings are next week so we'll bring it up again then.