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

Just read your last post again op. Diagnosis isn't just a label. It helps explain things which then become logical. It also opens up medication which was like turning on a light for dd and allowed her to recover from anxiety and depression. Not just that but also to fulfil her potential, stay at school, go to Cambridge. It opened the door to who she was and why and finding techniques to manage her neuro developmental disability (with which before medication she got 11 GCSE's 3A, 6A, 2B). Once medicated she was calmer, could concentrate, stopped pacing. Her A'Levels were all A with near top marks, she took a gap year and applied to Cambridge. She got in. Without diagnosis her trajectory was downwards.

The saddest thing is that CAMHS didnt spit it. The nurse actuallly said "well now I think she's a bit old at 17 for that sort of diagnosis. That has nothing to do with lack of resources and everything to do with incompetence.

All this nonsense about camhs needing schools to agree, etc. It's boilleaux. If a child has a neuro developmental disability it's there regardless of what npn clinically trained school teachers think and also what incompetent camhs nurses and social wprkers think.

These things need to be diagnosed by properly qualified and experienced child and adolescent psychiatrists. Sadly people have to pay for it.

Schools and CAMHS are in it together. Every formal diagnosis costs in terms of care or support so it is to their benefit to parent blame. What that does is to prevent young people reaching their potential and in turn impacts tax etc and costs the nhs more because other comorbid conditions run out of control. Very shortsighted.

You sound like a lovely mum who is keen to make sure your child’s positive qualities are not forgotten. Which is great. However, as you know, ADHD won’t be diagnosed if problems are not experienced globally across all areas of child’s life. They may not present the same, but they will still be there. For instance how difficult would your son have found it to sit on the long flights with only a book for company, and not watching or being engrossed computer games etc? Most kids would find this a bit tricky but it can be a question of degrees. If you are keen to point out the positives, is it possible that you have not acknowledged some of the difficulties your son presents to you as parents? Hence not giving a true perspective of home meaning problems do not sound global?
I know in our local CAMHS team, if there is a smidgen of a chance it is not global, they will be bounced out again to ensure psychiatrist time is saved for the most critical of cases. This is a resource issue.
If the adhd observation doesn’t herald any more evidence for adhd, I would ask school to refer son to Educational psychology for an independent perspective of what is happening to make the school environment so difficult for him. If it is adhd and it is not picked up, then your boy may be unfairly treated as a behavioural issue throughout the rest of his school career, which can lead to peer problems, self esteem problems and depression, in some children. As an aside, if there are traits of adhd, one thing you can do is make sure you read up on parental management of adhd children and ensure these strategies are shared across home and school. You don’t need to attend actual courses to do this. Or a diagnosis. If there is a way you can support him more, I would start with these strategies. In the meantime, try your best to work with school to obtain the best outcome for your son. Good luck.

If he doesn’t meet the threshold for CAMHS and there is no SN then his behaviour is a choice.

Totally disagree.

If one of the problems is sensory overload and/or social communication then this is not going to be seen in a quiet CAMHS office on a 1:1 basis. (Mind you ds1's distraction by snow dripping off the roof was a bit of a give away). What is needed is observation in the environment where he has the difficulties.

The issues of my ds's who have an ASC diagnosis are not obvious when an adult talks to them on a 1:1 basis. Put them in a noisy, classroom and expect them to co-operate with their classmates well that's another matter entirely. We actually did not realise ds1 was so distractable by others till we took him to Jodrell Bank museum on a quiet Sunday Morning. He was absolutely fascinated by the exhibits but the minute anyway else walked into the room all concentration was lost. Was a total eye opener for us and we could begin to see why the school was having so many problems with him that we weren't seeing at home.

