To voluntarily put my child into care

[Crumplesock]

We are at the point now where we think we may need to either put our eldest into the care system or seperate and live in 2 seperate homes to keep our children apart for fear that the eldest will seriously harm the younger two children. However, I'm not sure how we will actually finance two seperate homes (even 2 x 1bedroom flats).

Our son is autistic with a PDA profile. We are low demand parenting, and he does not attend school after being excluded and we are following his lead in Home Education. We followed the At Peace Parenting Course (which is amazing and so insightful, if not a little crazy on price!) but she told us we need to radically accept that this is our son's disability, this is part of it and we need to accommodate it. She shared how her family had to live sperately for a while. We are being advised by all the professionals that we are doing all we can for our son's needs and are accommodating and parenting him in line with his disabilities. But I just feel so broken at it.

As our son is getting bigger, his level of aggression is increasing and becoming harder to manage. We attempt to keep the children separated at all times but this is hard when there is only 1 parent at home and all 3 do need to be watched constantly.

Our other two children, and us parents too, are receiving multiple injuries daily.

Our son has taken to doing home workouts, which is absolutely brilliant and I want to encourage a healthy lifestyle but his strength is crazy. I've witnessed him do 20+ pull ups, he can now lift 1.5× his bodyweight in a Deadlift. I spoke to him about this passion of his and he said its so he can always make sure he is the strongest and to make people scared of him.

I know deep down there's a scared boy in there, whose doing this as a reaction to school trauma and being pushed around by school bullies (he had it quite bad). But it also terrifies me at how he is stronger than me and it won't be long before he levels with my husband.

I have spoke to Social Sevices today who has said they'll get a support package and stated that this is Child-on-parent (and sibling) abuse and that they do need to safe guard our other children

@Crumplesock I am so sorry for the situation you are all in. Your poor DC, including your eldest ds. I want to say, I don't know how you're getting through each day, but I know from experience that you really don't have a choice but to do it.

You have been treated appallingly. I am disgusted with your LA and refusing to assess for EHCP. When you've got the energy, please rinse them for everything. Is their a local SEN Facebook group that could support with the application and what to say? If they are refusing your son, there must have been others who have had the same fight.

My eldest has ASD and has had many violent episodes. The focus of these meltdowns was me and her sister. They would go on for hours. CAMHS just said to never leave them alone together in a room. Difficult as a single parent. Especially bad around ages 8-10. She is now 15 and although still has meltdowns occasionally and I have to follow a different parenting path with her than my other dd, she is a completely different child now.

Things that have made a difference were her hobby/obsession. Hers is dance. It was always there from age 4. But since she was allowed to step this up she seems to have a drive and focus. I take her to dance 6 out of 7 days. Travelling 45 each way every evening after a full days work. She then competes all over the country every weekend. It's exhausting. But definitely better than what it was like in primary school. I enjoy her company (mostly!) and although I'm often on tenterhooks, she has turned into a fabulous young lady. Financially it has ruined me! And I have no time for myself at all. Younger DD does it too and it's built their relationship up too.

Could you do more with his interest in farming? Is there anyway of accessing something else that wouldn't cost as much as the therapy? Could they suggest something? I live rurally so many of the kids round here have farming backgrounds, so I know there are little jobs/chores they all do. I appreciate this maybe a daft thing to suggest. But letting my dd run with her special interest has honestly made such a difference.

Sending you a huge hug. I know how frustrated and desperate you are feeling. Just wanted to say although not the same in any way, things got better here.

IMO that is utterly disgusting way to parent @drspouse and I wont make home an uncomfortable or hostile place for him.

@Crumplesock

The school has an open afternoon this week, Crumplesock.

Could you go?

https://www.grettonschool.com/open-afternoon-information

But your son is making the home an uncomfortable and hostile place for the other siblings?

I don't think anything @drspouse has said is disgusting and uncomfortable at all.

Yes @user1471530109 we have a very large garden and he has a few vegetable beds that he has grown and tends to our family herb garden. He also has a hole that he has dug out that he's debating about using as a place for a new pond or getting a new fruit tree.

We have secured him a weekly session at a therapy Farm with 2:1 support too. Hoping that helps him.

We are also debating about getting a pet for him to look after as that's been suggested by various professionals but tbh I'm reluctant as I have no capacity to be responsible for another living thing right now

Therapeutic parenting is often misunderstood or incorrectly implemented. It isn't having no boundaries or rules.

