I just had a conversation with the teacher last week, and she says he needs to be more assertive... to "toughen up." At home, he is definitely very demanding and loud about his needs/wants to it's hard to work with him on it at home.

I guess today one of the kids said he wasn't his friend anymore, and he SPAT on him! OMG! I asked Matthew where he even got the idea to do that-- since nobody here spits at all, period-- he's never seen anyone on tv, commercials, etc, spit on a person, and he said that someone else in the class does that when they get upset, so he decided to do it!! I am totally mortified. It makes me mad that he learned this behavior at school, but of course it's still on Matthew to make good choices and he definitely knows better than to spit on someone!!! OMG!

I would have been upset too but hey at least you know he will take up for himself. I'm sure he won't do it again.

Kids do learn from their classmates, and not usually anything good.

I bet he never would have thought to spit on his brothers or even this friend if he was at home, but at school it seemed to him to be acceptable (if that makes sense).

Does the other boy get punished when/if he does it in class? Maybe Matthew just never saw the kid be punished/reprimanded for it and thought that it was acceptable in that situation?

I'm sure he learned from this for sure. I worry all the time about what Milo thinks is okay to do when his friends are all doing it. He knows better, but sometimes gets caught up in the moment.

Oh crap, he did it again today. This time, to the same kid who "taught" him how. He is missing movie time right now and spending it upstairs.
We are acquaintences with the mother of the boy Matthew spat on yesterday. Dh apologized profusely and she said she thinks this other boy is just a bad influence. I am beside myself about it, mainly because I don't want him going to kindergarten next year thinking he can spit on people!

Hopefully this does the trick. He brought home the word "stupid" from school last year, and after 9 months of him calling us stupid, 2 occasions of 1 squirt of soap in the mouth fixed that problem within a week. I hated to do it, because I *thought* I didn't believe in it. However, I realized that the reason he wasn't using worse words was just because he simply hasn't heard them yet. To him, "stupid" is a swear word, so if he would feel ok using it, I needed to put a stop to that for sure.

Oh, and I don't know about the consequences. I know that both times they have just told Matthew "dont do that," which I don't think is enough-- he should have at least had a time out, if not worse.
The other child is an atypical child brought up from EI, so there isn't a whole lot they can do, since he has a behavior goal on his IEP. While I understand that the school is designed to help children with disabilities, all these new behaviors he sees are irritating.