To not allow SEN referral for DS?

[FernFaery]

DS has recently turned 3. He changed nurseries 6 months ago. His old nursery sang his praises, and he never had any issues there. Since joining the new one, we’ve had a steady stream of the following complaints:

1. He doesn’t listen
2. He’s hyperactive
3. He hits/bites
4. His attention span is short

I realise the above sounds awful. He never bit or hit at his last nursery, and has been badly bitten himself at the new one on a handful of occasions - at one point 3 times in a week.

He has good days or even weeks and it can be some time between complaints. At home he’s energetic and sometimes fights with his sister, but he never seems ‘angry’ and isn’t hard to distract or bring down during a tantrum. He is physical and would rather be outside or climbing/running, but he can spend a good hour at a time playing with plastic animals, doing jigsaws and enjoys sitting and reading lots of stories. His speech and motor skills are really good. He never hits or bites me or DH, or any other adult while we are there. He’s also very nice with his friends at play dates and I’ve never seen him act aggressively.

I can’t decide if this is a DS issue or a nursery issue and we should move him. While I know additional support can’t hurt, the programme involves a series of meetings and goals and I am so utterly swamped with work, studying, learning to drive and a time consuming disability I have myself. I feel like I’m drowning.

If your child was ever in this position what happened? I feel so drained by it. I realise I might sound ‘in denial’ but honestly he’s fine outside of nursery and his behaviour gives me no cause for concern (he has a 7 year old sister too).

Just wondering how much time you spend with him. If he comes home from Nursery and you’re working/studying/having driving lesson etc maybe this is difficult for him? Is your partner this busy too?
I’m not blaming you, but you say you’re overwhelmed which isn’t good for you nor your DS. Could you wait till he’s in full-time school to learn to drive? Could your partner do more?
You mention him playing with his sister or playing outside, but does he have time with you? Eg story time, one to one cuddle and chat or do a puzzle together?

OP we had kind of a similar experience - no real issues with DC at home, was with a nanny until just before turned 3 and then went to half day preschool/half day nanny. Because of COVID, communication was pretty poor (and also the school turned out to be kind of crap) and it wasn't until the end of the year they told us DC was having screaming meltdowns every day. We were a bit baffled because although we had tantrums etc at home, we had discussed with multiple pediatricians (not UK so easy to takes to peds) and they were all firmly of the view it was developmentally appropriate. The next year was worse, we were getting constantly called in for meetings, they asked us to have DC assessed for behavioral disorders. We did and DC didn't even meet the criteria for a full screening. School was not interested and essentially told us they didn't believe the psychologist and accused us of hiding the report. Thing escalated further with school restraining DC (illegal where we are without proper reporting) and lying about it when it was reported by DC's behavioral therapist. We ended up removing DC from the nursery just before they turned 5 (not UK and was at a Montessori so stay through the kindergarten year/year 1 equivalent). Spent 2 years at a new Montessori with essentially no problems - the teachers were politely confused when we asked about any behavioral problems.

DC just finished first year at big school and we are having some challenges again.

I think for us it was a combo of things:

1. DC is different, I know people look down their noses at gifted testing in the UK, but as part of eval done, IQ testing showed DC to be profoundly gifted and things just get kind of weird once you get in that range.
2. First nursery was crap - super inexperienced teacher, absolutely no solutions provided - they asked us to tell them how to handle it and what we did at home and then proceeded to tell us how absolutelly none of that would work at school, while also offering no alternatives. Despite being Montessori, really chaotic environment and so horrible behavior from other children towards each other, not prevented at all by the staff.
3. Second nursery was an EXCELLENT fit for DC, incredible teaching staff, true Montessori so DC was able to go at their own pace. Super calm environment.
4. Big school is somewhere in the middle - amazing teaching staff and incredible SEN support but DC is testing above the 99th percentile 2 grades above their grade and the environment is relatively chaotic.

I try not to think of how different it would be if we had DC at the second Montessori all along - she was unwilling until very recently (ie, almost 4 years later) to allow adults to comfort her when she was upset with a hug etc after being restrained at school. She only is just starting to come to me when she is hurt/sad etc, previously she would go hide. I think she missed some really critical social/emotional support during an important time and it continues to impact her.

That said, if the school had not asked us to get her assessed, we would not have been aware of the giftedness. She was extremely verbal from a young age but we only have one DC (and I was same) so didn't really have anything to compare it to. So I am grateful that we had that information early on.

Long story short, I think it's worth getting an assessment but also would seriously consider moving nurseries.

I would let them provide support because it might be good. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I would be wary of changing nursery again unless he seems very unhappy. Children really hate changing nursery/school and the change is sometimes the cause of problems because it makes them feel insecure. Bear in mind he is going to have to move again for school.

