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SN children

At a loss as to where to go from here...

6 replies

Glitter1974 · 24/03/2015 23:17

I am new to this so pls bear with me...but I really need other people's opinions and advice on this.. My eldest son was 11 in January. He and his twin were born prematurely at 32 weeks, we lost his brother at 4 days old. My eldest had his right leg amputated the day after he was born because it hadn't developed properly due to medical interventions carried out whilst I was pregnant.

He copes physically pretty well with the use of a prosthesis but hus academic abilities are a worry and his behaviour is very erratic. He has a lot of issues at school due to his behaviour - making silly noises in class, messing about, annoying other children and frequently refusing to work or cooperate with staff. He quite regularly refuses to go into school. His reading age is approximately 7-8 years and although he is ok with maths he finds literacy very difficult.

At home he can vary between being very sweet to an absolute nightmare! Often he will have complete meltdowns over very trivial things. He is quite violent at times towards his brother (8) and is generally mean to him. He thinks nothing of hitting him or kicking him.

Lately he has become more difficult to handle at home and on Sunday had a meltdown over being asked to come in at 6pm from playing out. The situation spiraled and resulted in him kickjng and hitting at me and almost punching me in the face because I was preventing him leaving his room. I ended up holding him until he finally calmed a little and started crying...

I am so worried about him starting high school in September as he is very immature for his age. To make matters worse he is physically very tall and strong so appears older than he is.

I know hormones play a big part at his age but he has been like this most of his life. School seem to do very little support wise and the SENCO is a waste of time.

Ca anyone offer any help at all please!

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blankgaze · 25/03/2015 01:09

I'm not well equipped to advise but didn't want to read and run Flowers

Following on from your first concerns that you posted here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/a1559818-Any-advise-welcome#34035449, have you had him assessed at all? Does he have any diagnoses? If not, I think you need to get the ball rolling as a priority and also look at Ross Greene's site and books to help you understand his behaviour and put some strategies in place to help him.
www.livesinthebalance.org/

Contrary to what everyone will tell you, traditional discipline doesn't work for all dc's, but lots of mums on these boards have found other strategies and different approaches very helpful.

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OneInEight · 25/03/2015 06:30

I definitely think it is worth investigating if there are any underlying causes such as an ASD for the behaviour and/or learning difficulties. The noise makes me think there is some kind of sensory seeking going on. My two do it a lot too and have similar behavioural issues at times (they are diagnosed AS).

The first step would normally be to seek help from the class teacher and SENCO but if they are being uncooperative then you could force the issue by applying for an EHCP plan (formally statements) which should trigger a proper assessment of his difficulties and possibly lead to extra help being put in for him at school. School refusal is often down to anxiety and he needs support for this never mind the fact he is several years behind in his school-work.

The other approach is to go via GP and ask for a referral either to CAMHS or the community paediatrician to see if there is an underlying cause for the difficulties. The school refusal alone never mind the physical violence should mean a referral to CAMHS. If the GP won't do it then the school nurse can also make referrals. We found it helpful to make a list of the issues when we went to our GP and we had an initial appointment without taking the ds's along so we could be open about the problems.

We have found with the ds's that the best way to improve behaviour is to reduce anxiety. Treating the incidents as panic attacks rather than naughtiness really helps us deal with them calmly and not escalate things (well most of the time).

Several of us here have kids with challenging behaviour so keep posting here for advice and sympathy.

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Glitter1974 · 25/03/2015 07:18

I will look at that website too blankglaze
And you ate right regarding discipline... He seems to just resist any type of authority at times....including teachers etc

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Glitter1974 · 31/05/2015 08:12

Well the school nurse was worse than useless.... We are now going down the route of private psychologist in the hope of getting some answers....

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2boysnamedR · 31/05/2015 11:37

Have you looked on ipsea's website? They are very phone to phone but they have a call back service. You need to check everyday as they only release next weeks dates a week ahead. I'd check morning and afternoon everyday for a week and then you should be able to talk to them next week.

Private educational psychologist is good idea but two things to bear in mind - your looking around £1000. It's only valid for a year ( at that point another ep report can trump it).

You need to try to get school on side. What year is he?

You could try these things.

Email senco with your list of concerns. Keep it short, punchy and to the point ie " he is lashing out at home hitting us parents and causing physical hard to younger sibling on a regular basis" "school refusal"

Then print it off and tell the school you want the head and deputy head to see it and have a meeting with them.

If they refuse ( they shouldn't) you take the letter to your gp. Tell them if the senco, nurse and head refused. Therefore it's a medical issue. Ask to see a development peadiatrition or camhs. You might hit brick walls but one route might work.

Keep us updated.

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senvet · 31/05/2015 18:00

Just to say, good luck Glitter - and it does sound all very familiar to the problems many posters on these boards encounter.

Secondary School is a big step up, with a lot more noise and complexity, so I would get everything moving as soon as possible - request EHCP, request OT ans SALT assessments via GP, and see if you can get GP to go with a paed appointment.

If you can afford indie expert reports, that is great. One word of caution though - a clinical psychologist is not accepted as being able to say what school, or what educational provision a child needs. An Ed Psych can.

And Ed Psych can also diagnose eg dyslexia, an OT can diagnose sensory processing difficulties and any dyspraxic type issues. SALTs are great if social communication and language are different from the mainstream.

Hope this helps

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