At the attitude of this woman?

[angrypants]

Brief summary-

I am a SAHM with 2 children,DS is 7 and DD is 5.

DS has SN and has a 1:1 at school.

Both children have been ill this week and have had bad croupy coughs and DS has had a high temperature on and off.
They have been really out of sorts and not eating much and sleeping a lot which is out of charecter for both of them.

Have been ringing the school everyday and spoke to DS's 1:1 yesterday on the phone for about 20 mins nad she told me the school has a lot of childredn off at the moment with the same symptoms and advice from a letter from the school was to keep them off so as not to pass it on to others.

Anyway this morning a woman from parent support who has recently made herself known to me and attanded DS's statement review meeting the other week rang me.

She said she was in the area and could she pop in to discuss the meetingand how it went.
I had rung her last week and she did'nt get back to me and she made out I had'nt returned her call from last week.

I said it was unappropriate today as had both children at home ill .

She then went on to say it is not the first time both children have been off together and it rings alarm bells for school when both children are off and schools wonder if the children are really ill or off for other reasons.

She said the teachers are there to teach the children and when they are off it distrupts everything.
This is probably in reference to my DS's 1:1.

She also said the children are missing out.

I said I don't find it unusal that both children are off ill together as they are in close proximity(sp) to each other and why should that be ringing alarm bells.

She said most mothers send their children to school when they are ill but I said why would I do that.
Apart from the fact that they would pass on their illness to others.

I know feel I am damned because I did'nt send them and damned if I did as they had sent letters out last week saying their was lots of bugs going round the school and to keep children off.

I just wonder if the school had asked her to ring and pop round and feel I am being checked up on.

Do they really think I would keep them of school with no reason and make up they are feeling ill?

She has made me feel under suspicion of something and I know feel really crap.

Am I being over sensitive or are her comments totally uncalled for?

Angrypants, some philosophical thoughts about your ds and disability. They may strike a chord with you, they may not, or you may think they're nonsense, but I was just wanting to explore alternative points of view in relation to the situation you have found yourself in.

Where is it written that he should 'want' to 'improve'? Where is the law that says all children 'must' talk? If he chooses to stay silent, that is his right. We can try to lead him to the light a bit to make sure he is not missing out on things he might enjoy, or things that would give him happiness, pleasure and confidence, but ultimately if he doesn't want to talk, that's his business. Eventually he will work out he's ready to participate and then the speaking will come, surely, given a supportive environment? Isn't this what normally happens with selective mutism? In the meantime, giving him a hard time for electing not to speak in public seems unhelpful.

In the same vein, are his problems really problems to him, or just problems to the professionals working with him? There's a big difference. For example, toileting problems mean extra work for adults, but unless children are distressed about it, we have to ask ourselves why it matters so much to us if it doesn't to them. Again, most things are resolved with time and patience.

Maybe the professionals dealing with your ds should address their own feelings towards learning difficulties and disabilities before wading in to give other people advice, wanted or unwanted. Disabled children are not broken pieces of equipment that need 'fixing', they are people in their own right, and they need time and space to be individual and develop at their own pace. Just because professionals try to measure their development using some sort of symbolic ruler, always relating them to some sort of average child that doesn't exist in reality, does not mean this is desirable, helpful or appropriate for such children, or indeed any children.

As I said, we should all be on hand to facilitate the development of children generally, as it matters greatly, but not at the expense of our children's overall wellbeing. Happy, loved children make a lot more progress than stressed, unhappy ones. And stressed, unhappy professionals should therefore be avoided at all costs, as this disease is very infectious.

Boffinmum-that does strike a chord with me.

The thing about SM is it is an anxiety disorder and a phobia and although the child may want to speak if it is if their voives close up due to the anxiety and they have a sense of fright or flight.

I know it must be difficult for people to understand unless you have seen both sides of the child.

DS is an itelligent,loving little boy and a bit of a perfectionist.
I feel his speech disorder made him aware he found it difficult to say certain words and for fear of getting it wrong says nothing at all.

When I take him to school he can be talking to me on the way an das soon as we get to the school gates and enter the school his facial expressions change and he does'nt even talk to me.
Heartbreaking to see and would love other people to hear what a great little boy he is.

definetly not the actins of a strong willed,stubborn little boy,he looks worried.

The psychologist who was assessing him was comparing him to another little boy with a spider phobia he was helping who had expressed he wanted to change.
Of course I pointed out that DS could not coumincate that verbally and was an unfair comparison as all children are different.

I too wonder because the professionals don't understand SM that they are as you say using some sort of symbolic ruler to measure his development to an average child.
As you say all children are individuals.

The above psychologists views support this in some ways.

This certainly was how I understood SM. I read a very interesting article about another child's experiences in something like Junior magazine or SHE in the last year. Have you seen it?

Boffinmum-No I have not seen that article.

There is not much publicised about SM at all.
I read an article in the Times awhile back when Dr Tanya Byron had a child with SM on the house of tiny tearways.