A child needs to understand and accept boundaries. I don't agree that shame needs to be part of that. For my PDA child the key was explaining and keeping boundaries fair and transparent. Certain behaviour leads to certain consequences but those consequences ideally need to be natural or logical. NATP have loads of good info on this.

Have you asked for disability ss team involvement?

If you think a pet is too much right now, what about animal assisted therapy?

Punishing a child, whose been shown to be around the mental age of a 3 year old, for having anxiety and sensory overwhelm by making their home environment hostile is vile IMO.

@Crumplesock

Crumplesock, I can't remember whether I have suggested Coram CLC to you before. Could they help to pave the way to a place at somewhere like Gretton?

www.childrenslegalcentre.com/get-legal-advice/education/

That's not what @drspouse is saying OP.
I don't mean to cause any further upset, but humans should feel shame for hurting, abusing, hitting, throwing things. Yes your child has the mental age of 3. But feeling shame and others feeling shame over physical abuse actions is a natural consequence.

PP is not saying shame your child all the time. But if you don't show disapproval / shame / whatever else when your child is hurting his siblings, you run the risk of the other children feeling competent isolated and feeling like the parents are totally okay with them being abused. Shame isn't a bad thing, when it's used correctly.

Completely isolated *

That PP stated i shouldn't make the home environment fun and should stand over him until he attends school

Without saying too much, I would be careful of using Coram for EHCP appeals at the minute. They are in a bit of a mess at the moment, IMO, and that has led to them unceremoniously dropping some clients.

I didn't say uncomfortable or hostile.
I said not fun with screens all day.
If he's got the choice of a school that makes him feel anxious (but everything new makes people feel anxious, some more than others, but we have to do things that make us anxious) or at home on screens all day, which would you choose?
If you want to carry on having an aggressive child, go ahead and remove all demands.
If you actually want to improve his behaviour, then listen to me. Our son was like yours. Now he is not.

Thank you for adding that, I wasn't aware of this.

The shame aspect though is about the level of negative feeling it evokes in a child. PDA children very often have RSD so they need to be approached differently.

I parent my two children very differently. My younger autistic (non PDA) child responds well to typical parenting techniques. My PDA child will self harm with any sense of shame as his RSD already makes him incredibly sensitive to criticism. He knows when he has done things wrong and it often leads to a chain reaction. The PACE approach (playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy) has worked wonders with him. Now very rarely have meltdowns, self harm or similar.

I have extensive experience of autism and challenging behaviour in my own family and I agree myself about the therapeutic parenting.
I have a friend with 2 adopted children who embraced therapeutic parenting and her children are in their teens now. It has been a disaster. They have 2 violent teenage girls who.do what they please and control everyone and everything else around them else. My friend is black and blue and both her and her husband have been threatened with knives etc. No one is safe around them.
I don't think it is creating a hostile environment to create boundaries and enforce the.

So ASD service and CAMHS give you one set of parenting advice, Social care and school more or less the opposite? At least one of them must be wrong.

It sounds like you need a multidisciplinary meeting to get everyone in the same room and hash it out but goodness knows if that is even possible.

What is the situation with the PRU? As an outsider that sounds worth a punt to me. They can be very knowledgeable about SEN. Our experience is once you get in the door at a specialist setting (which a PRU is) they see a whole different level of need.

It just feels like every time we meet someone new, they advise we are doing it wrong. I have attempted to organise a TAF but no one wants to meet with us in that way.

Actually that's not quite true. Our other son's school is helping us with a TAF but so far it's only them and the Autism Outreach service that's said yes to a TAF.

We are going to give the PRU a go, they come to our home 3 times a week to provide learning at home and then after 12 weeks he will apparently be able to function in mainstream setting with no further support. It's the latter that has me not confident in this approach

It has been a nightmare for the families involved.

Is the LA providing other provision such as the care farm you mention as well as the PRU outreach? If not, the PRU outreach 3 times a week isn’t a full-time education.

No, I've stated this doesn't meet S19 @BrightYellowTrain but they're saying it does because he is on roll at a school and it's our choice whether he attends or not. I've stated its not a choice but he is unable to attend due to unmet SEN. School have so far recorded all as Authorised Absenses

Send the relevant model letter from IPSEA’s website to the Director of Children’s Services. If that doesn’t work, look at a pre-action letter.

Yes already done both. Just about to start JR, unfortunately don't qualify for Legal Aid as just over. To date have spend £3.5k in legal letters

There isn't the evidence base you are assuming there is for behavioural and cognitive approaches with autistic children. For example, there is no good quality evidence in support of behavioural approaches for autistic children who are not learning disabled despite the amount of activity there is in this space.