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I've written before about having duty on the primary playground. I teach intermediate grades for a reason, and I teach a younger grade than I actually want to. Anyway, I'll just say that I salute K-2 teachers because it is a wild world over on the "little kid" playground.

I got into a situation with one of the kids on the primary playground about two weeks ago.

One of the rules for the primary playground is that the kids can't go up on the hill at the far end of the field. I spend every Thursday morning telling kids to get off that hill--it's awesome.

One kindergartner was on the hill and I motioned for him to get down. He looked right at me and walked on up the hill. I went over to him and told him with my authoritative voice to "come down immediately." He looked at me and walked away. I said, "hey come here, now." Then he starts running away from me. By then, my blood was boiling and I was trying to catch up with him just so I could get his name and give him a behavior write-up. Then, the bell rings, and he goes running up to HIS MOM.

"Is this your son?" I asked her.

"Yes," she answered, "I was watching to see if he would respond to you." I really don't know how to answer a parent being this ridiculous.

"I told him to come down from the hill, and he ran away from me."

"He doesn't know what he is doing?" she informed me. "He has autism."

"Well, this sort of behavior is an automatic write up," I said, "I am not familiar with his IEP, but I will pass this information on to his teacher and she can decide how to handle it."

While I was talking to his teacher, the mom is standing there with her arms crossed because clearly I am ignorant of what it means to be autistic. Long story short: the kid did not get written up.

I saw mother and son out there breaking the playground rules again today. It just makes my blood boil. I am no expert in autism, but I know when a kid looks at me and decides to the exact opposite of what I say.

There is no way I am taking this kid and his mom when he is in the intermediate grades. I will require him to follow directions whether it is difficult or not.