Year 8 (nearly 13 yo) dd won't walk to school alone

[deliveredby]

I know this in in aibu but I need the traffic. I'm at a loss, I'm currently walking part way until it's a busy area just up road from school and leaving house early so hardly anyone sees.

It's a 1.12 mile walk.
There is a bus but she has panic attacks over having to speak to the driver and getting off and it's often late so she panics it won't come.
I have tried sending her and she was a mess. :(

She has Dyspraxia and processing issues and I'm wondering if aspergers too.

There's no one she can walk with.

I'm just worried what would happen if my work hours change and I can't take her.
Has anyone been in the same situation.

Do any of the bus apps cover your area? They give a waiting time for the next few buses and are usually accurate. If she knew it was x more minutes would it help?

Otherwise as above listen to music or a podcast while walking.

I'd go to CAMHS and see if they can work with her on her anxiety. In the meantime, you could try doing some mindfulness exercises with her to see if those help - we use Smiling Mind (recommended by DS's clinical psychologist).

And I would take the bus out of the equation for the timebeing and walk with her. You could gradually start walking one pace behind her, then 5, then 10 and so on. Then start reducing the distance you walk. I think going slowly is probably the key.

If you have a child with a disability, you have the right to flexible working until they're 18 incidentally.

Some children with dyspraxia have co-morbid conditions Rhoda. My DS has had terrible mental health issues as a direct result of his condition

Kids these days are moly coddled I think. They need to be doing more for themselves younger. My 5 and 6 year old walk to school with their wee pals, it's normal here. By 12 they are in High school and getting a service bus 8 miles into town to get there. Just stop going. Tell her to stop being a baby and you can't hold her hand forever

Wow sproke you seem to have an in-depth understanding of different special needs conditions as well as a wealth of empathy for the diversity of the human condition.

Wow stop being a baby this girl has enough going on without her mum her support to telling her to get a grip. And i dont know where you live but most schools expect infants to be dropped off at school until they are at least 7

sproke Did you bother to read anything on the thread?

I'm not exactly sure what dysplasia is but... one day given her age quite soon she is going to have to learn to do things independently. The op said she has been walking her part of the way. I just think walking to school would be a massive start in helping that along the way. I dont really understand how the English system works either but here you go to your catchment school or the Catholic school and everyone goes to the same school at primary then filter on into high schools in the town. The Catholic kids get a school bus and the rest get a service bus. Surely there must be someone near she could walk with? Maybe make some new friends on the way?

Its a co ordination and neurologicalprocessing disorder with many different symptoms the op dd is disabled and cant manage by herself yet

DS(20) has issues like this. He has dyslexia and social anxiety. He also had a terrible experience some years ago where he was put on a train, alone, at age 13 with all his belongings and sent 250 miles to live with an uncle because his birth mum didn't want him any more. He had no phone, no itinerary, nothing but his ticket and his uncle's number written on a piece of paper. Nobody to meet him at other end. He had to knock on a stranger's door and ask to use their phone. His uncle didn't even know he was coming.

Unsurprisingly, it's given him some phobias around travelling alone. After he came to live with me at 15, we came up with some strategies to help him. When he had to make a new journey on the bus, I would go with him and do a "trial run" so he knew what landmarks to look out for to get off, etc. We would write down which bus number he could get. I got him a smartphone so he could use Google maps which is really helpful for using their public transport directions thing. Also if he did get lost he knew he could just open Maps and tell me what road he was on, and I could direct him back onto the right route.

It was always cheaper for him to get a day ticket, so no worries about fare costs as they were always the same. This also meant he could use his ticket on a different bus number if necessary.

He now lives away from home and still has a problem catching buses if he hasn't gone on that route before. However he does do it as long as he can sort of "dry run" it with me before. We will get on the phone and I'll look up the bus stop for him on Google maps and tell him "It's outside the Co-op" or whatever.

What I would probably do is a week or so of catching the bus with her. Firstly you going on and getting both your tickets. Then going to both of you getting your tickets separately. Then finally to her getting on before you and sorting herself out, then you getting on after and sitting separately. (If you're very rural and there isn't anyone else at the stop then there might only be two stages to this!)

When she says she "feels lonely" I wonder if she means that if she starts to feel anxious there is nobody to reassure her? If that's the case then some self-soothing techniques could help massively. CAMHS can help with this. I would push to get someone to work one on one with her because this is going to significantly impact her day to day life and restrict her activities if she can't get a handle on it.

You didn't mention whether she has problems coming home. Is she the same way or is she less anxious? Is the underlying fear that of being late and getting in trouble?

Good luck

Sproketmx "I'm not exactly sure what dysplasia is but." and I dont really understand how the English system works either" - maybe it might have been an idea not to comment in such a caustic fashion on the thread then? Given that you know nothing about what is going on?

I think music might help if she can listen to it while she walks? But you could ask at school if there is a counsellor she could talk to? At my school we had a trained counsellor who could support with this type of thing without the need for referral elsewhere ( though that might help later). She may not want to tell anyone but you could try

CheerfulYank
I don't know what I'm doing at all, and people might SEE me not know, and it's scary.
I have had problems with this my whole life and never heard anyone explain it so concisely. Thank you.

