Is an Ed Psych what I need???

[essbee]

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Not an ed psych- a clinical psych.

Ed psychs are involved in choosing school placements. maybe screening for dyslexia etc- they are not particularly well qualified.

Clinical psychs are I think doctors (although maybe not but highly trained). And deal with your sorts of issues.

Just to gve you an example of how they are differnt: We meet ds1's ed psych every term - she looks at his school placements and discusses where he works, how much time he is in the clasrrom etc etc.

Recently we have been having problems with him refusing to go into people's houses, or into various random buildings. My friend suggested I made an appointment with his clinical psych.

Waiting lists are long though - so if you can afford private it would be worth it.

If it is a psychologist it is unlikely to be a trained doctor. A psychiatrist will be a trained doctor. I agree that a clinical psych would be a better be. Does the school have a behavioural referal unit that they use? That can speed things up sometimes. Ask the staff if they have refered children in the past. I have seen great changes in some kids who have had referals. Not a magic wand but it can help sometimes.

Hope that things go well today for you both and please dont feel that you are useless, you are not.

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ah psychiatrist - that's it! durr knew there was some for that was a dr. I do know of a clinical psych who must have trained as apaed first of all though. All gets very confusing. Anyway- will be better trained than an ed psych.

A clinical psychologist would probably be good though. They can screen and diagnose. DS1 wasdxed by the clinical psychologist 2 weeks before the paediatrician. The can do things like IQ tests etc as well.

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Sorry you and ds are going through this. Really hope you can get to the root cause and help him out. Hang in there, and don't blame yourself.

essbee, I know exactly how you are feeling. DS1 is like this too although he has got better he still has a long way to go. When you have your meeting with head/teacher ask if there is a Behavioural Support Team in your area that he could be referred to. DS1's whole class were referred (only a couple of the kids in his class were well behaved!!) and it helped them so much. The BST here also has a parentline that you can phone if you need advice on how to deal with any aspect of his behaviour.

I had a meeting on Monday with DS1's head as he has recently started biting/spitting in playground again and we had a good chat. What I was getting a bit p*ed off at was DS1's teacher seemed to take great delight in telling us of his wrong doings in front of him, the other children and their parents but didn't do the same when he had done something good. He would get stickers for doing good things, but we never knew what he did to get them as he wouldn't tell us (typical, like asking "what did you do at school today" and his teacher never made a point of saying why he got it. Anyway the head had a quiet word with teacher and she know makes a point of telling us (usually DP who picks him up from school) what he got his sticker for and amazingly he has had stickers every day

Another thing I'm going to try here is the sticker issuing for good behaviour, although I had great difficulty finding them in town. Mentioned this to head who gave me a brochure from a company that the school get their stickers from If you want the web addy for it just let me know

Sorry for rambling on there and good luck with your meeting next week.

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He'll be 6 in November although he has been quite a handful (understatement at times)since he was 4

The addy for the site is www.brainwaves.net (thought it better posting addy than link). Don't be put off by the "school" feel to the personalised ones as you can get whatever you want on them. Just go to the personalised section and they will send you an up to date brochure as well as the personalised brochure

It is nice to know that you're not the only one and if you ever need to have a rant, feel free to give me a shout (also been there on the x-prat and violence too)

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Same here re: smacking essbee, except mine done it to DS1 once for laughing

The stickers didn't work at school at first because the teacher never told us what he got them for, but now that she is he seems to get them more and we can do the whole praise thing at home too. Also he got a "pat on the back" award on Friday for helping sort out the headphones and that's now stuck to kitchen cupboard door

What I've done is went to Stationery Box and bought a hardback notebook and am sticking his stickers in there with the date he got them and what he got them for, makes me smile to go through it and lets him see that we're not here just to nag him

Also we're going to take a look at how we do things here when he's naughty as we've not been consistent or issued threats we have no intention of carrying out (such as binning all his toys if he doesn't tidy them up)

Still a long long way to go here as he does seem to have a lot of anger inside him sometimes, but he has definitely got better than he was

I'll send you my msn addy through contact another talker

essbee, I hope those talks with the head and the stickers etc make things better soon.

I can see you feel bad about your dh's treatment of your son while you were together. Looking at my expereince, I'm not so sure if what you are experiencing with your son now is the direct result of that. My dh looked after my oldest son while I worked full time. They had a really close relationship and dh was (and is) a great dad. Not perfect, but very loving and firm when needed. That didn't prevent my ds having behavoural problems at school when he was your son's age. My son was destructive (in an accidental, fiddling sort of way), got into fights, was bad at concentrating and working, a bit immature all round, really. Having a good dad did not prevent that. Dh used to have sleepless nights about ds, couldn't understand were he had gone wrong. As my son grew up things did improve. Dh and I and verious teachers tried lots of things and hopefully some of them were effective (so many things it's hard to isolate which ones were most successful). But it took time - years really.

Hiddenspirit, re your sons's teacher telling you all about his wrongdoings in front of other parents and classmates and never telling you what he got his good stickers for. How tactless!glad you got it sorted out with he head.

I saw a "sticker system" in M&S the other day. It looked like an advent calendar and I wondered why it was in the shop in June and a closer look revealed a sticker system! I think stickers can work really well but you need a system and to be consistent, I assume there would be instructions or ideas on use on any that you buy.

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Nope essbee, got away from him 3 years ago

Got a lovely DP now as well as a DD (step DD) and DS2

essbee, can you substitute the boring old stars with more interesting stickers bought elsewhere, e.g. Harry Potter or something? I also think you should target specific behaviours rather than vague "being good" and don't pick too many, maybe 2 or 3. Also best to reward "being calm at bedtime" or "helping with X", you know what I mean. You then don't give a sticker or, at last restort, take one away for the "undesirable" behaivour rather than talking all the time about what he does wrong.....

You should never take a sticker away that has been given previously. It does more harm than good. Behavioural Team stressed this to the mother of one of the boys in DS1's class who mentioned she did this for especially naughty behaviour.

Davros directed me here- there's a similar discussion developing in SN - token reward systems. Obviously slightly different emphasis but may be of interest.

I agree HS, taking away a token is NOT the opposite of giving one. I believe it can be done but I would only do so with very good advice and very careful thought. It is better to differentiate behaviour by either giving a token or not. Taking them away would just be demoralising

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JimJams, had a look on your thread and have thought about token reward system for DS1 (infact all 3 of our kids), but have never given it enough thought to put into practice, but may look into it/plan it when I finish up work. Fingers crossed it works for you though

Essbee, sent you message through contact another talker, but not sure if you got it with MN being a bit off colour (for lack of better words ) earlier

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essbee, I know that your son getting told off by the head is bad news, but how easily can put this in context? Do you help out at the school as all?

Ok pinching is bad, being told off by the head in front of everyone is bad, but would it make you feel any better if you knew the head sometimes told off other children like this, and your son was one of several who were pinching at the time? To get an idea if my son is being bad within the normal limits of the school, I try to find this out. My 10 year old can tell me lots about discipline policy, who has done what etc - but my youngest son would never open up like this. So so I don't know what to suggest in your case, except go in to help. But as the end of term is approaching, perhaps that's something you could do next term?

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