To be angry, and even a little bewildered on how to tackle this with the school?

[MaddyHatter]

DS has SN.. he has Autism, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder and Dyspraxia.... it makes for some very complex needs, a big one of which he CANNOT process emotion or self regulate and will go into a meltdown very suddenly.

One of the outcomes of him getting upset and frustrated and having a meltdown is that he lashes out during them, and can hurt the people near him. The school are aware of this, there are strategies in place to help him try to manage his feelings.

One of these strategies is the provision and freedom to go to a room called the Calm room, which is painted with calming colours and has cushions and bean bags...etc.

There was an incident today. Ds isnt having a good week and there is a piece of work he is flat refusing to do, and they keep trying to make him. Today they tried again and he began to get upset. The Learning Mentor tried to get him to go to her classroom to calm down, but his auditory processing issues meant he didn't understand and he thought she was going to try and make him do this work, and he lashed out.

He has been suspended, which i nominally support, even if i'm not happy, as in my eyes they're punishing him for part of his disability..

However, i asked DS why if he was getting angry, didn't he ask to use the Calm room (its right opposite his classroom) and he told me he wasnt allowed in there because some of the yr6 girls were using it as a PE changing room.

WTF?!?!

Now.. i appreciate at 10/11yo the girls may not wish to change in the classroom with the boys, and an alternative should be provided... but WHY THE FUCK are the school letting them use THE CALM ROOM which is there for children like my son to use as and when they need it?

I am so fucking angry... we spent AGES getting it through to him that he could remove himself from a situation and go to that room if he felt the need to help prevent him going into meltdown, and now, he has to check if its being used as a fucking changing room and isn't allowed in there if the girls belongings are... and has now ended up having a violent meltdown and hit a teacher and got suspended.

I just don't know how to tackle this or even where to start.

Ive always hated using 'meltdown' when referring to my now 25 year old son but I could never think of an alternative. Im loving Extreme Emotional Reaction.

Thank you

Overwhelmed with anxiety.anxiety attack - yes. Ive used those terms as well. But EER just gives it a bit of gusto the other descriptions miss.

I think it's come from something official.

That sounds really positive Maddy. You are an exceptional advocate for your son and I have learned masses from your posts.

Thanks too to zzzzz and sleeponeday for your eloquence in dismantling potatoes' hollow arguments. I have learned from you too.

Zzzz that's a good point. It's within a professional setting when we need to communicate subtly that a child hasn't coped/ isn't coping. EER doesn't make any sense to any little ears over hearing nor those who do not understand.

I'm sure equally sensitive and subtle descriptions could be used. I think it may have come from some training somewhere. I know it was me who raised the issue of mainstream teachers loudly saying in front of mainstream children 'blown' and 'blow up' etc as we did not want this particular perception of children with additional needs to be commonplace.

Based on the supposition that the person didn't need their wheelchair the whole time and was walking around when it was used. Why not? (although the link is tenuous!)

My son is a partial wheelchair user, if his wheelchair was used to carry bags or give a ride to a tired child while he wasn't in it, then yes I would be very unhappy. He also uses a communication device which is a tablet, if they let other children use it to play on (which they all want to!), again this would be unacceptable - it is his voice, his wheelchair are his legs when his muscles are struggling and the calm room is this child's mechanism to cope when he is overwhelmed with anxiety - all these things should be at hand always for the child that needs them - in the same way we have our voice, our working legs, our brains that are able to deal with emotional anxiety and being overwhelmed as part of our able bodies.

Sadly I don't think potatoes is a troll, I have heard similar views from many. It is depressing, I heard a child say to their mum once, 'Hazeyboy was allowed 2 iPads' (one was his talker) and the mum went into ask the teacher why!!

I wish I could have someone like potatoes spend the day with me yesterday. A 3 hour meeting trying to work out where my 'anomoly' should be educated, a trip to the hospital for a torturous eye appointment, the discovery that school had broken his splints, so a drive to another hospital to get splints sent of for fixing, a discovery that school hadn't put his nappy on properly, so meaning ds had to sit in wet trousers throughout the appointment. It is like climbing up a sand dune and sliding down to the bottom.......every bloody day.

Well done Maddy for making progress.

Thanks Lynda!

I know a lot of people don't like making a fuss, but i see it that i'm his one and only advocate, if i don't fight for him, no-one else will.. and i do it from a point of knowing the law, understanding the local SEN offer, how the budget allocation at school works and so on...etc, and making sure they do what they're supposed to do.

i'm lucky that i don't work (gave up to look after Ds) so i can go in and deal with this myself, face to face, i think it helps.. but it does also help having a HT that is willing to listen and try and wants the best for DS in his school... but he also knows that i won't take any nonsense either ;)

I actually agree Polter. I have meltdowns. They feel like I'm melting down.

I think it may have come out of SCERTs.

Just thinking about it, the word 'overwhelming' is useful. Eg overwhelming emotional reaction. Reaction to a particular circumstance.

It doesn't need to be a physical outburst; as many children can withdraw in response to overwhelming feelings.

Op you are amazing I hope staff learn from your insight.

