In not pursuing a diagnosis for five year old?

[woodenwalls]

May be a controversial one.

DS is five and as he gets older I do think there’s possibly some SEN there. He is very reactive: loses his temper easily, screams an shouts (had a lot of that this holiday) - as a toddler his tantrums were awful, he’d claw at my face, pull my hair … I found him really difficult and I wonder if maybe some of that’s affecting us still. I can’t get him to listen; I’ve really made an effort with strategies that promise they work and they don’t 😩

OTOH, nursery didn’t flag anything, neither have school. I’m reluctant to go to the GP; dh wouldn’t be on board and it doesn’t seem like support is very forthcoming anyway. I guess what I’m asking is AIBU to just … leave it, and struggle on?

Get him on the waiting list. You can always cancel if he suddenly changes. I'd recommend writing down what exactly it is that makes you think there's something. Write down exactly what strategies you've tried, and how he responded to them. If you haven't already read it try how to talk so kids will listen. Is it transitions? Too many instructions at once? Too loud? Too bright. Not loud and bright enough?

@AgnesMcDoo my diagnosis came after a 50 min video call (via NHS) and I was recommended medication on the basis I had a GP appointment which would check blood pressure/heart health. Not all areas in the country are the same.

Please don't do what we did.
Our daughter has always struggled with impulse and emotional control. She is extremely intelligent but challenging.
Once she got to 16 and found herself largely friendless, we spoke to her school. They agreed that she was exhibiting traits of autism. Spoke to the gp and were referred. After about 3 years waiting, we paid for an assessment. It took virtually a whole day and cost us around £2.5k, no surprises when she was diagnosed.
She went to university and, off her own bat had an adhd assessment.
Lucky ducky now gets extra time on exams and a
Couple of other adjustments. She's just got a first in her masters degree to add to her first bachelors.
She's not medicated but is much more at peace

You wouldn’t be “seeking a diagnosis” - you’d be seeking support for behaviour that you are finding challenging. That might be the result of Neurodiversity - it might not, but surely it is better to try to get to the root of whatever is making him angry and aggressive. There will be something causing his behaviour and you are just taking steps to address that. Children often first display difficult behaviour at home as it is a safe place they can unmask (for whatever reason) - he may well start displaying these behaviours at school as things progress and more challenge is made of him there. You should consider his behaviour communication of some kind, so you should try to find out what is going on.

It’s just really hard to know. I’ve had nothing negative from school (he’s only been there a term) but absolutely nothing, not even anything small. And nothing was ever flagged at nursery, but his anger and temper and the way we struggle to even have a basic conversation is so difficult, I’m not steadfastly refusing to go to the gp despite concerns being raised, it’s just literally nothing has.

Start it now. I raised flags at 7. She was assessed but didn’t hit threshold, it all fell apart at 13 and I ended up in a position desperately trying to get help before she hit gcse years. I only managed it because I paid for private assessment. she would have been excluded from school before she got assessed if I had to wait for CAMHS I am pretty sure.

I work in a reception class and at this point in the year we wouldn’t necessarily approach parents with concerns because they are only just getting properly settled and we are only just getting to know them (especially if they attended a different nursery)

But if a parent approached us with their own concerns we would fell them anything we had noticed that could potentially be a sign and discuss things with them (and the senco if needed)

It's not true that private assessment "isn't accepted by the NHS". LAs and the NHS are increasingly having to contract out.

Our private assessment was done by NHS paediatricians via a charity they set up.

Other than that I fully agree with this post. Age 6 is very different to age 16!

This is really unfair. I’m a secondary SENDCo and my MSc dissertation was about autistic girls. The vast majority of our staff can spot an ND student, particularly one who is masking.

Start by talking with the school. I wouldn't focus on diagnosis and assessments just start with a discussion about things he finds difficult and what can be done to support this.

Schools don't always see what you see at home. I have a 5 year old and whilst I don't think she has SEN there have been aspects of growing and learning that she has needed help with. She is a quiet reserved girl who takes time to warm to situations and people. We had toileting issues in reception because the teachers weren't safe people and she found it difficult to talk to teachers about getting her needs met. The teachers saw a child who could speak to them, was quiet but was smiley and happy. They didn't see all the times that she couldn't speak to them as you can't see something that didn't happen. I saw a child that screamed every morning that she didn't want to go to school, would come home very upset because something had happened and she hasn't been able to speak to the teachers about it. She was like a shaken bottle of pop and exploded easily in the evenings. She only turned 4 in the weeks before she started school and whilst in many ways she was ready for school and easily kept up with the class there were aspects where she was definitely 4 and needed support in learning those skills.