In my case I know I inherited a lot of it from my mum, who would actually walk out of shops/restaurants/whatever if it wasn't immediately obvious how to order/get served/whatever. Her grin would get more frozen and her grip on my hand would get tighter and tighter and then she'd just whirl around and walk out.

But there was also a large part from primary school, where we were encouraged to laugh at and scorn anyone who didn't know what they were doing. EG the teacher says "after breaktime, come straight back to class and change into your painting shirt and move seats to your partner on your art project" and if you were, god forbid, in the loo or staring out of the window daydreaming about spaceships and missed the instruction, and therefore sat in your normal seat in your normal clothes after breaktime, the teacher would declare " Someone wasn't listening to the instructions!" and literally the rest of the class would point and laugh.

This wasn't even one rogue teacher, at primary it was the "method" for the whole time I was there. And if you dared to go up to the teacher's desk and say "Sorry Sir, I'm not sure, do I need to change into my painting shirt before or after break time?" you would be ridiculed for that too.

My parents always told me that teachers were so soft nowadays as they weren't permitted to beat us any more. (Had recently been banned when I was in primary.) Possibly for the heinous crime of wearing the wrong fucking shirt.

I was riddled with anxiety for pretty much the whole time I was at school. It's really only been in the last few years that I've been able to push myself through my comfort zone and feel okay with asking someone "Haven't been here before - how does this work?" Even so I still have a massive anxiety spike in the 30 seconds lead up to this.

Sorry for hijacking your thread OP

ps

Agree. I can come across as caustic buy it wasny meant in that way. Merely as a how long can this really continue sort of way without the op running herself ragged

Can she take anxiety meds? They have some that are fast acting like klonpin that she could take before leaving. If it's just situational anxiety like that, those might be tremendously helpful.

I had situational anxiety I did that with and after a while of being confident with the pills, it "tricked" my brain into forming the habit of being ok with those types of situations when I didn't take them.

But you could prep and logic all you want, if her brain and body are telling her she's going to die there's not much that's going to convince her otherwise. She might need medication.

Just a thought.

Hope she gets better.

sproketmx I suspect you are the sort of person who would tell a severely depressed person to "pull themselves together".

You clearly have no idea what it is like to have these issues. Don't you think that if the OP's daughter could just do these things for herself she would?

Your lack of empathy and understanding shows astonishing ignorance.

It sounds like some talking therapy like cbt would really help. As long as she wants it too

I am like this as an adult. I have autism. I wasn't so bad as a child going to school but I did have the same panic and loneliness. One of my coping mechanisms was to leave a wee bit later than the crowds, always wear my Walkman (yeah I know I'm old) and be so damned well behaved and good at my work that those 5 mins late at school didn't matter. As an adult I rarely go anywhere on my own and on the rare ocassion I do I'll be on the phone to my parents or partner until I arrive. It's easy to say that I'm immature for needing this but I've has /so/ much professional help with this and it never went away. Nothing helped long term. With autism and I presume dyspraxia can be similar the traditional therapies & coping mechanisms don't really work your daughter needs something innovative, something that is individual to her needs. Is it possible that the school could release funding for a taxi? Your daughter has additional support needs that may not be what they regard as standard but to ensure her continued attendance (I didn't bother from about 14 on!) they need to help you with adjustments. Colleges and universities do this for their students (I may not have gone to school much but still passed exams and went to uni)

Sproke you have no idea! Seriously!

I'm 34 indepentent as in I live in my own flat, pay my own bills, travel to work on my own every single day, even make it to London and use the tube, but I'm also but last week my electric kept tripping, the electrician phoned me and all I could say was I'm sorry I'll have to give you my friends number, she'll be the one to speak too, I had to have my friend come sit with me while they were here because my anxiety over having to speak on the phone or have strangers in my house is so high I can not function. At one point I was sitting in my chair with my muscles in my arms so tight I could barely move them. My mum had to drive two hours to take me to an optiaians appointment a few weeks ago as it was better than me not having glasses.

Am I mollycuddled no, just supported enough to be able to function. The Op said her daughter had at least one special need, which you didn't bother to look up, and she suspected she had another. Yet you still think she's being mollycoddled. Would you think a mother that bothered to learn sign language or Braille was mollycoddling their child, or a mother that pushed a wheel chair was mollycoddling?! Dyspraxia, aspergers, anxiety are disablities too. How long will op have to continue supporting her daughter oh we'll probably all her life. Just like my mum has to do with my sister and I, or any other parent with a child with a disablity.

Sorry just annoyed at such outright ignorance!

Instead of walking with her could you be on the phone to her? Gradually reduce the time of the calls (reeeeeally slowly) maybe call her twice instead of once and increase the time between the calls, may be easier if she knows you will be calling back

Hope about recording something on her phone that she could play if she gets anxious, saying that she is OK and it doesn't matter, if she needs you she can call but you know she can do this and are proud of her

I am an adult but still get anxious when I am out sometimes, it helps if I call my mum or my best friend and they will just talk about anything and everything to distract me. It helps just knowing I can do that too, sometimes just knowing it can be enough but at first I had to call every time until I sort of got it in my head I suppose that they would answer every time. Knowing I had that support helped me to get out more too

The taxi is a brilliant idea i wonder if the school/lea would give her 1(i dont see why not) I would ask them.