Gelieve te adviseren op cluster 4 school in Utrecht
Hallo allemaal 
My name is Elen, I live in Utrecht. First, let me apologize for using English, mijn Nederlands is niet zo goed 
I hope it is not a problem.
I really need some help, some information - just pointing to the right direction. I apologize for a long post, thank you for reading it.
I have a son, he will be 5 in january. He is intelligent (IQ 130), gentle, warm and curious, but he has some difficulties and features that would probably fit him to the spectrum (a psychiatrist who examined him said PDD-NOS, but he doesn't actually have a diagnosis).
We moved (as high skilled experts) to NL 2 years ago, and his Dutch is still 'low' - he has a language problem (as a consequence of communication problem) , and because of his communication and socialization problem, he ended in cluster 2 school (before that we tried a regular school, but they kicked him out and ruined him, closing him in a room alone, ignoring him and setting bad patterns).
Now, what's the problem! After only month and a half (20 days in school in total), cluster 2 school yesterday told me that he is too complex for them and they can't make OPP for him (???) and he should go to cluster 4 school.
He is bored in this class, they do things he did when he was 2 (learning letters and stuff), and he can't and refuses to connect to his peers (but he adores older children :-/) - so, he irritates other children, because he doesn't know how to communicate with them - he would push them, or grab their toys, and the teachers say he is a danger to other children and he has a behavioral problem (???), they just say they can't give him enough cognitive challenge and structure (he does need a lot of structure) so he should go to cluster 4 school.
To cut the long story short and not burden you with details, I have little time to find a good school with competent and responsible staff in the area of Utrecht. A school that will not kick him out without getting to know him (he just need to attach to someone, to feel safe).
The school proposed Berg en Bosch, but I heard good stuff about Leersum School in Zeist...
Does someone have (or had) a similar experience or a similar child and experience in one of these schools?
Thank you very much for reading all this in English, and for your help.
Groetjes to all,
Elen
take parents seriously
Your own explanation of the vanity of your son, and how you can adress this will help your son, you find the solutions in your lifestory that helped you and recognize this in your son.
This is exactly the reason why caregivers have to check with parents and leave the definition with parents. If your solution appears not to help your son as it does help you, it is early enough to adress this as a problem. It should not be defined by the caregivers. It is a cooperation. But in the current tense positions it is to much to ask sometimes.
Kids inherit the personality and tics of parents. So parents are the first to recognize and offer their kid their solutions. Even if it is an autistic parent like the father of my children. Some of his advice turned out to be perfectly adequate becaus he lived it first.
robot-like behavior
Oh, Anne, I'm totally with you regarding this fake behavior I must embrace... I am temperamental, myself, so it doesn't help. My emotions are clear and present Good thing is, I am tough, self confident and convincing, so people don't use it against me, even if I'm scary or raise a voice 
I cry, too :-/
But, when needed, I go into this robot-phase that looks something like deep cynicism show ) It works, they can't win
And you are right about sensing the details of our children's behavior, this instinct and experience, in your case, is precious.
Hallo Evanlyn, I'm glad that you agree with counseling, too. )) It gives me hope. And good for you, you didn't budge... ah this lovely democratic country ... En garde!
Reward
In my neighbourhood a fine example why you should not focus on reward. The kid is autistic and since the parents have raised her with punishment and reward half of the time she has no clue why some actions are adviseble. So she lacks the internal motivation and practical knowledge and in puberty that is a huge handicap. Now she has to develop text and motives for all sorts of actions, hence she has become completely passive and feels manipulated all her life and has no sense of identity.
At some point rewards are no longer effective to make her do what she needs to do becaus of this lack of internal motivation and knowledge of the ever more complex situations in puberty, situations she could only handle at a younger age becaus they were still manageable to her by theorizing and putting things together in a stressfull mindsearching of past experiences and examples. She just don't know what to do now and gave up and does not trust adults anymore to help her out. She is still in the reflex of puzzling in her head, but without a realistic perspective that is tested in real life. To avoid comment on her lack of skills she comments on situaties on the tele, like robots on starships: 'what I should do' to make herself look competent in everybodies eyes and keep her mind sort of productive to work on solutions. But real life situations scare her becaus she feels only stress and anxiety coming up for having to produce answers no one seem to want to help her with.
It would have been so much easier if she had been helped with concrete examples and explaining words and one on one concrete help in adjusting and learning instead of having to invent herself over and over becaus of the reward given. Imagine that in daily life you have this daily situations of having to do something that keeps you on your toes all the time and eats your energy and brainpower daily till you just have to give up.
Reward
Yes, I agree. I also talk about internal motivation a lot...
It is so sobering when you can see how some paths can lead to such a big disbalance and suffering.
