When Behaviour Is Misunderstood

I'm writing a report about a 4 year old autistic boy I saw a couple of weeks ago. We had discussed that he was being completely misunderstood by his mainstream school but reading the reports and the behavior logs is making

me feel really angry. Harry is a four-year-old boy who started school in September. He is autistic, with high sensory sensitivities. School is too noisy. Too crowded. Too unpredictable. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. So — he bites. He hits. He kicks. He spits. He’s not being “naughty”. He’s trying to survive. His world at school feels overwhelming. The lights are bright. Chairs scrape. Voices echo. Children rush past him in a blur. His brain can’t filter or prioritise — everything comes in at once. And because he experiences the world through monotropism — that intense, focused way of thinking and feeling — sudden transitions feel unbearable. When he’s deeply immersed in one activity, being told to stop and move to another is like being yanked out of a warm bath into a snowstorm. His body reacts before his words can form. That’s not defiance — it’s distress. Yet adults might say, “He needs to make good choices.” Or, “He has to apologise for hurting people.” But how can he “make good choices” when his nervous system is in survival mode? When he’s overloaded, confused, and scared? Expecting logical reflection from a dysregulated child is not fair — it’s like asking someone to swim while they’re drowning. Hs behaviour is a nueral response, not under hos cognitive control. He doesn’t need consequences. He needs connection. He doesn’t need a lecture. He needs safety, understanding, and co-regulation. When we start from compassion — when we understand why behaviour happens — we stop seeing a “problem child” and start seeing a child with problems he cannot yet express.