School is awful!

[anerki101]

DS has just started his second week in reception. It'd bloody awful, miserable and I hate every moment of it.

Firstly, getting up early is just dreadful. I'm not a morning person. I can set various different alarms, with different tones on different devices and I don't hear a single one. I have to rely on poor DH to wake me up. Sometimes I don't hear him and he has to flick me with water.

Before I had DS I had this problem with working FT too. The drudge of waking up at an ungodly hour five days a week. Spending all day in an environment you'd rather not be in with people you'd rather not be with. I'm terrible with routine and having commitments.

Then there's navigating the school run which is the worst kind of torture and you have to do it twice a day. Getting there early enough to find somewhere within walking distance to park or end up trudging miles in the pissing rain. All the parents seem to know each other already and stand around chatting in cliques.

DS is incredibly shy and struggle socially. He seems to get overlooked, forgotten and ignored. I worry dreadfully about him. He doesn't know how to interact with the other children. I fear he's going to get lost in the system both socially and educationally. He didn't eat his Yoghurt one day at school because he couldn't open it. My fault for sending something he couldn't open but I felt terrible he wasn't confident enough to ask one of the lunch time supervisors for help.

I can't help but feel it's wrong as a society that we inflict this on our four year old children. Dragging them out of bed when it's still dark, ignoring their natural body clock, shoving a slice of toast down their throats and sending them off into an unfamiliar environment five days a week. DS has only just turned four and can't yet wipe his own bum. I dread him doing a poo at school and prey that he at least does it towards the end of the day so he doesn't have to spend long covered in his own shit. He still has to be reminded to drink and every day so far he's come home with his water bottle still full to the rim.

It feels so wrong to send a just turned four year old into an environment where he has no help with wiping his bum and no encouragement to drink.

Before anyone starts, I don't for one minute blame the school or DS' teachers. They are brilliant. My issue is with the system itself. The society that requires us to send our children into this environment.

Yes, I know I don't have to. I could homeschool. But it's not that easy is it. Society isn't set up for parents to home school. Mostly, both parents need to work outside the home full time just to keep a roof over their heads.

Nursery was a far better environment. Ds went 15 hours a week. Enough for him to spend time with people outside rhe immediate family and enough for me to have a bit of time to get things done without him in tow. We could choose the hours best suited to us and what worked best for DS. Drinking wasn't an issue. He had help when using the toilet.

I know there was the option to defer school for a year and keep him in nursery for another year but we simply couldn't afford to do this. Also, DS was ready for school in an educational sense just not in an emotional and social sense.

The house feels empty without him too. I feel his absence in the silence.

Just musing really. It's nice to get my thoughts out.

Every day I pick him up from school he isn't himself. He's tired and emotional and has a tantrum over something minor before we've even walked through the front door. It's like he's holding himself in all day and letting it out when he's back with me.

He didn't even manage the first week at school, he caught covid on day four!

Focus on children's wellbeing is much better nowadays yes with greater awareness on mental health. Mental health was not on anyone's agenda when I was at school, let alone 30/40 + years ago. Funding is still a big issue yes, but awareness and attitude towards mental health has improved.

Absolutely yes, but I imagine walking into a GP telling them you think you have XYZ, which takes multiple tests to diagnose is rather annoying.

The OP does sound like she may benefit from CBT though. It's free and depending on your area you can self refer from links that are usually on your GP surgery's website.

In the nicest possible way it sounds like you are not helping your child’s anxieties at all. You hate the whole process, why would he enjoy it?! This is life.. this is how we get by.. we work, we take kids to school, we don’t all love our job.. it’s how we earn a wage to live! Sounds like your anxiety is massively rubbing off on your son. You mention all the other clicky parents.. do you try and make an effort to talk to them? If not, that’s why they seem clicky to you and maybe why your child struggles to also make friends!

you need to teach him to wipe his bottom. We have same issue with our four year old at nursery but practice makes perfect! You need to tell him to ask for help with his food etc or give easy to open things.. practice opening at home. But mainly you need to be less negative as he sounds like he’s behaving the same way you do!!

also you need to go to bed early so you find getting up a bit easier!