Maddy I am glad that you have a school willing to listen to you even if they don't always get it right. And it is good that you are able to be such an able advocate. Hopefully that will benefit others as well as your ds.

I don't want to harp on about my situation but potatoes commented directly on my dcs so I feel the need to reply.
dd doesn't go to a grammar as there are none in this area. We cannot afford private education even if we thought it was desirable and the facilities were accessible to her. She attends a 'bog standard' comprehensive. It does have a support unit for students with physical difficulties. The students who use it have more severe disabilities than she does, but she benefits from the whole school provision made for them. The school also has a flexible and understanding attitude and on the whole she has been well supported. She probably hasn't been stretched as much as she could be academically but that would be true whether or not she had disabilities.

Ds is very rarely violent. There has only been one incident in school in his whole school career - he is in yr13 now. However there are other things (leaving classes, shutting down, being upset, spending hours in the toilet, missing a lot of school) which while not seriously disruptive do impinge on staff and other students. His primary school didn't/wouldn't cope and he ended up out of school for his last two years of primary. He went to the same secondary dd now attends and then (as it doesn't have a 6th form) to another local comprehensive. Both schools have been imaginative and flexible in their approach and he is about to sit A levels and, we hope, go to university.
But if they had decided that he couldn't stay where would he have gone? None of the special schools here cater for even average academic ability. We did look at some specialist placements but they were residential which we didn't really want and which the LA would (understandably) have baulked at paying for. They would also have struggled to deal with all his needs. (We dealt with a lot of the mental health issues at home).
If he hadn't had those 'regular' schools who were prepared to see that they had a duty to all their students no matter how complex, I dread to think where he would have been now. It is likely that he would be in long-term psychiatric care at vastly more expense than that of his statemented provision. Or he just might be dead - though that would spare any cost or inconvenience, I suppose.

I just told my DH that we will be using Extreme Emotional Response moving forward for our DS10 who has biopolar disorder. Tantrum makes him sound 3 years old.
The calm room needs to be available at all times for not only your DS but any other SN children who need to calm down. It shouldn't be used for anything else during school hours. Just like you don't use a hospital operating room for a nurses birthday party because "no ones having surgery right this minute " or use a fire hose as a skipping rope because "there's not a fire to put out right now ".
I went to school in the UK 30 years ago and remember being 10 and the boy's changing for PE in the cloakroom. This is completely ridiculous. Surely it would make more sense (and not cost a penny) for kids to come to school dressed in their PE kit on PE days like they do here in the US?
Toilets and calms rooms shouldn't be used as changing rooms just because schools can't come up with simple solutions in 30 years.

Maddy that sounds so much more positive. I do admire your skill at advocating for your DS. I try my best, but I find it so hard. I hate to be "that parent" and the subject is also often so frustrating (as here) when you know the whole thing was avoidable.

Lynda it's lovely of you to post as you have. It's extremely upsetting when you have people who feel it's okay to speak in this manner about disability, and it's comforting to remember that there are many, many lovely people who seek to understand, and are as appalled as we are by hateful ignorance. Thank you.

And actually, thanks to Mumsnet, too. They really do try on this. Thank you, MNHQ.

merrymouse those heads make me want to break something. The kids are preselected, as you say, but those heads are also sitting on world-class facilities and four times the funding per child, too; additional help in any area is separately chargeable. Imagine what the state sector could do with even half that level of funding.

I think my suggestion of an pop up tent got missed earlier on (and a hope you weren't thinking it was sarcastic). I think it would be a good plan B having seen it work in schools without the possibility of having a room.

sleep it is hard, and frustrating.. i find its useful to have a rant on here, i talk to my friends, my mum, my DH, i spend a couple of days gathering information.. from DS, the school, the adults involved and then once i've got everything i need, i will go and tackle the HT about it.

I remain polite, calm and make the points i need to make.. i also try to frame it from the point of view that its about the safety of his staff, not just DS, and i make the point that i'm just as concerned for them as i am for DS (which i am).

I also make no bones about the fact i don't appreciate incompetent staff and have made it VERY clear that a couple of the LA supply teachers who have had a very detrimental impact on DS are to be no-where near him, because i can and will take it over his head if they are.

I have gone so far as to take DS home the once when one Supply who i hold responsible for his handwriting regression and refusal to hold a pencil for 6mo turned up in his class.. DS had a huge meltdown and when i found it was HER in charge of the class that day, i took him home and told them until she was gone, DS wouldn't be back... and the HT knows i meant it. I hate that woman, and funnily enough it was only the day after her presence that his meltdowns turned violent. I wish i knew what she did, because twice now she has had a very detrimental effect on DS...

Little I sent a pop up tent into school for Ds when he going through a bad patch and just needed to get away at times.

It would have worked too, unfortunately school kinda missed the point and placed it in the busy library!

Good idea though

Pop up and Black out tents are ace.

Ds has a pop up black out tent in his sensory room. It was about £120 and he loves it.

Slightly off track, but is there a specific pop up tent people would recommend? We want one to take with us on holiday, via plane, so guess it can't be too big.

this one might do