To ask for a hand hold

[Mumonthebrink2025]

Trigger warning: suicide

My six year old has been having Nuerodiverse meltdowns since toddler age and I'm still trying to get her some kind of diagnosis to find out what's causing it all. Now she's older it's a lot of rage and violence towards me and the few weeks, she's been expressing on a daily basis after a meltdown that she wants to die and for me to kill her. I keep talking her through it and trying to hold space for what she's feeling. I've asked her if she feels like that all the time and if it's only when she gets her rages and she has said she feels a little bit that way the rest of the time and it's all related to having her rages and she hates the feeling of the anger and hates her life because of it.

Just now she was having another outburst because I was trying to keep her safe in practising her roller skating on the carpet and not on her wooden balance board, and then asking her to get dressed, and she had a huge fit, spitting at me, lashing out. So I said to her our trip out for strawberries was cancelled as I just didn't have it in me now to go through with the battle of her not getting dressed and listening to me safely with getting the bus etc.

So she has another huge fit and said for me to kill her and I said no. Then, and this is the first time this has happened, she said 'im going to do it myself them' and marched off. I said how are you going to do that? And she said 'with a knife'. So I grabbed hold of her and called 111. She's on triage for someone to call back but they said it won't be today. I don't know what to do. She's calmed down after I told her I was contacting a doctor.

I'm in shock so sorry if I sound a bit detached.

I don't know what to do. She has a social worker allocated since the self harm comments, she's been referred for camhs, and we're waiting on ADHD and autism assessments.

If full and genuinely helpful advice is sought then this is a fairly key part of the equation

and the op has been very very open on this thread but that particular line of enquiry was shut down vehemently, when it is extremely relevant

I didn't answer that posters questions because they were goady about why I removed my DD from school and where the father was. Surely it's obvious with SEN kids why SEN kids are taken out of mainstream school. And surely it's obvious if a single mum is asking for help and not mentioning the father, there's no father in the picture. So I won't engage in posters who don't understand the situation and just want to goad. I didn't ask for advice I asked for a hand hold. And actually my daughter is not behind. She's ahead. She's taught herself loads in her own way, but refuses to let me sit with her and do formal learning and really struggled to learn at school. And we do have structure and routine thanks- clubs, groups, activities, days out. But that's been impossible with the self harm recently. And why would I keep my child registered at a school where they come knocking at the door every day causing her distress when she's too anxious to come in and start threatening with fines?

Here's where I already gave information r.e. previous school.

Not heard a sausage from them. They spent the first forty minutes stopping constantly and saying things like DD should be doing an activity, to which I said she has an activity, she's just always like this when I'm on the phone. They started summarising what happened at the appointment last week like 'okay we we met with you and we spoke about X and then you told us y and then you told us z' etc etc.

the question a pp asked was simply why and when you had withdrawn your child from the school system and de registered to home school?

Personally, I wouldn’t have deregistered and EHE. It is easier, although still not easy, to get support when you remain in the system even if DC can’t attend school. It is easier for professionals to sweep DC’s needs under the carpet if you EHE. Crudely, when you are in the system, you are someone’s ‘problem’. If DC are unable to attend school, parents can pursue s19 provision, but if parents EHE, they relieve the LA of this duty. If the LA knows a family will continue to EHE if they refuse to undertake an EHCNA or refuse to issue or issue but issue an inadequate EHCP, they have an incentive to refuse because they know the parent will continue to EHE and save the LA money.

If DC are absent due to ill health (including MH difficulties) the absences must be authorised. The Regulations (School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024) make it clear where a pupil is absent because they are unable to attend due to sickness the absence must be coded as I and thus regarded as authorised. The threats of fines are scare tactics. You don’t need to allow daily visits.

They are a year here. Everyone I've spoken to is waiting a year. They won't expedite it because I asked social services to speak to them to expedite even the mediation meeting (mediation team said they have 96 percent success rate) and they wouldn't, and I know other children who aren't in school who have the same issues. They're very difficult here. I can't even get the local MP to reply.

Which I had already answered up thread.

I have read all your posts

You do not explain why you took your child out of the school system thus rendering your chances of receiving sustained support and your child getting an education much lower

They refused to authorise those attendances even though I went to the doctor's and got her to write a letter to the school. I'm not going to engage in any more conversation about the past and 'what others would have done in hindsight'. I can promise you it's not helpful to me in anyway, and if your goal is to be actually helpful to me, then that's not the right approach.
I'm only focusing on the present and what I can control right now. Which is nothing but the housework and applying for grants.

You have misunderstood my post &/or the process. You aren’t asking the LA to expedited a hearing. You would ask SENDST. The LA isn’t making the decision. They absolutely can be expedited. Social care wouldn’t ask SENDIST to expedite for you.

SENDIST timescales are not local timescales. RtA appeals are not a year.

