Teacher thinks cahms will solve everything

[Grubsmummy]

My son is nearly 8. He has always been full of beans and loud. He shows a few traits of adhd and doesn't manage well in school, he shouts out answers and is loud. He is never naughty and he is a lovely kind boy. At home we accept him as he is and we can take him anywhere and know he will behave, recently sat on two 10 hour flights, never heard a peep out of him.
School pushed me to get him referred for cahms, my son attended the appointment which lasted 2 hours, again sat quietly. They wanted to discharge there and then but i pushed to try and get abit of help. They agreed to do a school observation which is this Wednesday.
The man did explain to me tho that because he is not severe enough there can't be a diagnosis etc. We agree with this.
Teacher spoke to me today to tell me of the observation and expressed that she hopes it'll all be sorted soon and they can help him with medication or coping tips etc. I explained to her that they've already told me there's nothing they could do anyway.

I know my son is annoying in the classroom environment but aibu to be getting a bit peed off that people want to fix him? I know he's my son but I think he's amazing! People comment to me all the time what a lovely lad he is. It breaks my heart because he is aware of all this going on. The past few years have caused me so much stress my periods stopped and I started losing my hair. I have terrible headaches and feel very anxious alot of the time and its all due to his teachers!!
If anybody could give me any advice how to deal with the school moving forward I'd really appreciate it. We've always done everything the teachers ask and I've never pushed back but my sons self esteem is taking a battering. We speak to him all the time about his behaviour and it never changes even though he wants to please people. That's why we suspected adhd

“he is not a naughty child, not a bully, a lovely friend etc and there are kids at school who are bullies and naughty and hurt other kids who don't get anywhere near the amount of criticism and negativity that my son gets“
How do you know this?

I don't know why he does does it, he says he doesn't know why he does it, the teachers don't know why he does it.

I speak to the teacher every day about it. And we try to be consistent with our approaches of dealing with it so we are both praising or punishing at the same time.

Before bed we talk about the day, discuss what happened, discuss what he'll try harder with tomorrow. Then he goes into school and repeats it to me before he goes in and makes a promise.

Then it's as if nothings ever happened, nothings ever been said to him, and he goes into school and does exactly the same!

Its very easy to tell someone to "just do this" or "just to that", don't you think we've tried all that? It doesn't work when we do it, it doesn't work when school does it.
I have other children who I've raised with the same rules, punishments etc and they are fine.
I offered to go on parenting courses to cahms who told me it wasn't required :-/

Exactly what things does your son do in class that the school see as disruptive?

It sounds like they are trying to work with you, and in honesty, if you are having to speak to the teacher every day about it it’s not surprising they are trying to help find something that works for your son; imagine if every parent had to do this. If it is just in a school setting it’s possible there are triggers he doesn’t particularly encounter elsewhere- could it be being in a large group? The structure of the day? Ie lots of learning and break times usually being quite hectic too? My brother was the same growing up, and it was a lot worse at secondary school. I hope you manage to find something which helps, FWIW it doesn’t seem like the school are suggesting he is naughty of trying to punish him.

There are too many ‘they’ in your OP that I can’t work out if your taking about the school or CAMHS?

Who said he doesn’t have adhd?
Has he been assessed for adhd (snap iv questionnaires etc)
Who was doing the school observation-teacher/senco/camhs or EP?

No matter what he’s like at home for you (1:1 or 2:1 support) he clearly isn’t coping in a whole class setting. Saying that you have terrible headaches and feel very anxious alot of the time and its all due to his teachers!! is not fair on the teachers-they are not causing this situation just to piss you off! He is clearly struggling and they have to balance everyone’s needs and their own time with the others in the class. I think it’s good that they are so involved.

Have you been to the GP and been referred for an ADHD assessment. Usually there is a child development centre that assessed.

Haven't read the thread. But teacher is living in cloud cuckoo land. Seems to be a widely held belief though by schools that CAMHS have a magic wand to sort out problems. School is where interventions and adjustments work best in sorting out these sorts of problems. Our experience reminds of the song in West Side Story - Gee Officer Krupkee when the kids are passed from service to service only to end up where they started.