What a load of drama over a basic life milestone. Getting up early and taking them to school are not huge hardships. He will be picking up on your negativity. Kids love school when parents are engaged and enthusiastic, not baffled by early mornings.

Maybe teach him to wipe his arse?

this May sound harsh but as our children get older they need us less and less. You go from this tiny helpless newborn to one day an adult. My eldest is a teenager and it’s an adjustment as you move along the stages. It’s emotional everytime they make a big change such ad starting big school. You say you are studying FT and working PT, it’s okay to have time for yourself. It feels weird at first when your used to having a little buddy with you.
Give yourself and your DS time to adjust to this change. One day you might find you can’t wait for summer holidays to be over so you can get some peace again.

CBT isn't always recommended for autistic people @Rosewaterblossom - better to find out about possible neurodiversity first. But what would I know? I only worked within SEN and mental health for twelve years.

The OP hasn't been diagnosed with Autism though. If she chose to go with CBT, there would an assessment prior to any possible courses to determine the best route to take.

Focus on children's wellbeing is much better nowadays yes with greater awareness on mental health. Mental health was not on anyone's agenda when I was at school, let alone 30/40 + years ago. Funding is still a big issue yes, but awareness and attitude towards mental health has improved.

I completely and utterly disagree. Focus is on attendance at all cost. Parents are told their children are fine when they are becoming traumatised by being forced into schooling that doesn't meet their needs. My 10 year old became suicidal because school did not recognise his needs and trauma.

Schools are trying to pick up the pieces from an under -resourced mental health system, they themselves are under- resourced. I was at school 30 years ago and it was a far happier place than that experienced by my children when they were at school.

As I said up thread, nuture groups and buzz words pay lip service alone to the real crisis of increasing numbers of children being traumatised in a school environment due to the change in focus of the curriculum, the lack of support staff and the lack of support for children with SEN.

If you don't believe me take some time to look at these websites :

www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/almost-two-thirds-of-young-people-receive-no-support-from-school-for-their-mental-health/

notfineinschool.co.uk/
.

In common with many people who haven't tried it, your DH is making some incorrect assumptions about home education. It doesn't have to look like school at home. You don't have to be organised. I know lots of home educating parents who are (as you put it) "flaky", but who give their kids a wonderful childhood and a great education. It really isn't as hard as some people make it out to be! Being organised is not a prerequisite. You can take each day as it comes and look for the learning all around you. That approach suited my kids well; one is now thriving at university (and very well organised 😁) and the other is still home ed.

Whether or not you persist with school right now, I'd urge you to learn more about home education by talking to people who have actually done it rather than to those who are letting their imaginations run wild about it. It's handy to have more information about an alternative to school, in case school doesn't suit your son.

It wasn't clear to me whether lack of childcare is an immediate obstacle to keeping your son home for a bit longer right now. You mentioned that finances would prevent you from home educating, but then you said you are already working p/t and studying, so maybe you meant money is a longer-term concern? It's true that school sometimes functions as free childcare, but there are other options. For instance, if you are on a low income, you can get a subsidy toward the cost of childcare. Your son can carry on using his free nursery hours until he reaches "compulsory school age" next September. A childminder, or nursery plus childminder, might suit him better than school.

Nothing has to be forever. You could home educate for a year or two before sending your son to school, or try him at school now with a view to taking him out if he isn't happy there. I wouldn't leave him there too long if he is thoroughly miserable, however. It's easy to get sucked into hoping that things will get better next term, or after Christmas, or next year, and meanwhile he suffers. Ideally he would start school if and when he clearly needs and wants school, so as to get off on the right foot. If it is such a huge adjustment, maybe it isn't well suited to him.

I want to second this post. A lot of the strategies suggested on the thread may well work for neurotypical persons or persons with medicated ADHD, but are unlikely to be feasible for someone with untreated ADHD and/or ASD.

