Feeling a little alone and would appreciate advice/ reasurance/ hearing other peoples experiences...

[flirty30]

Well here goes, my s (6) has been given the label of (and I groan!) 'Complex needs relating to his emotional beahioural difficulties'. It sounds so awful. My gorgeous little boy who is fun, enthusiastic, caring, honest, bright and adventurous is not doing well at school. He is disruptive in class, rude to teachers, refuses to do work and often hurts other children. Of course I do not condone this. In fact after struggling with a very old fashioned small school ( to put it politely) we entered in to a managed move with another school- a really inclusive and encouraging one. It ended yesterday afetr 3 weeks and 4 days and now, being not prepared to send my s backwards, he is school less. He does attend a (nurture group) behaviour unit 4 afternoons a week, which he loves but my head is all over the place. Has anyone been through this?

We had to tell my s this am that it was his last day at school. My heart was breaking, looking at his disappointed face- even though we told him it was because we thought we could find a better school- we didn't mention his behaviour.

He has not got a statement yet.. we have been advised to wait while we sort a school out first so the new school isn't over loaded with paperwork. He has a resourced IEP and I have just had him referred this week to CAMHS (Child and Adolesent Mental Health Service) for any other advice/ diagnosis that we may of missed.

I am open to answer any questions if I have missed something which may help a reply.... thank you.

[fearnelinen]

Oh how awful that you've both had to go through this. Is there some kind of parent partnership, advocacy unit that can help you - they often have a much better overview of every service available? I can't offer any experience, just didn't want to leave this unanswered. Hope you are able to sort something out and that your DS is smiling again soon.

[flirty30]

Hi all.

He doesn't display half of the things he does at school at home. He can push boundaries at home, he has lots of energy and sometimes need asking again and again to complete a task eg tidy up toys. To me though, at home, he is just my s. And we have firm boundaries which he responds well to. At school he kicks other children under the table to stop them doing their work, he cuddles kids without their permission and he gets carried away and the hug turns to a squeeze. He has told the teacher to shut up. He even poked a dinner lady one day at his old school and got sent home- it turns out a boy next to him had been winding him up but my s was never given a chance to explain his frustratons so he hit out.

As a parent I am a paranoid wreck- I hate the playground! When I was at my worst point with the old head bringing my s out of school from a seperate exit and earlier to the other kids to talk to me in front of the other parents I had to take my husband or mother in law with me to pick him up. I then thought I can't go on like this so I joined the pta and at my first meeting accidentally got voted the chair. I organised lots of fundraising to try and compensate for the pressures my child was putting on the school. But then the xmas pantomine trip happened.. that is another awful story.. but to cut it short I stepped down because I had conficted interests so to speak.

The placement ended at the mid way meeting. The head said that my s has basically been taking up one persons time and they don't have the resources, they said he can't cope with a full class environment and needs a nurture group setting where he can dip in to a class for the things they think he can cope with eg story time then build it up gradually. This meeting was on Thursday and they said that they would keep him til the week after half term but we said what was the point in him going back after half term as it would just confuse him, prolong the agony and actually we thought half termj may be a distraction.

There aren't any parent support groups in my area for this type of thing, I have a friend who works for Barnados and I sometimes off load on her- I am tempted to set one up! Although I have been actively finding other things for him to join- I found a 'Happy to be me' 6 week programme about building childrens self-esteem through puppets and circle time. I think he will love this.

Thanks again for any replies!

[Chundle]

Ok to be honest your ds doesn't sound to bad to me!! He poked a dinner lady and told a teacher to shut up. My dd has done similar (she has ADHD and is 7) and has never been sent home from school. Im not saying your son doesnt have any issuesim just saying the schools must be pretty poor if they cant deal with a child hitting and name calling etc. I do hope you find him a good school the poor little mite :( have you tried posting on the special needs board they may have some good ideas for you. Good luck xx

[flirty30]

Hi I reposted on that board and they are giving me loads of ideas- thank you for your reply and reassurance x