The school put in methods to lower the barrier to communication. The staff started to wear cards that children could point to if they needed something e.g toilet or felt poorly or something was bothering them and she had a card with the same things on her desk. They know now not to take her smile at face value and she has started to build a rapport with her teachers and they are now safe adults to her. She has been able to make some consistent friendships and by facilitating time out of school with them she now counts some of their parents as safe people too. Her world has expanded she can communicate better and is happy to go into school most of the time because her needs are being met at the point of her needing them to be met she's calmer and less explosive at home. She's not had an accident at school since the may half term. It took several conversations with the school to see it as a communication problem and not a continence problem as that was the only symptom they were picking up. She had been toilet trained for 2 years and managed at 1400km drive across France and the UK before starting school without an accident so we knew it wasn't a toilet issue but a communication issue. Her teacher gave her some one to one time and some sensory time as well as lowering the barrier to communication. The more the school was a safe place the calmer she was at home.

Agree with everyone saying to speak to his teacher. Even if it is 'only' an issue with him managing his anger/frustration they may be able to add him to various in-school interventions. My DCs' lower school ran various interventions for everything from academics to emotional regulation to social skills with small groups who needed just a bit of extra help in that area based on need not having/awaiting a diagnosis. DCs' middle school have similar but run by CAMHS. They can also refer you to parenting courses that can provide you with really helpful strategies.

IME school don't always raise concerns with you unless the behaviour is disruptive, but the moment you have a meeting to discuss what you're seeing and ask if they have any concerns, they will be honest.

I'm an experienced secondary school teacher and I can spot some SEN given that I've been a parent of an AuDHD girl for most of my teaching career, but I certainly wouldn't be bringing it up with parents unless via the SENCO if the chid was struggling a great deal in class (and our SENCO is decent but they've got a lot of their plate and basically all their time is taken up with extreme cases and EHCP).

While I don’t expect his teachers or nursery staff to have directly said ‘we think he may have …’ (although I know some cases where they have) there would surely be signs of struggling?

I don’t know. I often think my expectations are off. It’s just hard as I’m not the parent I want to be but can’t seem to change anything.

My child was diagnosed at 8, at 5 it was being totally minimised by school. By 11 it’s so noticeable that you would instantly recognise him as SEN. In my experience it’s untrue that children somehow grow out of these things, I’d say the ‘gap’ becomes wider and much more obvious as they get older. I know we all want to ‘hope for the best’ but I wish someone had been straight with me. I didn’t peruse formal diagnosis until my child (and by extension the rest of the family) was already in an absolute state. Don’t be me!

Agree with this. We first raised concerns about our daughter with her preschool. We then raised concerns with most of her teachers throughout primary school, with little result. It was only once she absolutely crashed and burned at secondary school, and became seriously ill from burnout that the GP referred her. She was finally diagnosed with autism aged 14. It's frustrating when so much advice is that you are failing your children if you don't seek an assessment, but then you get blocked at every turn.

What seems tolerable now can be hard work at 10 and a car crash at 15.
Pursue support for him. You will probably have to be a pain and keep records of everything.

It took a decade to get my DD help. The shit for brains paediatrician, GP and school support team took so long that she dropped GCSE grades and only just made it to college.

Yep, some areas have even stopped people joining the waiting lists as there aren’t not enough funds to process the ones already waiting
you will regret delaying getting the ball rolling

It would mean people responding are far more likely to have been in your position. If you suspect SEN then that’s absolutely the best place to put it.

Don't wait for a nursery or school to flag concerns, go along to your GP and get the process started.

Some children with ND find school fine because there is structure and regime so they know what is happening every day and every week. This could be why school is fine but home life not.

You should definitely speak to someone as it’s unfair that he could potentially miss out on support.

I don’t think the ball can even be rolled - people are assuming he definitely is Sen and I don’t even know myself!

Talk to school. Maybe it is you, but that doesn't mean you ignore it. You should be getting support with your parenting. With you saying you struggle connecting with him there is a good chance it's you, he's probably acting out because he is seeking connection. You need to address it now or he could have some serious mental health problems as he gets older.

They really didn't see my daughter as having a communication issue at all. They saw a happy smiley child. The moment she walked through the school gate she was smiling they didn't see the screaming I had had on the walk to school.

There was one incident where she went to the toilet just before break time and got locked out of the playground. She was found by another teacher upset. She was seemed fine when I got her from school but the moment we stepped off the school property she turned feral she clung to lampposts and railings, climbed a fence on a building site, screamed, bit me, I had to half drag her home as she was fully in flight and fight mode. Once she was home and in a safe place she told me what had happened. I raised it with the teacher that had her that day and they said yes this happened but she was fine so we didn't mention it. I told them categorical the child I picked up was not fine in the slightest and she hadn't wanted to go to school on case it happened again. It happened on a day where her usual teacher was off sick which didn't help. The school arranged for her to walk a teacher through what had happened and how she felt as a debrief. They validated her feelings and then gave her an action plan of where to find help if it was to happen again and how she could access the playground too.

JLou it's opinions like yours that cause problems for children. The support and parenting "classes" while her child struggles will waste some time and money but she should eventually get support for her child (been there, done that and cost the county a fortune that could have been avoided). A lot of damage will be done in the meantime but hey-ho 🤷🏻‍♀️.

That’s the ball to start rolling-
start the process of investigating if he is -