Untreated ADHD shortens your life by 15 years. It has to be taken seriously, it's not laziness and it's not disorganization. This is why people are hoping to help OP look into it.

On my first successful day of medication, I wept as I drove to work as I had one thought in my head at a time, but otherwise - quiet.

I agree.

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of people who are happy to bang on about mental health/be kind/fight the stigma but who don’t apply this to neurodivergence and who refuse to recognise just how common it is.

if posters read about somehow who sounded anxious or depressed and they shared their own experiences, then that would be okay it seems.

But when neurodivergent posters share their own experiences (and let’s be honest, we are very good at recognising each other) than that is discouraged - as self diagnosis is, apparently, not to be a encouraged.. (why?)

Statistics around poor mental health will not improve while neurodivergence goes unrecognised.

I recently read an article from the autistic girls network that said 1 in 44 people are autistic but it is possible 1 in 28, to factor in all the undiagnosed/late diagnosis people

I agree, they do need us less as they get older. At the same time, their growing independence should be governed by their individual needs and circumstances, not dictated by a strictly age-linked system. My eldest child was ready for sleepovers by the age of four, but my younger one didn't want to be away from me overnight until she was in her teens.

School can't provide the flexibility to let kids grow away from their parents as and when they are ready. So it stifles some who are ready for greater independence at an earlier age, while ripping the rug from under those who need greater security for longer.

It's a funny thing that parents are told to trust their instincts when our children are small, but then once the child reaches nursery age and school age, we are told that we're being overprotective. Do our instincts become defective? It seems to me that often parents find it hard to separate from their child because they sense that their child is too emotionally immature to be away for 30 hours a week without easy access to someone who loves them. When your child chooses day after day to go farther away from you, and you know they have the option to return whenever they need you, you feel relaxed. When they cry and wet themselves and seem exhausted, perhaps we are right to miss them.

OP, I just wanted to say I understand your emotions. I understand because my 4 year old firstborn was not ready for school. I did not find it was like an extension of preschool as some are suggesting. He was unable to conform to expectations in terms of sitting still with hands on laps for storytime etc. His first parent teacher meeting was horrendous. He is now in his 6th year of primary and is thriving. People say that to me as if that justifies the first 2 years, but it doesn't justify it to me at all. Our school has fantastic supports and early interventions to help children struggling in those initial years, but I have often thought since how easier it would have been if he'd started at 6 or 7 - as I could see the change in him and remember thinking to myself "you're now ready for school"......in his 3rd year of school. Instead he was subjected to 2 years of "interventions" - what message do we think that sends the child? SEN is not black and white. Some children will be highly sensitive, be overwhelmed by a classroom, but not qualify for a particular diagnosis. And I was still wiping his bum for the same reason you do your son's! Fine motor skills vary greatly at that age and that task requires some skill in that area! I think we feel our children's feelings, and when it's obviously going against the grain for them, we feel negatively towards the source of their pain. It's natural, and I totally get it.

Hi OP, we had challenges with bum wiping with DS2 and I was so grateful that he had such a rigid toilet habit - always in the evening. But I tackled it by making him do it with me guiding him and telling him to wipe several times and check the paper and then get some more and wipe round his bum cheeks - he got it pretty quickly. Sounds gross, but putting my hand over his while he wiped seemed to work. He won’t be the only one in class who will have a problem with this or similar.
Water - raise this with school. The teacher should be reminding reception children.
Yoghurt - don’t worry about this - I did similar and so did other parents. I parent helped on infant trips and there were loads of food items in packaging that kids couldn’t open. Find a small container that he can open and put it in that instead.
Socialising- this might be harder than it needed to be because you’ve picked a school that’s not your nearest and play dates might be more awkward to arrange, but he doesn’t need those at this stage. I wouldn’t worry too much - it’s early days. See how he is in a few weeks. Both of mine had times when they didn’t seem to have friends but that passed.
I hate the dark mornings too but you’re going to have to get used to them unfortunately.

