Hi I am mum to DS 3.1. Consultant thinks he is on the Autistic Spectrum and has ADHD- I agree but although he has written to pre-school to say he should be treated as if he has a diagnosis he hasn't officially been diagnosed.
I am a single mum and he doesn't see his dad any more who is a bully- police and solicitor etc were involved.
I am at my wits end with him. I adore him but I'm struggling to cope. He is literally on the go from minute he gets up to min he falls asleep. Right now he's kicking he bedroom walls. He constantly climbs, is violent to me- headbutts, kicks, hits, slaps and laughs as he does so. I try hard to take him to nice places but he seems to ruin it e.g running off, screaming. When I take him to soft play he just wants to take the ride on toys up into the soft play bit eg ball pits, up slides etc which obviously isnt allowed but I just cant get it into him not to. He runs all round place crashing into peeople etc..
I don't seem to get a minutes peace. By the time he is asleep i'm too knackered to do anything. There's no one to really have him if I want a break as my parents are quite elderly and not in good health. He is at nursery when I'm at work and they wanted 1:1 but there's no funding in LEA.
I am so low and tired that I often wish I could go to sleep and never wake up.
Consultant asked health visitor to refer me for Webster Stratton parenting course but there are none in area.
Does anyone have any day to day survival tips or advice please? I am at my wits end. I am sick of it all. Whenever we do go anywhere I feel stressed by him and am fed up of people having a go at me/him because of his behaviour. I do love DS to bits just don't like his behaviour at times but realise he can't really help it.
Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on special needs.
SN children
Any advice from ASD/ADHD mums please
tiredmummyneedswineandsleep · 16/09/2010 19:51
DD1 has a brain malformation, which gives her ADHD traits (and some ASD ones) but she has no official diagnosis of it.
Things that have helped us:
-Melatonin liquid for sleep - we know that no matter how hard she has been in the day, she WILL be asleep by 7pm, so we will have at least the evening with her asleep, and then the night seems easier.
-We have stair gates everywhere (kitchen, porch, top and bottom of stairs, her bedroom) so she can't get access to dangerous places easily.
-We have bolts on our bedroom door, her bedroom door and her younger sister's bedroom door, so that when the homestart lady comes, if she takes her to the bathroom DD1 can't escape into a bedroom and wreck it.
-We have an electromagnetic door lock on our internal front door so that she can't escape the house, because she can climb over the stair gate in the porch if she gets something to climb on, and we are near a main road.
-We have acrylic glass sheeting lining our bannisters so that she can't climb the bannisters (she has no sense of danger and ataxia, so loses balance easily), and a hardboard sheet lining the bottom stair gate on the stairs, so that she can't use it to 'vault' her leg over the bannister from there.
-We have no plants, ornaments, or any other trinkets at a low level.
-We mount shelving very high up on the wall, so that she can't reach anything (this isn't working so well since a growth spurt and realising she can climb on a chair onto a table.... you get the drift).
-We have to give her constant supervision and can't allow her to play in her bedroom because she is likely to injure herself 
sorry, that won't be what you want to hear.
-We adapt. For example, when we see the paed consultant, we walk into his office, and lock the door behind us 
.
Sympathies. It is such hard work. No matter how much you think you have it covered, they discover something new, reach a bit higher, it is simply exhausting.
RE. the 1:1, that is frankly rubbish - name your LEA and I will find you a document that proves it - almost every LEA will have some mechanism for releasing funding at Early Years Action Plus - you are being spun a yarn.
Wine and sleep work well, though the first one only in moderation for me!
Going out and about with DS1 at that age, I always used a harness with him because he was so unpredictable. We did keep our actual outings simple and have, over the years, trained him to cope well with certain places. Even now, at almost 7, we pay for it when we go anywhere new, even though he's verbal and can be primed.
Try to keep interactions with him at as low an arousal level as possible. That is easier said than done, but I find that days when I'm rattled just get worse and worse because we're firing off each other. Of course, along with the calm, you need to be consistent. Far more so than with a NT child.
As far as nursery is concerned, you need to apply for statutory assessment for a statement for him. Tough shit to the LEA if someone's claiming there's no funding. He has a right to an education and if his needs can't be met without 1:1 and other support, then they need to stump up for it. There's plenty of people here far more experienced than I am with stubborn LEAs who won't cough up. I'm sure they'll be here soon.
It's not usually the done thing on MN, but [hugs] anyhow. I'd also offer 
and 
but we're all out of that 
.
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