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Notes on a naughty boy
Sometimes you spot that child being carried into class kicking his mum, you try not to get eye contact because you don’t know what to say.
You are praying that your child stays away from this boy, because I mean surely that type of behaviour rubs off and
Playdate requests are cleverly steered away from by other parents, ”oh they are so tired after school, we aren’t really doing them at the moment.”
The mum of the naughty boy knows that this isn’t true because she sees all the kids heading off for playdates, and her son isn’t one of them.
”He’s busy isn’t he?” you say to the mum. ”Never stops” she replies.
”You must be exhausted.” someone else says to her.
The mum tries not to cry, she often walks home from school in tears.
The smallest thing may set him off into a meltdown. Sometimes this presents itself as tears but often its anger.
Non-uniform day and in the boys eyes he has the wrong outfit, nothing mums says will make any difference.
Even he doesn’t know what he wants to wear but he’s feeling all squiggly inside and it makes him very anxious.
This means screaming, shouting, running off and door slamming. He finds some things tricky and change is one of them.
Christmas and birthdays are tricky times. The excitement levels are so high that
The mum, flagged her son to the health visitor when he was three.
”He’s different to his peers, nothing ”wrong with him” but his social communication is a little off piste.
He is louder than the other kids at groups, he doesn’t seem to pick up on what’s social acceptable in certain situation. Mum wants to flag it now so that she can try to help him before he starts school.
The health visitor laughs and says, ”he’s
The mum visits the GP, who says there’s nothing they can suggest, the health service is buckling.
Things will need to get really bad until he will be seen by anyone.
The mum doesn’t want to wait until things get really bad. Sadly she has to.
She has to endure a 12 week parenting course to check that she isn’t doing anything wrong, even though she knows that it isn’t her.
She has to resign from her job because she needs to be on standby for meetings at
Things get so bad that he is removed from lessons after getting upset in class, because they are trying to make him sit down and read, yet he can’t read, it makes him so anxious that he occasionally screams.
The specialist who pops in to observe him for 20 minutes says that the boy knows exactly what he’s doing, treat him like the others.
He isn’t the same as the others and, when they don’t give him any allowances things go really wrong.
The mum is very tired, exhausted in fact, she feels isolated from other parents too.
Finally she is heard. The consultant sends out a communication expert to observe him at school.
”He’s a kind boy and funny too. His behaviour is out of his control and he should never be punished for these things. How sad to think that all these years parents and adults have labelled him as naughty. He isn’t.”
The mum cries down the phone, finally she has been validated.
At last, words written down in black and white to tell the world that her bright, funny, energetic, inventor is not naughty.
Just as she knew, he cannot
In time, he will learn some tools to help him but for now he just needs to be enveloped in love.
That kid in the class who appears to be naughty may well be, but perhaps he might not.
The naughty kid is my boy, the naughty kid is not naughty he is overwhelmed.
He is waiting for diagnosis, it is only a label but perhaps one that may help adults accept his differences.
Think twice, the next time you see a naughty boy.
