To just cry myself to sleep tonight, after ASD DS's first day at school and police visit ;(

[Thedayfromhell]

I just had the worst day, and really need an outlet for all the emotions I'm feeling tbh. This will be long.

It was my DS's first day at reception (mainstream). He has been privately diagnosed with ASD at the beginning of this year, but we knew for a long time prior to the diagnosis. We were very open and honest with his new school about his needs and challenges, and actively approached them with all the information & reports from the paediatrician, ed psych, nursery, SALT etc.

We came to a mutual agreement that he needs to ease into it gently, so he only went in for 2h today, as it was his first day. Well according to my DP (son's dad), all hell broke loose when he went in to collect him. The SENCO was already waiting for him, and had a very unpleasant chat with him about our son's out of control behaviour (think throwing things out the window, constantly running around, hiding in a cupboard etc.) she openly admitted to shouting at him, and generally losing her composure. It felt very brutal from what DP said, and he was very sad about it too.

For context, I am well aware of how disruptive he can be, and it is a constant uphill struggle for us, every day. He is incredibly bright, excellent at maths, reading, incredible spelling, but his behaviour is so challenging that I cry every day and regret becoming a mother. We are in the process of getting an EHCP in place, and eventually a specialist school placement.

Just as I came back from work today, and we sat down to chat about this, his phone rang. It was the police, who said they received a call from that number from a distressed sounding child. What actually happened was that he managed to get hold of his father's phone and dial 999, then got caught and screamed in excitement. He's dialled it before, but we always stopped him in time. My DP calmly explained the situation, and apologised profusely. They said that because he screamed on the phone, they had a duty to attend. Which is fair enough and reassuring, but god almighty it was the last thing I needed today. They were really lovely about it, and one of the officers actually talked to us about his own autistic son, he understood our struggles. But the whole thing was just so soul-destroying. I know it's just standard protocol, but having them look in my fridge to check if we had food for him, asking to take a picture of his birth certificate, offering to put us in touch with SS... Oh and of course the school will be contacted as well :(

I feel completely crushed today. My little boy fell asleep in my arms tonight, so calm and beautiful, like nothing ever happened. But I can't stop crying. The future terrifies me.

This is what I'm thinking. All to often every slightest action is put down to SEN and people are almost afraid to accept that sometimes it isn't. Sometimes boundaries at home are so non existent that it sets a child up to think every environment is the same, and that's where confusion sets in.

I’m so sorry. I haven’t read all of the thread. My DS is seventeen now but at your DS’s age he was so so different to the person he is now. He was also very bright and although he wasn’t as disruptive as your DS he would do things like screaming if the teacher didn’t wipe the whiteboard clean properly. He’d always be trying to escape at preschool and I couldn’t take my eyes off him for a second when we were out because he seemed to be drawn to water. He changed though and he became very very well-behaved to the point that he would cry if he felt he’d done something wrong.

I still worry about my son and I did take him out of mainstream in Year 4 and put him in a tiny independent school (with the help of family). Now he’s at a state sixth form and he’s got four predicted A*s in (you guessed it!) maths, further maths, economics and computer science. I’m absolutely dreading university though.

I know you work, but if I could have my time again I would have homeschooled for a few years. He won’t learn anything in the first few years of school anyway because they’ll be learning to read and in reception they’ll be doing basic counting. Or I’d have put him in an independent school but I guess no one would have helped me financially if we hadn’t gone through all the trauma at a mainstream school. Just please don’t let anyone shout at him….my son would have been devastated!

Oh he’s diagnosed with ASD and it says on the letter that his communication difficulties are severe.

I cant offer any practical advice but just wanted to let you know you sound like wonderful parents who are doing the very best they can for their son. I hope you all get the support you need 💐

Bless you, OP, I have two (now older) ASD's & feel your absolute pain. :-(
As a previous poster said about them getting older & shaping their world round then (brilliant comment) it DOES get easier as they get older. You've had some great replies so I've nothing more to add, just wanted to send hugs.. it WILL get better. x

I think this depends on the social worker, when I had ss in place ds had an ehcp in place with full time 1-1 which school weren’t putting in place and were still excluding him sw said I was being unreasonable expecting a mainstream school to do whst was in an ehcp and I should just feel lucky they hadn’t permanently excluded!! Good job I knew about the code of practise and didn’t take sw word for it

I don't wish to abandon this thread, and I am ever so grateful for all the the helpful suggestions, the time, the love and support you have all shown to a complete stranger like me! I am just so incredibly tired today. But just to let you all know, we had an e-mail from the SENDCO this morning, pretty much stating in black and white that we were right about our son's complex needs, and that they recommend a "very high level of support". We were invited to a meeting with the headteacher and the SENDCO next Monday, she is adamant that she will be liaising with all sorts of appropriate bodies in order to secure funding for a 1:1.

The hardest part of today was my DP having to spend an hour on the phone with SS (I was at work) after dropping our DS off at school. Never mind him having to pre-empt and explain the whole 999/police debacle at drop-off 😟

I will write more tomorrow after I've had some proper sleep, but thank you all from the bottom of my heart for lifting me up in one of my darkest hours. I cried so much last night that I seriously considered calling in sick to work this morning because of how swollen my whole face looked. But then I gave myself a bit of a pep talk and refused to be beaten by this one event. And it's all thanks to you ladies! Xx

From one ASD mum to another. I hope you took them up on their offer. The more specialists involved the better the chance at getting the EHCP. I had to get social services to step in to help appeal my sons third refusal. They were brilliant, really showed his issues. Contact sendias as well they can guide you through and offer advice. Also autism outreach.

