Another rotten day at school

[streakybacon]

Ds has had another shitty day at school yesterday. He's still too upset and confused to talk about it so I'm not sure exactly what happened, but it seems to have stemmed from a piece of preparation homework he didn't do and claims he didn't have. Consequently when it came to doing the actual work in class he didn't have anything to work from so he got in a panic and very stressed. He'd apparently been bouncing all day and getting into all sorts of stressy messes. He's broken yet another pair of glasses in temper - I think that's about six pairs in as many months.

The work was about writing an autobiography and ds couldn't face the questions about happiest and saddest memories - his recall is crap and he wouldn't want to face unhappy stuff anyway. Not a particularly autism-friendly piece of work.

He's never lied about having work before. Always brings it home then tries to avoid doing it if it's too stressful. There was no note in his diary about it either. Often you can have detailed conversations with ds then ten minutes later he can't remember it taking place, and I think that might have happened here with homework discussion in class.

At one point his sensory sensitivity had increased to the point where he climbed up the wall to remove the clock batteries, as the ticking was annoying him. The stand-in teacher (PPA cover) had never heard of this and the Head and I had to explain the link to autism, but the teacher was baffled. Makes me question the level of awareness at classroom level

Ds was really distressed and anxious all evening. Tried a few times to talk to me about his day but couldn't put it in the right order and kept getting upset and angry about it, so I still don't know. Plus he's worried because he's now got three pieces of homework to do this weekend instead of two, but at the same time he really wants to catch up with his classmates so somehow I've got to find a way for him to do it. It's going to be a rotten weekend

[TotalChaos]

not got any useful knowledge or experience to chip, but I hope DS (and by extension you!) get to relax a bit over the weekend. I think the autobiog idea has been done in an appallingly insensitive way for any kid - as not impossible there's a kid who has suffered some awful trauma or abuse.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Hi streaky

How close are you now to actually applying for the Statement?. You must send the request off pronto!. Your son is being failed by school currently and will continue to be so if there is no proper support structure in place for him.

And why an autobiography as well?. A daunting task for any child, let alone one with your son's additional needs.

[Seuss]

Sorry he had another rough day. Does he have any kind of Time-out system/place? Was reading another thread referring to Time-out card and my ds has just started similar - might save him getting to the point of having to remove clock-batteries. I think if it was me, in this instance, I'd be inlcined to 'help' a bit more than usual with the autobiography homework - get it out of the way and move on. Hope you can fit it all in.

[oops]

Message withdrawn

[streakybacon]

Thanks all.

I should emphasise, this school is supposedly autism aware, as it has a mainstream support base on site so they should know what they're doing. The Head is also SENCo and is excellent, very aware, as is the base teacher, but ds is fully in mainstream so I'm not sure how aware the regular teachers are. The Head has been very helpful and is involved immediately when ds loses control, but you're right, there doesn't seem to be anything pre-emptive going on and he's being allowed to sink before he's given support. It's crisis management rather than proactivity.

We have an excellent autism liaison and she's going in to school on Monday to observe lessons and advise if necessary, is also going to do some 1-1 work with ds on self management. Even so, I do think he needs support on a daily basis because it's unrealistic to expect him to manage by himself, especially as he's still in crisis following the exclusion incident three weeks ago.

Attila, I haven't got much more done on the statement - had a rough week both with ds and my mum, there are only so many hours in the day (sigh). I'm worn out tbh. But you're right, I will see my Parent Partnership woman asap and go over what I've done so far, stick an addendum on the front saying how things have deteriorated lately (seriously don't have time to go through it all and edit it!) and will send off as soon as I can. And STILL waiting for the urgent psych referral for meds trial - three weeks later.

Oops, yes it is a new class and you're right, the teacher doesn't understand him at all. I've tried talking to her but she talks over the top of me, treats me like a bit of an idiot who hasn't noticed her child's problems, and most definitely treats him as 'normal' but undisciplined (sigh again). She has high expectations which he will never be able to meet. He's never had a TA, ever - in the past he's coped well in the classroom but struggled with unstructured times like breaks, but now the work is getting more challenging he's struggling there too.

Back to the grind, I have an autobiography to write!!

[streakybacon]

Just thought I'd let you know how it went yesterday. It actually turned out to be a good day. Ds was calm and very willing to work and with a calm environment, planned structure, rest breaks and rewards he did really well. I let him type the autobiography rather than hand-write it and he did loads (it was really quite good!). I?d been worried about the ?saddest memory? because I know how hard he finds it to look back at unhappy times, but he just wrote that he didn?t like talking about these things so he wasn?t going to. He and I were both proud of him and he was beaming. He even had an independence success ? went on his own to the newsagent for my paper on his way to guitar lesson, then went back in the afternoon for Dr Who cards. He was bursting with pride when he got back (me too!).

We're going swimming this morning as a treat for his hard work

Definitely going to work on the statement on Monday and get it in by the end of the week if I can, barring further crises .

Thanks for your support.

[Seuss]

Great news. Hopefully he is all set up for a better week at school now too! Good luck.

[TotalChaos]

glad yesterday want well. shows what can be done when an environment is aspie friendly, hope the school takes note..... And well done to him for the way he handled the bad memory question. I'm still aghast that they asked that question.

[unfitmother]

Good to hear that.

[Kazann]

Hi i am new to mumnet I have a daughter who is nearly 7 she has just gone back into mainstream school after a year in a nurture unit she is really struggling in a big class and doesnt stay in the classroom at all some days she has just been statemented 15 hours a week with social and communication problems but we are thinking of getting her tested for autism as she is very sensory and gets very frusrated with things i know exactly where you are coming from it is mentally tiring with good and bad days and you never know what is going to happen next.