Working and SEN children

[Merryoldgoat]

I’m now rounding on week 3 of illness in my house and owing to kids’ SEN getting into work is near impossible. I fear goodwill is running out.

So a quick poll

YABU - I work full time or near enough with SEN children

YANBU - working with children with SEN is not possible for me

I voted YABU because I work 80% of the week but I work for a very understanding employer who can't pay me the going rate for my job. I work from home as does DH and dd is coping in mainstream with her EHCP.
If any one of those things were to change the whole thing would collapse.

Please do waffle! I’m sorry it’s so hard for you.

I have work piling up but DS won’t allow me to move from the sofa and I just feel like crying.

I managed pt even then I lost jobs.

It's hard to work when school calls you 2-3 times a week to collect them! Thankfully I found an employer that didn't mind her coming to work with me/me nipping out to fetch her.

Miraculously coming into work seemed to reduce the number of times she needed to be collected, strange that🤔 not saying her panic attacks might have sometimes been convenient

I voted YABU but only because I work 30 hours a week with a DD with ASD who has a lot of support in mainstream. No SEN parent is unreasonable if they can’t make it work. We were pushed to breaking point repeatedly in primary school. DD permanently excluded and in SEMH school for a year. Understanding employers, family and friends got us through. She is the reason I have stayed in the same job since she was born. I have earnt a lot of good will. DH does his share as well. Now she is well supported in mainstream secondary but we have rough patches at times. It is exhausting.

I have 2 dc with ASD/ADHD who appear on the surface to be thriving at mainstream school. However the amount of scaffolding we have to do at home to achieve that is immense and totally rules out child care/ wrap around care/holiday clubs as then the wheels would fall off totally. I work very part time on the day my DH is at home as he does FT over 4 long days. I'm doing some voluntary work but sometime cant go as I can't get DS into school, have appts to take them too etc... no employer would accept that.

I work full time with two SEN kids. But it is hard, and I'm a lone parent so no choice really because it's my job to provide for them as well as look after them.

There should be so much more support for parents with children with disabilities. A social worker told me she didn't see why I would need any help because I have a job so must be fine. Utterly clueless.

I have always worked more or less full time. It was very hard at times especially as we didn't have any family support. I have been relatively lucky to work in schools where management have been understanding of my predicament. It is however, far from ideal.

I work full time with one with SEN, 2 suspected. All different needs.

It is fecking exhausting. Would I have it any other way though? No, probably not.

I have to work otherwise we can't pay the mortgage, but the jump from 3 days to full time means we can afford school fees where they thrive (when they get in).

I'm extremely lucky my employer (nhs) is kind, flexible, trusts me to do the job even if i have to pick up early, wfh, feel low at work because of another 'incident'. Flip side is I work almost every evening and most weekends to make the time up to get the job done.

YANBU at all - lockdown 1 almost drove me to a breakdown.

I work 3 days a week and have some SEN-friendly childcare in place to help cover gaps. But even with all that I can only make it work because I have a super flexible employer and a DH who works from home. If any one of those circumstances changed, I'd probably be stuffed.

I do but my DD goes to a mainstream school and can manage throughout the day.
It’s obviously hard though, as being a single parent is.

I work with SEND children and many of their parents work.

The ones that usually don’t are the ones with children who have physical illnesses which constantly need appointments or taking home.
The other parents are ones with SEND themselves so they don’t work either.

Every child is different and it’s going to be much more difficult for some people than others.
You’ll also find as they get older they do get easier in some ways and therefore working becomes easier.

It's refreshing to see the solidarity here. There was a thread a while back where someone commented that "having SEN kids was no excuse not to work as lots of parents of kids with severe SEND work full time".
I almost exploded with rage.

I work full time with one ASD 10 year old. I only manage because my husband's work are very flexible. It was infinitely more manageable when I worked part time, even 30 hours a week. When he was younger I could only do 15 hours a week.

Most weeks I feel like the wheels are about to come off.

Had to give up on full time. Mine didnt cope in any form of childcare. Luckily family stepped up and help us put a couple days a week so I could work.

YANBU at all. Depending on a child’s needs there are times when demands are unrelenting. I know several who have chosen to home educate, which makes working very hard. I don’t blame any parent who can’t work with a disabled child.