But if you are neurodiverse standard CBT via IAPT (NHS talking therapies provision) is likely to be of little help. The CBT has to be structured differently with a particular neurodiversity in mind. I can tell you this as someone who has an ADHD diagnosis and as an CBT Therapist (formally in the NHS).

Schools didn't recognise mental health at all years ago and neither did most of society.

You're experience of school 30 years ago might have been good whilst your dcs was bad, but there are generations of people who had awful times at school, mainly because kids were seen as second class citizens back then.

I do agree about pressure on attendance and grades though.

I've had CBT. It was really unhelpful for me. Which was a shame as I've heard people say how great it's been for them. It didn't work for me.

CBT needs to be adapted if you're neuro diverse

Schools didn't recognise mental health at all years ago and neither did most of society.

And my experience is that most schools still don't recognise it now.

My experience is shared by thousands of other parents in the country and recognised by charities like Mind that I linked above.

Pressures on children are different from what they were 30 years ago. Pressures on school are also different.

The fact that we know and use the right words doesn't mean that schools handle mental health issues in children well.

I'm not trying to make the point that schools were a good place 30 years ago. I'm just saying that a suggestion that the mental health of children in school is better now that it was back then is completely and utterly misguided.

If you are so sure that mental health is better now than it has been previously please provide the evidence because I must have missed something in my extensive research in the options available to children who can't manage in mainstream education due to their mental health and/or neurodiversity?

Sorry that should have said 'mental health support in schools'

You're experiences and my experiences have been different, neither can speak for all schools in country so neither is right or wrong.

No I can't speak for every school in the country but I can speak from my experience of a child traumatised by school who said he was fine and from the fact that there was no help when he was suicidal from anyone either within the school system or within mental health services which had a 2 year waiting list.

i can tell you that 30, 000 parents in this country have joined a support group because their children are 'not fine in school'.

I can tell you that Mind a mental health charity has reported an increase in mental health issues not being addressed by school.

I can provide evidence that the numbers of suicides of school age children have increased www.cypnow.co.uk/news/article/campaigners-warn-of-alarming-rise-in-teenage-suicides and have reached the highest point in 30 years.

It works for some and not for others, everyone is different. If I was you I'd first and foremost get a GP appointment and talk it through with them, even if you need to take your DH with you for support. The GP is the best person who can guide you for more support rather than randoms on the Internet, and will obviously know your medical history. It obviously won't happen overnight but at least then you can get any support you may need.

With your DS, time is key here. He's only been in for 2 weeks and it takes time to settle. As for your feelings about it, it's a huge transition for you too so go easy on yourself.

This is a lovely comment and so very true 👏

OP don't know why people have suggested ADHD - you both literally sleep for 12 - 14 hours!! That would be pretty unusual behaviour IMO.

Your executive function sounds like it's poor though and ds sounds like he's probably struggles socially, he probably should be able to wipe his bum half decently. I'd guess that you might both have ASD - anxiety, poor executive function and difficulty socially would be typical. He may possibly also be dyspraxic which may explain the difficulty with wiping himself and opening yoghurt lids - how is he with a knife and fork? Kicking/catching a ball? Holding a pencil?

I've read that CBT often doesn't work for people with ASD. I think it was because CBT gets people to unlearn negative things they've learnt. But with ASD you haven't learnt things - they are just how you are.

I'd keep your son at school, he may be shy and not very sociable but that doesn't mean he's unhappy - NT people can't judge what makes ND people happy or unhappy IMO because they see the world very differently. He may be alone all day in his own little world playing with no one and NT people would be horrified - but he may be really happy like that. I know as my teenage DS with ASD loves his own company and really doesn't need other people. School will also be somewhere that you can talk about your concerns too. I wouldn't yet, give him time to settle and for them to get to know him first. He's still very young and it can be difficult to work out if it's just his age - mine wasn't diagnosed until almost secondary age.