Parenting Dilemma, update

Following my previous post, Archer and I talked.  He raised a few points that had not occurred to me.  First, Bear has recently begun saying, "Don't hit me" when we've reprimanded him for misbehaving or (and particularly) being too loud.  Second, he has also said, "I don't want to play with K" and "I don't like K."  In fact, Archer told me that he's overheard a number of the children in Bear's class make similar statements in the past few weeks.  That one bothered me a lot.  You see, we can figure out how to explain to Bear that K is different, and that just because K hits doesn't mean that it is alright for Bear to hit.  It will likely take some time for Bear to understand, but I think he will get it after a few weeks.  I do not, however, want Bear to dislike K over behavior that, ultimately, K doesn't have much control over.  I want him to be empathetic and sympathetic.  Ultimately, we decided to speak with the director of the center to get her feedback regarding both the protocol for dealing with a child who has special needs and their plan for explaining the situation to the other children.

The conversation was, I'm happy to report, fruitful and informative.  The director confirmed that K is autism, although he is fairly high functioning.  Bear's teacher had already reported to incident to the director, so she was prepared for Archer and I to stop by.  She told us that the biggest challenge has been getting K diagnosed.  He displayed symptoms of autism at a fairly young age, around 9 months or so, but his parents (K is Asian) are fairly recent immigrants to Canada and do not come from a culture that is very accepting of such disabilities.  Now that he has been diagnosed, the parents have become much more willing to initiate meetings, to meet with specialists, and to develop action plans.  She explained the protocol for dealing with K's anger, which is much the same for dealing with any child who hits another child; the teachers remove K from the action and redirect him.  They have also employed a full-time aid who is generally always with K; unfortunately, this particular morning she had a doctor's appointment and didn't get there until after K had hit Bear.  When I described what happened, the director said she actually thinks K was responding to Bear's cries; like many autistic children, K doesn't like loud noises, so he hit Bear in an attempt to say, "That noise hurts my ears.  Please stop."  I buy that, and I even accept that.  As for explaining the situation to the other children, the teachers have begun reading more books about differences and how it is okay that everyone is different.  Unfortunately, there are very few books on the market about children with autism and their interactions with children who aren't autistic.  I know--I looked.  Overall, I feel relieved with the conversation, and I'm glad to know the center is being proactive in the approach to K.

As for us, we've continued reminding Bear that hitting is not okay, and we've even explained to Wild Man to be a bit more gentle when they wrestle.  We've also started talking about why sometimes there are different rules for different children.  We'll keep at it, and I hope that Bear will start playing with K, at least sometimes.