I was thinking of you today. I guess it's a good outcome to have his needs recognized. All of the very best to you and your little boy. I hope he receives the care he deserves and that you can breathe.

Hello my lovely! So - I have an adult autistic son and I'm also a police officer .

Please be reassured the police were simply doing their job - offering SS referral was them trying to help .

First day of school is a massive scary new challenge for kids with asd.
If it helps at all - my son in starting nursery refused to go in after playtime and clung to the railings. School rang us and my son had to literally pick him up in a fireman's lift and take him home .
God it was awful!

But if I may give you some reassurance- my son is now 30 . A computer expert, living independently in Thailand! He is married . He is amazing. He's a bit too trusting and has come a cropper a few times but he just never gives up . Developmentally- they do progress . It's just slower . My son has way above average intelligence but zero social skills- there are lots of ways to help him and it's developmental meaning they do learn - it's just at a slower rate .

You had a shit day. Yes have a cry ( I remember one evening after yet another school disaster I could t stop - my ex dh kept saying this can't just be about ds ! What's wrong !) because I literally sobbed all night .

It gets better op . It does . Hang in in there .

My biggest support when I was in similar situation was local groups, both Facebook and in person, there will be people you’ll find in there that have been through similar and know the local system inside out. It’s really hard now but in some ways it’s good it’s happening now, even if it takes a long time to get suitable support/suitable placement. My son had issues from year one and it took us till year 4 to get him into specialist (we tried ehcp with full time 1-1 in ms first). However then when he moved up in year 7 we got asd specialist school without a fight. There are many parents I know of whose children have managed through primary then they have to start fighting for support at secondary, often the child is our of school and before you know it it’s year 10 and there is still itching sorted. Although it didn’t feel like it at the time I’m glad looking back that things went really wrong early

Sorry for the random post - obviously the wrong thread. I have reported.

It will be Ok. I have had similar experiences with my autistic DS (now 15). Both police and Social services. That's how i got SS support. It's not enough support but better than nothing. So if they offer SS support take it. It's never enough but also believe me it's hard to get unless you look like you are really struggling.

Perhaps sometimes but usually it’s the case of what works for neurotypical children just doesn’t work well for SEN children. Many of us successfully parented neurotypical kids first with good parenting, firm boundaries and rules and as a result had lovely, polite, well-behaved DC, to then have a child with SEN and realise the same approach did absolutely nothing.

I agree it’s right to not just ‘write off poor behaviour’ as SEN but often it’s a learning curve for parents to find the correct strategies to help their child rather than being poor or lazy parenting. It’s a completely different ball game to parenting a child without SEN and it’s easy for parents with no experience to pass judgement.

Hope you've all had a better day and more support will be coming

@Relevanceiskey But we all have the odd day here & there where there's bugger all in the fridge! The day before a big shop or the day we arrive home from holiday, is a ghost town in my fridge! I'd be devastated if a Police officer looked in it on one of those days. It doesn't mean my child is being neglected!

My cupboards are always at least half full though

You have my sympathy. It's so tough. On a side note, the police need to be out do proper policing and not looking through your fridge, but that's another thread.

I disagree with this advice- do not let social services in, you'll never get rid and if one decides you're not doing it properly you're screwed.

@Revolvingwhore that's untrue. They don't have resources to hang around indefinitely.

Very good point, I guess it builds part of a bigger picture though 🙂

I would have him out of school until EHCP is in place, as until then you have much less legal recourse to support. If you've already triggered EHCP process remind LA of their duty to assess within the legal timeframe. If you haven't requested it yet, do so. You just need to email the relevant person at your local authority (IPSEA website tells you how to do this, clearly and in detail). You don't need the school to do it. You can do it.

If it takes a year for him to be schooled appropriately that's potentially a whole year to completely fuck up his perception of education, school, teachers, other kids etc etc. And that's going to be very hard to undo. My course of action would be to withdraw him, with agreement from school (you can almost certainly talk them into saying they cannot meet provision) and then the ball falls in the local authority's court to place him ASAP.

But don't wait for it to fuck up. Do this stuff BEFORE the next 'issue'. The next 'word'. The next 'incident'. Because every time these things happen little scripts will be written into an autistic child's head and, well, we know how rigid their thinking can be.

If I think of every autistic child I have ever encountered that has been placed in a mainstream while awaiting EHCP, or to just 'see how it goes' easily 8/10 are in specialist provision by age 7. But that's with a myriad of issues from being in unsuitable placements for so long. You have a chance to prevent that, so definitely grab it quick.

We've actually found having SS involvement to be transformative for our family @Revolvingwhore - we now have direct payments in place, priority for summer schools/after school clubs and an advocate for things like the dreaded blue badge application. This summer I didn't want to harm myself, for the first time in three years, because we had an amazing summer play scheme for DS to go to four days a week (for 4 hours) and I was able to grab a bit of respite from the relentlessness of it all. And that's entirely down to having SS involved.

We did have a very honest dialogue with them about my mental and physical health, and my husbands alcoholism (he's nearly two years on the wagon), and they couldn't have been more understanding. My son is a 'child in need' but owing to his needs, not our shortcomings. We have been found at every turn to be caring and nurturing parents.

You may have to consider mainstream is'nt the best placement for him. I'd start looking at units and other options. You need to be proactive and push lea, dont leave it to the school. Look at ipsea, sen sos etc

I realise this might feel like a lot of fingers prodding at you but if you get on this stuff now you could avoid years and years of trouble. The prodding is well meant.