I want you to visualise something OP. It might help change your thinking.

Imagine being a parent to a well behaved while who comes home everyday from school and when you ask them how their day was they always say: That boy was naughty again and talked over the teacher and I couldn’t hear. The teacher had to stop the lesson and we didn’t get to finish our work.

I have a Yr10 class with about five nice boys who just can’t be quiet. They get warnings and detentions. Their parents are mostly supportive. But one parent thinks I am picking on her son and he couldn’t possibly be as disruptive as I say he is. The other four boys have calmed down. This boy has gotten worse.

But I also have had three parental complaints about that boy from parents if good but quiet children who are annoyed about missing work because of the loud boys. Their parents are demanding that I remove this boy from the group for the benefit of the others. At this point what would you do that is fair to everyone?

You need to address this now and be much stricter with him. His behaviour isn’t harmless and he will become the child that other students don’t want to be in a class with.

How do you know there are only three students with SEN? That is confidential information and not something which would be given out by school.

In answers to your questions, he is liked by everyone, including the teachers. He is very eager to learn, so eager he wants to answer all the questions.

He has been assessed for adhd by cahms, myself and teacher have also done conners questionnaires and now the school observation.

Because he doesn't do it in all areas of life he cant get a diagnosis. But even if he did, being diagnosed doesn't fix the problem. That was my original point. The teacher seems to think he's going to change over night, hopefully with medication. Cahms have already told me this won't be happening.

The best way to describe what he does is its as if he's got tourettes, but only in the classroom. The teacher says he will try to hold it in and physically hold his hand over his mouth

Jackshouse the senco told me. Didn't tell me names. Just that there are 3 others on the sen register along with my son

How’s his diet? Some children are really sensitive to some E numbers or colourings.
Have you tried reward charts with a real prize at the end? I have an Sen child and they respond (pretty well but not perfectly) to a reward chart.
I think you need to work with the school to find a way that this will work instead of fighting them.

Poor behaviour is just the symptom of something deeper that is not working for your son. Tackling the behaviour (rules/punishment; expected child to self-regulate etc) won't work until the underlying issues have been resolved. As you say yourself, you and the school have been working on his 'behaviour' since reception. It isn't working.

As a clue to what's wrong, you have symptoms of high stress. Hair falling out, anxiety, periods stopping, headaches. Ask yourself why this is happening. What I mean to say is if I had those symptoms I would be seeking out help (GP/therapy). There are three (maybe 4) people in this dynamic: you son, you, the teacher (and possibly your DP). How are these relationships working together?

I think that if I were you I would be pushing for diagnosis and treatment.
If ds can’t focus and concentrate in the classroom environment then he can’t reach his potential and there will be social consequences for him as well as issues with his self esteem.

It sounds to me as though camhs haven’t yet seen the extent of his difficulties because he was ok during a 1:1 assessment. Hopefully having spoken to his teacher and observed him in school, they will have a full picture.

Nobody’s saying he’s naughty or bad. It’s about getting him the support he needs to be able to function in all situations.

I wouldn’t be challenging the teacher. I would be enlisting her support to challenge camhs saying he can’t be diagnosed and that treatment ‘won’t be happening’. For your son’s sake.

When CAHMS tell you he can't be fixed overnight, I think you need to take that as the opening of a dialogue, not as the end to it. If he can't be fixed, how can his problem be managed? Do they have any advice that they could pass on to the teacher? As Idinotlike said, you need to get the teacher on your side here to try to get more out of CAHMS and/or an EdPsych. Sometimes you need to be prepared to go back again and again, explain that the issue is causing real problems in the classroom, make it clear that you will work hard on any techniques suggested.

I agree with @gold. The school need to seek support- maybe advice from educational psycholigist -about how to manage. A diagnosis will not change his behaviour.

Is shouting out the answers the only thing he is doing?

Have you had his eyesight tested?
Has he had anIQ/gifted ness test?
Hearing check?

