Expert: Dr. Sharon A. Mitchell - 6/24/2010

Question
On Wednesday I got a phone call about my 14 year-old son, who has Asperger's syndrome, from his headteacher.

He informed me that our son had just been involved in an incident in the science laboratory which resulted in them having to get the fire service out due to an explosion caused by chemicals.

My son is interested in science, but would never mess around with chemicals like that.

However, the principal informed me that he'd seen footage of the incident (the school has CCTV in most classrooms in the science and technology buildings after a smash-and-grab raid there a few years ago), and my son was not in the wrong, but another pupil holding a gun. He told me that, according to my son, another pupil held them at gunpoint and forced them to mix all the chemicals together - in the science club research room - and despite my son initially saying no, the bully forced him and his friend to do it at gunpoint.

Despite the incident, my son is still attending school whilst they work out how to deal with the incident.

Background info on this: My son normally goes to the school's lunchtime "science club" which is usually teacher-assisted, but on that day, no-one was on duty.

My son is getting counselling over it, but finds it too hard to cope with, and as such, is throwing himself even more into his work then he already does - he likes studying, but is now taking it to extremes. He feels guilty for having done this, despite us telling him he had no choice in the matter, and was a victim of bullying.

As a family, what are the best ways to handle this situation, and how should the school/local education authority handle this?
(I'm British, for the record).

thanks, Steve

Answer
What an unfortunate and worrisome incident for your family.

First, you mention that the pupils were held at gunpoint. Is that not a legal matter, rather than just a school issue? Is the student who wielded the gun now in police custody? Will you son and his friends be required to testify?

The involvement of a gun takes this beyond bullying. When threatened with such a weapon, your son made the wise choice to comply. To do otherwise might have had even harsher consequences. Does he understand that his ability to exercise free will was diminished beyond his control because he was threatened with a gun?

You must be appreciative that the headmaster is concerned about your boy. He may have other concerns as well, such as the lack of supervision in a science lab. His other concern will be that a student brought a gun to school. This threatens the safety of everyone in the building.

Even though kids with Asperger's are highly verbal, just because they have great expressive language does not mean that they understand language equally as well. In fact, auditory processing is a frequent weakness. It can be especially difficult to process what is heard when under stress. Counseling is not always a comfortable situation and for your son to dredge up how he felt during the incident may be hard for him. I'm not suggesting that counseling is not useful for him; on the contrary. I think it's a good idea. How the counseling sessions are conducted may be important.

Cognitive behaviour therapy may be an appropriate approach. The counselor would help your son think about the incident in different ways. The sessions may not involve reliving the feelings but instead go over the bodily sensations with questions such as:
- what was your heart beat like during the incident?
- what was your breathing like?
- were your palms sweaty?

Obviously your son did not panic and you should be very proud of him for that. A counseling session might touch on items such as:
- how did you control your breathing?
- what did you say to yourself inside your head?
- what did you do?
- could you have done something worse?
- if you had not complied, what might the outcome have been?
- would that have been worse?
- of everyone involved who is most at fault?
- when did you first notice that something was wrong?
- would you recognize those signs another time?
- how could you be watchful and try to get out of the way?
- who could you go to for help?
- what steps is the school taking to ensure something like this will not happen again?

For a parent, this must all be very frightening. We want to protect our children yet we can't be with them every minute and must let them go out into the world. It sounds like you've done a great job so far with your son. Right now though, you need the school's help. Knowing the school's plan to supervise and protect its pupils and prevent such incidents from being repeated will help our lad feel more secure.

My best wishes in this difficult situation.

Sharon A. Mitchell, B.A., B.Ed., M.A., PhD candidate