He says he has to do it the way he does it and whose business is it anyway?
It seems to me there are possibly three choices (maybe more that you can think of).
1. Get some occupational therapy and see if there are other options for helping him with these tasks. The purpose of this isn't just to please other people, but to make his life easier so he's less tired and he has more options available to him. While right now he may not care, someday when he is on a date or whatever he may wish that he had another way to use his knife.
2. Do nothing and internalize the negative comments from other people and feel bad about them.
3. Do nothing and reject other people as judgmental for hurting him.
4. Learn healthier ways to deal with feelings.
If the only choices are two and three, well then yes three is a better choice. It is probably better to feel bad about other people than to feel bad about yourself. But, that isn't without cost. Feeling so negative and dismissive about other people damages relationships and really promotes feelings of anxiety and rejection. That's not very healthy.
So, it seems to me the better choice would to see if there is any possibility of progress in occupational therapy. I suspect he could learn a few things that likely might help a lot. Just like he learned piano and just like he's learned to type. And, I'd consider some work with a psychologist to get more comfortable with living with disabilities.
If more teachers would let him use his iPhone for taking notes and answering essay questions and let him leave the class to take pain meds when he needs them or stretch to relieve the pain from the scoliosis, I would feel better about putting him in more classes.
I thought he just took one class last year and the teacher let him use his iPhone once he asked to. Has he taken many other co-op classes and had these accommodations refused? My memory was that he didn't want to ask for accommodations and didn't want to draw attention to what he needs. That is exactly why I think he needs to do this at his point in his life because learning self advocacy is a huge part of learning to live with disabilities.
I just don't think it would be that it could be this difficult to get his needs met. Our child just carries a pill in his pocket and has a water bottle and discretely takes meds when he needs to. It is hard for me to imagine if he set up a time to talk with the teacher and explained the exact accommodations he needs for stretching that he would be refused. How often are these classes and how long do they run?
