To report this teacher

[inmyshoos]

My 10 yr old dd has been suffering with anxiety since having an accident 2 years ago. She now has a phobia around going to Dr's (amongst other things but all about not being in control)
She has full blown hyperventilating panic attacks at home.
Yesterday her head teacher had a chat with her about it because I had called her to ask about some help she has been getting with this. The head rang me and told me my dd was feeling much better about things and she had asked her if maybe she was enjoying winding me up a bit and being a bit bratty about it and said dd hadn't denied this.
Dd is an absolute people pleaser. And she is 10. She is hardly going to say no to her head teacher.
I think this is completely inappropriate and actually potentially damaging.
She also messaged me a while back saying 'DD was upset with some of the boys at break today. Is she maybe a bit hormonal??' I mean what the hell?? Is this the 1950's??
Would you report this? She just does and says what she likes and never gets called out on it no matter how unprofessional and inappropriate.

No wonder we have such high suicide rates. No wonder stigma exists around mental health.

All you people with depression or anxiety - pull yourself together

irvine yes absolutely. However at the moment the most pressing issue is being able to get her to a gp if she is ill.
The school are 'helping' with it because gp told me all child mental health referrals are now done through school

The Head clearly has a little agenda on the go, yes you do need to speak to her and tell her this is unacceptable. Maybe have a look on the Anxiety Uk website first see what sort of material is available for schools you could print her a leaflet or something, but basically, the head clearly has little or no MH awareness and that is crap.

In England if you need to complain about the Head you have to go directly to the Governors, but I am not sure about church schools/schools in Wales and Scotland so you may need to Google. Basically its crap but do try to resolve it first, maybe try speaking to the SEN officer?

I had lots of panic attacks at school. But I was excellent at calmly walking to the toilet first because I was petrified of doing something wrong and drawing attention to myself, so none of the staff ever had a clue it was happening. Looking back I was terribly silly, but at the time it seemed very important to minimise my problems and the school would never have had the full picture. They shouldn't be putting ideas in her head and you're right to question their attitude.

You might also benefit from a chat with the Young Minds parents' helpline:

youngminds.org.uk

• for some support at least

inmyshoos -
you are completely right that this is innapropriate and definitely unhelpful if not damaging to your DD.

irvineoneohone -
MH isn't this lovely box that stays in its place and never changes. It can easily turn into a bit of a domino effect and start taking other things down with it.

I would bring this up with the head herself and also keep encouraging your daughter to talk to you about anything that happens at school so she can get your support. The thing I have found most useful for my own anxiety disorder is having someone there willing to listen and help me through. Often I will not have that and I will avoid asking for help because I have anxiety.

If it hasn't been offered or suggested already I have found cognitive behavioural therapy to be of a great help. I'm not sure if there is many options for children in that respect but hopefully there is and your daughter can get the help she deserves and her HT starts being a hell of a lot more understanding.