The teacher he has got now is the best one he's had. She deals with him well and is pleasant to deal with. My stress levels and his have reduced.

Teachers in the past have been on at him constantly and reporting to me every day all the bad stuff and nothing good, his anxiety was high and so was mine.
When he goes into his next class that teacher may be like the others and everything will be worse again. That's why I pushed cahms to try and help us now.

He isn't meeting the expectations for classroom behaviour and from what you say, he never has. From the school's point of view, he isn't following the teacher's instructions and is disrupting the rest of the class.

He may not be naughty, but for whatever reason, he isn't complying with the most basic rules, and you need to work with school and other agencies to try and formulate a plan to help him. IME it rarely involves punitive measures, so I would go into with an open mind.

Hopefully the observation by CAMHS tomorrow will result in some fresh ideas to try. But if not, like PP have suggested, the school may be better placed asking for Ed Psych input. A full assessment would probably be quite revealing in terms of his strengths and weaknesses.

What if he wrote down his answers, instead of shouting them out? Is that something he can try?

Some kids need very firm boundaries and tough love. ADHD would mean his behaviour would be affected everywhere - it sounds like he simply needs to be taught how to behave in the classroom. Could it be that this school isn't the right setting? One kid can't ruin school for the other 29 so yes he needs to fit in. Sorry this is a tough stance but camhs can't help with naughty behaviour.

I would suggest whiteboard and writing down his answers too if that hasn't been tried. Then the teacher can give him a thumbs up and let another child answer some of the time.

You say you have tried rewards/consequences etc but are these things he cares about and have you been consistent for at least a few weeks?
If a video game mad child was shouting out every day for a month for eg despite knowing they will have no screen time at home and the parents consistently following through I think you could be pretty sure it wasn’t something they could control but if the consequence was something like no sticker on a wall chart or something that didn’t bother them I wouldn’t be so sure. Equally if they lost screen time but then a parent/grandparent would sometimes feel sorry for them and let them play for a bit it would be unlikely to be effective.
I’d be asking myself in your position whether the rewards and consequences you’ve been using are things that he cares about and also whether they have been consistently applied over a number of weeks.
Do you play board games at home? If it is someone else’s turn and he knows the answer to the question is he able to let them answer or will he shout it out? That might be a good indication as to whether the behaviour is present at home as well as I imagine there aren’t many situations at home where he is required to hold in his answers. Playing games at home will be a good way for him to practice keeping his answers in his head. I would maybe play with a box of sweets next to you and reward each time he doesn’t blurt the answer out when it’s not his turn. I work with kids a lot of whom have impulse control issues and they do improve with practice. It’s a skill children need to practice and learn like anything else. Some children will naturally have better control and others will come from homes where board games are played regularly and where they are made to wait for eg when an adult is speaking and they will gain good control that way.

School don't want to 'fix' him they want him to stop affecting everyone elses learning environment. Clearly he can behave when he wants to and chooses not to in school. That must be so frustrating as a teacher to have to deal with, let alone for other parents.

I must say, it sounds to me as if you are really playing it down therefore it is unsurprising that CAMHS are saying they can't diagnose. Whilst medication is not a miracle cure it can be a complete life changer so don't underestimate it. It isn't actually for 'severe' cases. In fact the less severe cases it makes a huge difference to as they go from struggle to concentrate or sit quietly to being almost the same as the other children.

You say at home you accept him as he is, why would you say that if there was never an issue. Any sort of denial is so unhelpful to him. It must be so dificult for him bless him, trying to control himself but being unable to.

I believe that the behaviours may not appear at home due to the type of activity you do with him. How often is he expected to engage in listening as a group and not say a word, probably never.

My niece is an only child, her behaviour as a young child was very good at home but when with other children she was horrendous, SIL kept saying it must be all the others as she was so good at home but what she didn;t click on to is that at home she got to choose the tv, the games, the toys etc and never had to compromise. I think it can be the same when a child has some special needs, in various environments they present differently. Mys DS2s autism did not show up at school as much before he was 8 due to the strict routine etc.