I’ve worked with many children with adhd and shouting out in class alone does not mean a child has the condition. It is possible for a child to simply have a problem with their behaviour without having a disability.
The children with adhd I have worked with have ranged from mildly to severely affected. All have had trouble with their schoolwork and all have had trouble with friendships and social behaviour to some extent.
The only issue the op has mentioned her son currently struggling with is shouting out. It’s entirely possible that he simply finds it funny to do so or sees no real reason why he shouldn’t if he wants to.
You say you have been consistent with consequences for behaviour op. What consequences have you been using? Does your son care about the consequence? Are you continuing with consequences currently or are you treating the shouting out as behaviour beyond his control due to adhd?

Also what consequence doesn’t receive at the time for shouting out?
Even if he did have adhd it wouldn’t just be accepted that he disrupt the class. He would get extra support to meet the expectation of not shouting out - which could come in the form of being given a whiteboard that he could show to a ta as some have suggested and/or extra reminders of behavioural expectations and personalised incentives. He wouldn’t just be given the green light to shout out even if he had a diagnosis.

The reason I ask about school is that if they are for eg removing him from the lesson as a consequence when he shouts out and that is the outcome he wants then it may be a functional behaviour.

Brilliant post from cakesandtea upthread, OP.
Give it a couple of readings and have a think.
We got DS diagnosed with ADHD a year ago and it’s transformed his life. The one thing that struck me, going through the process, was how much we’d adapted to him at home and how much we “put up” with.
He’s also kind and extremely well-mannered but the disorganisation, the constant talking and fidgeting, the absent-mindedness, the overreactions to certain social situations... We just got used to it and going through the questionnaires made us think about him objectively and honestly.
I was diagnosed as an adult, so I knew that rather than a label, DS would instead have a passport to extra help and understanding.

Also, your senco - did she say three kids on SEN register or three kids with actual statements? Three statements sounds more realistic in a 300-strong school, with more children on the register but without statements.

If he doesn’t meet the threshold for CAMHS and there is no SN then his behaviour is a choice.

This black-and-white understanding about a child's behaviour is unhelpful.

He is a child - an adult in the making. Behaviour is increasingly under the control of the prefrontal cortex as a person matures. This child could be less mature than his counterparts. If so, how would his behaviour issues meaningfully be his choice? Equally, if his behaviour issues are an unconscious coping mechanism or a learned pattern of behaviour that serves a purpose (albeit not the purpose of the teacher) - then how is his behaviour meaningfully chosen? And to flip the argument about on its head, if he does have ADHD, does that mean his behaviour is somehow entirely NOT under his control?

Adults with ADHD develop coping mechanism to deal with how they react in social situations: they exert control. Children, with or without ADHD, learn to develop impulse control and other social behaviours as they mature.

If he doesn’t meet the threshold for CAMHS and there is no SN then his behaviour is a choice.

This attitude is doing significant harm to children all over the country every day.

The threshold for CAMHS support is so high that thousand of children with mental health problems are turned down. They can only support those with the highest level of need. Being turned away from CAMHS does NOT mean you don't need or deserve support and aren't distressed.

Blame and consequences only serve to compound this sort of problem. Behaviour is communication and this little boy is trying to communicate that he isn't able to cope in school.

Punishing him will not make him more able to cope. Children who aren't supported and are punished for trying to communicate their distress, far too often end up eventually meeting the threshold for CAMHS intervention because the harm inflicted on them results in them finally becoming suicidal or they resort to self-harm to try to manage their distress. At that point it is an awful lot harder to help them.

OP, your DS need support, not consequences and the school needs to approach professionals with skills beyond those of teaching staff to help them work out what that support looks like.

OP, Gold made some excelleny points. all this is so true, children with SEN pay very heavy personal price for their needs not being recognised and met. There are plenty of constituencies that deny and dismiss the needs and blame it on the children and parents. That is why parents should be on top of things to advocate for DC and navigate the system.

OP, you describe a dire situation yet you 'agree' that your DS does not need a diagnosis. Why? You should be asking CAMHS to get to the bottom of things ADHD or something else. You need to get your head out of the sand and face the right way to advocate for your DS.