The first thing I would say is try to talk to the teacher in person.
I did this, and she definitely thinks that, overall, things are getting worse for him emotionally and socially. We have had a pretty rough weekend with him as well, as a matter of fact, so maybe she's on to something with the medication thing. I'm just not sure medication is the answer for any of this emotional stuff, at least not a stimulant ADHD med.
This may be a naive and simplistic suggestion, but have you tried incentives for good behavior at school?
Actually, we use a star chart (iPhone version) to earn stars for certain responsibilities and behaviors. It works quite well for everything EXCEPT the emotional outbursts. In fact, when we tried to tie specifically to a reward system, the meltdowns became more frequent and more severe because he was putting so much pressure on himself. We do have a "behavior" listed on his chart that says, "Managing Frustration Positively". Anytime he feels like he wants to melt down and stops himself from going into full breakdown mode, we give him stars and praise him A LOT. Even if he comes home from school and tells me about an incident where this happened (even if no else observed it) we give him stars because he's extremely honest that way. Once we tried rewarding him for having "no meltdowns" at school on a daily basis, and that was just too much pressure. During that week, he had many, many more outbursts that usual. It seems to be something he simply can not control, no matter how badly he would like to be able to.
Please talk to the teacher now or when you get a basic game plan/response set in your mind.
On Friday, I asked to have a meeting sometime in the next couple of weeks, and they scheduled it for MONDAY! The administrator, school psychologist, and teacher will be in the meeting. I'm trying to feel positive and hope that they are going to be supportive and help us problem solve, but I'm afraid that they'll also be giving us a time frame to get this under control. If that happens, I could see my dh wanting to pull him immediately. I think that would not be a good thing for ds, because he loves the school. He needs to, at least, finish the school year, in my opinion. Otherwise, his self esteem is REALLY going to plummet.
Thanks for responding and for sharing your thoughts.