You don’t need to wait a year for mediation. Request the mediation certificate and submit to SENDIST. A mediation certificate should be sent to you if mediation can’t be held within 30 days anyway.

It would help you to read about the actual law around EHCPs and the appeal process. IPSEA and SOSSEN’s websites are good places to start.

Parents can challenge decisions not to authorise. They don’t have to accept unlawful behaviour.

My posts aren’t based on hindsight. I have DC with SEN and have support numerous other parents to navigate the system. I do this day in, day out.

Yes sure blame the parent for the lack of support 🤣

I've already said multiple times I'm waiting for the report from the recent assessment to reapply for the EHC needs assessment, to save going through the tribunal system. I'm confident that with better evidence the LA won't decline, and if they do I'll have to do the tribunal.

You don’t need to request another EHCNA. If the LA would agree another request, they can concede an appeal.

If you don’t appeal there is a chance the LA will refuse regardless because they have already seen you won’t appeal.

If they refuse then they refuse, either way, it's not your problem how I do my daughter's EHCP and if I choose to take a chance at the way I believe is best in my situation. And no I never agreed to any visits from the school but I can't stop them knocking on the door and upsetting my DD, even if we didn't answer the door it was stressing her out.

I'm not engaging with you any more, I'm fact I'm going to block you because you just seem hell bent on trying to make me follow your advice when you aren't in my shoes, and I'm a fully grown educated adult, and can make my own decisions thanks. I haven't asked for advice, I've asked for a hand hold.

Nowhere have I said you have to follow my advice. Nowhere at all. Just so you are aware you can’t block posters on MN. It is a public forum.

You didn’t have to let the school in. You could have also gone through the complaints process.

i did.

they call the police if you don't.

Goodbye.

Then you escalate through the complaint process.

Truth be told, SEN parents are often sold a lie on homeschooling.

The amount of times I've been told by other SEN parents, seen on social media, and had unsolicited advice to just homeschool. It will be better for his mental health. Children learn through play at this age. You can get loads of free resources, there's practically support everywhere.

If the OPs child was struggling in school, threats of fines were coming in, or the child was a danger to herself or to others and every day was a monumentous battle to get into and out of school, then I can't blame her for withdrawing, and I also can't blame her for it not living up to expectations either.

You only have to look at the dozens of threads about autistic kids in school and the various comments saying they shouldn't be in school if they're not "school ready", can't sit still, can't make eye contact, can't share, can't cope, can't use the bathroom unaided, can't use the bathroom at all, can't cope with change, can't gauge when their friends are finding them a bit much, can't cope full stop.

It feels like the 2 main questions you get asked is: why have you got your child in school and simultaneously why have you not got your child in school. You can't do right for doing wrong.

Do you have any experience of school refusal in your child or self harm? I have a child with serious SEND bit the risks are different and he has no safety awareness because of ID. This is a bit different as the DD is intelligent and probably very capable of doing something risky in a school. Many people on these threads really don't understand the struggles of ND, so I would be pretty scared of sending my child to school.

Legally though there should be some sort of education and the LA are not doing anything about this.

OP I think you are doing well and sorry to hear of this. If you do have to go to a tribunal and get a long date, look up SEND 7 forms. It may bring the date forward.

Flawless is very good for rights info and has helped me ad other parents a lot on these threads, but I have been where you are and feeling like the world is against me and doesnt care (to the point of being suicidal). Antidepressants really, really helped for me, and melatonin for my child if there were sleep issues. Nobody gives you a manual for this. Once my son was diagnosed I got a leaflet and sent on my merry way. For a life long severe disability. None of this is your fault.

I walk. I took her out last October hoping it would help

no where does the op say her child was a school refuser

i am merely asking why the op withdrew her child. I know she thought it would help, but how would de registering and leaving the system help?

I am not not trying to catch the op out
but I can’t understand how taking DD out of the system helps.

are there any siblings? If so and they are at school, then at least the school and the op are still connected in that sense. OP could you talk to the school about the impact of your dd on her siblings and for that to improve communications - working together

Exactly this, she's trying to convey how big the feelings are, and giving an extreme example.
I wouldn't try and talk to her or reason with her when she feels like this.
Stay firm with the boundaries and explain when she is in a calmer frame of mind what the boundaries are.
I would say in the moment i'm sorry you feel so bad right now, does she like hugs, head massages, could you sit with her. Find out what regulates her and do this, reduce demands too.
Taking her to A snd E will terrify her and make it worse.
It's OK for her to express herself in this way, as shocking as it may be for you. Don't over react to it, try to distract from it.
Push your GP for a diagnosis.

I feel like this thread has derailed a bit now, and become a bit of a debate around home education vs school, and that's not what I'm about at all, so I'm going to check out now.

But thank you to all of those who wrote kind things and checked in with me. I'll make another thread if we have any updates.

I hope there’s an update Op otherwise your child will reach adulthood without any kind of education.

Good luck