He was 3 days a week at nursery from 12 months - 2, then I had 6 months off work so he was with me every day from 2-2.5. Then he started his new nursery in January (3 months after moving house), where he’s 4 days a week and spends the other day with me. He’s also term time only (because if DD is home from school, we keep him at home so he can have some downtime).

If I’m having driving lessons or studying he’s at home but with DH and DD. I do try not to overschedule him and he spends a lot of time when he isn’t at nursery at home.

Hi - hope you’re well. I work as a SEND advisor. This sounds like an anxiety response to me - and it also sounds like the nursery he is at is unable to recognise that. When I was teaching (secondary albeit) you have to remember that different teachers and in this case nursery practitioners have a different threshold of what is ‘bad’ behaviour and what is normal developmental behaviour. Your son may well have been showing some of these behaviours in his previous setting (which is normal by the way) but they viewed it as age appropriate and something they could deal with. Here it seems they can’t. I would move him no doubt - as a mum of a 2 year old.

He's 3.
Maybe the nursery is asking too much of him.
Just like school, nursery is an artificial contrived environment that suits some and not others. Lots of humans of the same age with undeveloped socialisation skills thrown together in the care of non parents ... what could possibly go wrong?

At this age the child should not be moulded to the setting, the care should be moulded to the child.

Clearly his previous nursery created a good balance between individual children's needs and the needs of the group.

Would he thrive better in a child minder situation if you and your partner are both out at work?

Nowadays children who are:

different/difficult/boisterous/placid/loud/quiet/unruly/ too obedient/inquisitive/ withdrawn/naughty/etc; are too readily being judged as having something wrong, or deficient in their personalities, and then being labelled, when in the huge majority of cases they are just being them.
Our Grandparents, and Great Grandparents, and those before them were never assessed to the extent that is happening now, and they turned out to be more or less okay, or else we wouldn't be here now.

We should stop diagnosing our children with ailments that probably don't exist, to the extent that we are doing, and focus on good parenting.

@FTMaz were you referring to the overexcited behaviour in social settings, in your comment? Thanks 🙂

Hi - sorry I don’t know what you mean?

Ahh sorry, I haven't read all the updates. But the OP mentioned her son getting excitable in social situations and I wondered if you were thinking that might be an anxiety response, I didn't explain well. You were probably referring to a different behaviour?

Was just curious as my son used to get overwhelmingly excited in social situations. Not so much now he's a little older (but he is struggling with anxiety in other areas).

Honestly this sounds helpful. It doesn't sound like it will result in any assessments. It doesn't sound like you're going to need to take him to loads of appointments, just that he will get a bit of targeted support at nursery funded, which sounds great for him and them.

As a parent of DC who were diagnosed later on, it would have been absolutely brilliant for their nurseries to have this kind of support with them, because they didn't really know how to handle their behaviour/difficulties either, and because especially DS2 really benefited from me doing a lot of sitting with him while he was interacting with his brother/visiting children and kind of coaching him through what I noticed the other child's body language telling me so that he didn't overreact to everything all the time, as he would if left to his own devices, and would then get into such a state he wasn't learning anything. When I sat with him and helped him learn the social patterns he started to relax a lot around other children, which helped him to make friends.

I don't think it would have changed anything in regard to them getting diagnosed later on, but whether or not they met the threshold for diagnosis later, I think it would have made things easier for them earlier on and I think that's really impactful if they can access nursery to their fullest potential rather than being held back socially due to their peers being scared of them, or developing a sort of automatic defensive response to adult instructions because they are so used to being told off, which can escalate throughout school if it's not managed well.

Oh no worries! No I meant the biting and refusal more so. It’s like a ‘fight or flight’ mechanism. I do also think it’s really normal for children to become ‘overly’ excited if something is exciting! They don’t have the ability to regulate themselves like adults do. If you think about the feeling of excitement as just a raw feeling and what that feels like in your body and mind it’s pretty overwhelming! 🙂

It's really difficult to tell as he is behaving differently at home to how he is at nursery (which isn't unusual). It could be that he hates the nursery but it might be something else, including a hearing problem. I can't see any harm in him having this intervention thing and it will probably do him some good. Tbh if a referral for an assessment is offered I would go for that too as the waiting lists are so long.

Completely get what you're saying except "ailments that probably don't exist". My children are severely autistic, it was picked up when they were infants. One continues to be minimally verbal. The problem is there is little public discourse about this kind of SEND (I personally feel they are being almost erased). My children are exactly the kind where it is entirely appropriate the SEND was assessed when they were very young.

I agree though it's a bit ridiculous early years are flagging so many "concerns" about children who are displaying entirely typical, developmentally appropriate, child behaviour if the parents aren't worried at all. Then you have ministers doing their best serious faces about how so many children aren't "school ready" and rising SEND. SEND has been broadly estimated to be about 20% of school pupils since the 70s or so. No 3 year old needs to be doing sitting still table learning. It's all so silly.