I have always worked part-time, but with a flexible employer and now self-employed. But I’ve done this because it is best for my mental health, but I sometimes worry it’s not always been best for my son. DH had a very demanding role, but we divide and conquer which ( alongside a lot of paid household help) makes it doable. This week we have a cosultant appointment, a test 7 taster day and an annual review, plus DH had a big deadline and I’m at a conference for two days. Plus the normal family life activities for three kids. I’m already looking forward to Friday evening!

I could have wrote this it is exactly like our family.

I had to give up work because i couldnt function on the lack of sleep and the amount of time i had to have off because he just cant cope with school, change, life!

Hes currently only doing half days, ive had 3 seperate meetings/appointments about/with him today, my whole life is taken up with his needs. We manage financially but the fear of something going wrong is very real.

My son is 23 and has SEN. I’ve not worked full time since he was born.
There wasn’t childcare available for his needs when he was younger, and there certainly isn’t now he is older.

You’ll also find as they get older they do get easier in some ways and therefore working becomes easier.

It’s interesting, because my experience is the opposite.

One of my elder daughters has a thankfully mild condition, but my experience of the parents of her peers from the SEN unit she attended was that as they got older more and more of them ended up with a parent having to leave work. Especially as they left school.

I took 4 years out during the hardest years, and have just returned part time, in a job that is way below my qualifications but the hours fit DC perfectly.

My DS is 4 and I work part time as a teacher. It means I’m around for the holidays as I don’t think he’d cope with holiday clubs. On my work days DH can work from home, so he’s nearby. Touch wood DS has been fine in school so far but it’s useful to have two days non working where I can schedule appointments, chase things, organise things, touch base with his teachers and try to generally keep everything together! I also know that the honeymoon period for school may not last, and I want one of us to always be nearby and available if needed.

I'm glad I didn't see it I probably would have exploded with rage ,people just don't get it unless they have lived with it.

Whilst I do think that more parents of children could (and would like to) work more if suitable, subsidised childcare were available that's never going to be possible for everybody.

YANBU I was forced to drop my much loved career back in 2017, it was just relentlessly impossible to maintain the gruelling rounds of medical appointments and meetings for this, that and the other.

I have in recent years been volunteering my time to other SEND families struggling to advocate for, help access support and navigate the shitty education/SEND system, often putting in more hours within a week than my partner who has a demanding f/t role (but paid obviously). This I manage as it is something I am able to work around my caring commitments, work in the dead of night when DC are awake (nightly-yawn) and if the need arises reschedule as I don't charge anybody.... It makes me feel like I still have some use in life but I miss work 9& my own money terribly).

The reality is that the majority of employers are understanding only to a point and that trustworthy childcare for SEND children is pretty much non-existent.

Being a SEND parent/carer is debilitating, isolating and soul-destroying at times, sadly the powers that be understand we are unbreakable or at least strive to be, as though unpaid, there is no choice. It is truly maddening, I am sorry OP, but YANBU at all.

Yanbu. I have A micro job. Not A lot of hours And I don't earn very much. It is work I enjoy And would happily do as A volunteer. It has kept me sane, in the workforce and prevented my CV from being A gaping abyss but I couldn't handle anything more. It would be so hard to find A full time employer with the flexibility to meet both mine and kids' needs.

I spent 10 years as a sahm. My two children are both autistic and in specialist schools. My youngest has severe disabilities and her older sibling needs significant support. I do work, but it’s in education. It’s very stressful but it’s the only job I can work to fit with the kids. Children wouldn’t cope with childcare though there is nothing available. It’s exhausting balancing everything though. I suspect once they’re older, I’ll end up having to stop work again as there doesn’t seem to be much support post 18. If I lost my current job, I wouldn’t be able to find anything as I need term time only, remote working with flexibility.

What I do struggle with in the workplace is promotion. If you do a decent job you are rewarded with promotion and more responsibilities. I don't want more pay and more responsibilities, but find it very difficult to explain to managers, it became an issue in my last job and ultimately I quit due to stress after being coerced into applying for a promotion I didn't want and then not managing work stress plus stress of being a SEN parents.