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Our NP made a recommendation that DS has a "safe person" at school. This recommendation wasn't implemented (of course). Is that something your school people talk about?

Yup on the approach being so important to gain compliance. DS here can look like a doorstop (or worse) if I try to get all authoritarian with him. Angry voice? Forget about it...he hears "anger" when it's actually much milder (frustration, annoyance). Interestingly, he also uses "anger" to describe any confusing emotion of his own...


I'll let you reach your own conclusions. I have always found it interesting that institutions that (supposedly) value knowledge seem to be just about the last to implement it. It would be very easy to supply the school with a mountain of research that punishment just doesn't work for any child, long term. I'm not suggesting that, btw. You have more important things to do.

No one brought this up but I had thought about it - a staff member who DS could view as a reliable "buddy" and sounding board. It would be a nice solution, but I don't see anyone that I know of at the school taking on such a role.

Your DS and mine are cut from the same cloth. Mine has trouble discerning excitement vs. anger. Sometimes I've been excited about something and spoken to him in a loud voice, and he's concluded that I was angry. It is the weirdest thing. I put it down to my growing up in a loud, obnoxious New York family. I'm still getting used to the relatively laid back midwest.

A friend's child was supposed to be able to ask for the assistant principal when overwhelmed. It worked when the adult in the situation allowed it but often his twin brother had to make it happen. It needs buy in or the teacher gets angry about it.