I have found a couple of articles. In the US they actually treat it, with Prozac and Speech Therapy. I am not sure what I feel about the Prozac myself. I have to say the SHE/Junior one was more gentle and optimistic than these ones, but they do seem to get across the complexity.

www.selectivemutism.org/news/people-magazine-spotlights-dr-elisa-shipon-blum-director-emeritus

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/apr/01/childrensservices.familyandrelationships

There's also a charity/support organisation:
www.selectivemutism.co.uk/

I will keep looking for the SHE/Junior one.

Angry - My son is suspected of suffering with Sensory Processing Disorder.

Your story of the being stuborn, reminded me of when my ds was first seen by a dietician, he took the view it was due to me being 'too soft' with my son. (as if i hadnt already tried everything by this stage) He told me that if i didnt offer my son his usual food he would soon get hungry and eat what i offered him.

2 weeks later, when my son would rather starve than eat what i offered him, he changed his view rather quickly and promptly referred him onto to another specialist!!

I despair at these 'experts' at times. Dont let them grind you down

Boffinmum-thanks for the links.

The Americans seem to have a wider knowledge and acceptance of SM than in the UK.
I don't agree with going down the prozac route and as yet has'nt been mentioned to us.

Speech therapy has been tried in the past but because he does'nt talk was obviously not sucessful.
DS has another appointment in a couple of weeks with a different SALT so will see how that goes.

claw3-My DS has always had issues from a young age with having his hair and nails cut,loud noises ie fireworks,hand dryers in toilets ,getting his hands messy,etc.

It's like these specilaists don't always believe what the parents are telling them and always think they know best.
If they just listened to he people who deal with these issues day to day ie the parents they might learn something.

The psychologist we see is always quoting from text books and whilst they may help guide someone are not relevant to all children.

I had a lot of this at dd's last school. The headteacher knew that she had a diagnosis of a condition that meant she had to stay off school a lot, he had had letters from the school nurse, the school doctor, the consultant paeditrician and the GP, all explaining this and asking him to be understandng about her attendance record.

He still chose to treat us as criminals. He gave us endless lectures about attitude to school attendance, he suggested dd should be transferred to another school, he kept sending the EWO round and badgering her when she wasn't pushing us enough, and then he called social workers in and tried to present us as a dysfunctional family (they told him coldly that they do not deal in medicine).

Every school report we have from those 3 years is full of glowing reports from dd's teachers about her enthusiasm and hard work and excellent results- and then there is something really negative and nasty from the head at the bottom.

Partly I think he really did feel uncomfortable around sick and disabled people- we weren't the only family that was made to feel this. Partly he was obsessed by achieving an Outstanding at the next Ofsted and if that meant dd had to leave the school to improve the attendance statistics, then that would seem an excellent solution to him.

He retired early due to poor health (so maybe he did have issooos) and we haven't heard from an EWO since. Two years later, dd's attendance record is pretty much what it always was, but all our communications with the schools, past and present, centre around her excellent results.

angrypants I would call the school and voice my concerns about her people skills. As for the children being sick together is she a doctor or a medical professional. When I was little I brought chicken pox home from school to my 2 sisters and my brother and we all had it together.

Hello again angrypants, more thoughts, for what they are worth. BTW to put all this interest into context I should say I happen to be a qualified and registered voice teacher (i.e. singing), as well as a university lecturer in education. So I am not a psychiatrist or SALT, but I do have some overlapping professional knowledge.

I was thinking about your ds again this morning and what I had read about the condition yesterday, including children's panic reactions to public speaking. Incidentally I also read some academic papers I did not send you links for, because these are normally only available via university libraries.

Over the years, I have helped many children perform on stage, including pathologically shy ones. Suddenly this morning I had a flashback to when I myself was 6 and the Innkeeper in the infants' Nativity Play at my school. All I had to say was "There's no room at the inn" but I had exactly the same reaction as these children describe - utter panic, closed throat, inability to get out a word, etc etc. Everybody just got impatient with me, and got another child to do it.

Luckily I got over it, as do most children, but I think for a nanosecond there this morning I had a tiny inkling of what it must have been like to have SM.

This got me thinking as to what would have helped me speak on that occasion. Being encouraged and given time and space to just mouth the words, or even to try to whisper it to my best friend might have been possible, especially if nobody minded if I couldn't do those things either. I think it comes down to practising the actual interaction as much as actually vocalising. And being allowed to fail, with there being no negative consequences.

I also wonder if your ds has seen enough of strangers just for a little while, and whether you yourself might be the very person to coax him forwards with this? You seem to know much more about living with a child with SM than most of the people you have come into contact with. You could even become your own expert!

I think the US doctor in the article was possibly onto something regarding the need for some kind of interaction in the first instance, but like I said, I think the Americans are quite quick to medicalise problems like this and give a drug, just as they do with ADHD and Ritalin. Crafty parenting can do a lot to ameliorate psychiatric and psychological conditions. The very fact you are on MN discussing this tells me you are a concerned, supportive parent and just the right person to help you son.