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Dreamer of dreams,born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight. Wm Morris

771 replies

indignatio · 28/02/2007 16:05

Hopefully the link from the other thread will work

My stats

ds is 4.5 - summer born
In reception class

Has issues with:-
Easy distractability (school work and practical tasks)
Concentration problems when not totally engaged by something (95% of the time)
Fidgeting
Getting "lost" in the middle of a complicated sentence/explaination.
Bossy manner
Isolation at school
Poor eye contact
Repetition of sentences until he hears the acknowledgement
No herding instinct

On the positive
Very loving boy
Exceptional reader for his age
Good at maths
Lots of "home" friends
If gripped by something, can concentrate on it for ages

dx:
teacher initially thought he might have dyspraxia - no longer thinks so.
I consider that he has more add traits, but would not go so far as to say he has add.
SENCO to informally assess him next week and then meeting to be arranged with parents, teacher and senco shortly thereafter.

Not sure what else I should put in.

OP posts:
indignatio · 30/09/2007 19:45

Bink - my dh's dad is just such a professor ( strictly speaking just a doctor rather than a prof - but university don none the less), so I do know where you are coming from. Interestingly, this is not me, I work best under pressure and time contraints. But, the other serious dreamer in the family is another grandchild of said FIL

OP posts:
roisin · 30/09/2007 19:49

I remember a dreamer friend of mine having a very confused moment at the petrol station after a dreamy day.

The car needed filling up with fuel, but it was such a nice day he decided to walk
He didn't realise until he got there

Bink · 30/09/2007 20:31

roisin, that is a brilliant story

Blueblob · 30/09/2007 20:42

I LOVE that

sphil · 30/09/2007 21:16

GrinGrin

Bink · 02/10/2007 12:55

Gloom.
I have had a call from school asking for a meeting - urgently - to discuss ds's behaviour. It will be on Friday morning so I will be stewing till then. Can I have some kind thoughts?

InMyHumbleOpinion · 02/10/2007 13:16

Hi all, I have scanned this thread with my chin hanging, thinking "But ds1 does that!" every 3 posts ...

So, here he is.

He is 4.6, in Reception. He has a fascination with the way things work, but will destroy something in an attempt to disassemble it.
His concentration is poor for his age .. his eyes dance over things, rather than settle, especially if you are telling him something he doesn't want to listen to.
He never ever ever stands still ... he jumps up and down, or 'orbits' me like a small moon.
He has a speech delay, and often uses sound effects and hand gestures instead of words.
He is UberBoy - like a boy, but more so. More noise, more moving, more fiddling, jumping, shouting... He has huge strong hands, the size of a nine year old's, but very little physical grace.

He is Master Of All Things Jolly, he loves fart jokes, and people falling over. When he grows up, he wants to be a daddy. His teacher says he is lovely.

His speech therapist says his speech is 'moderately delayed' but he is catching up. The Ed Psych who assessed him (for I don't know what) said he was Borderline. (Borderline? LOL)

He once cut the cat's whiskers off, to make them all the same length, and cut the washing line down, to tie it all back up 'better'.

InMyHumbleOpinion · 02/10/2007 13:29

Bink.

If I were you, I would go in with an air of "Well, what's the problem, and how can I support you while you address it?"

Don't llet them heap the guilt on - and don't do that to yourself.

Ellbell · 02/10/2007 13:43

Hello IMHO.

Bink... no advice, just lots of moral support for Friday. I guess, as IMHO said, the thing to do is to go in there as positively as possible and to use it as a way of looking for solutions. Have they said exactly what the problem is (apart from, I presume, dreaminess)?

indignatio · 02/10/2007 13:49

Bink - I am sending waves of support.

Do you know what the behaviour "problem" is ?

Is Friday the earliest a meeting is possible ?

Last March you were very positive that the school was going to understand your son. Do you think they do ?

OP posts:
indignatio · 02/10/2007 13:51

Sorry for the ommission

Hello IMHO.

OP posts:
Bink · 02/10/2007 14:17

Hello all, including Humble!

I think the school do understand ds, I say ruefully. My guess is that they are going to suggest it really is diagnosis time - there is at the moment a very pervading (and, ha ha, intractable) issue of intractability (ie, what I was referring to below about dreaminess being superseded by own-agenda-following).

Being a specialist school I suspect they will have tried every strategy they can to motivate him to co-operate ... but if he simply won't, and won't see that the obstinacy is causing problems, then what?

Anyway, that's my guess as to what the problem is. School's been sort of unkeen on the phone to do more than arrange the meeting, which is also why I think we're being placed for a Big Serious Message.

sphil · 02/10/2007 17:25

Support waves coming from here Bink. Nothing worse than having to wait...

Hello IMHO - sorry but pmsl about the cat's whiskers! He sounds lovely - and you describe him really vividly. I can just picture him in my minds eye from your description.

roisin · 02/10/2007 17:32

Thinking of you Bink. I hope it's a constructive meeting on Friday.

singersgirl · 02/10/2007 20:07

Hope it goes well on Friday, Bink, though I know there's quite a long time to wait until then.

Welcome, IMHO. I liked the description of your DS 'orbiting you like a small moon'. DS is always twirling and whirling about.

Bink · 02/10/2007 21:31

Thank you lovely dream-weavers!

I've just had a long chat about this with our nanny and she says it's important I say at this meeting how much ds is "a different child" (nanny's words) socially than he was at the previous school - he has friends, he feels part of a group, he belongs - and the current difficulties come (ironically) partly from how happy he is - his self-control can't quite deal with this joy. So that even if the school is continuing to find him puzzling and difficult, we need to let them know that they have done this one really hugely important (the most important, I think) thing for him.

Bink · 02/10/2007 21:36

Oh and Humble - destroying in an attempt to disassemble - oh yes indeed. Ds and I have had many a conversation about the traditional boy taking apart of toasters & non-putting back together (sigh).

We bought him an old portable typewriter (eBay, £3) and it has done several years of investigation (and still seems to work OK). Highly recommend.

Issy · 02/10/2007 22:05

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at OP's request

Bink · 02/10/2007 22:49

ds's best interests Issy ... such a big part of "children like him" is that no-one can quite tell what their best interests really are. As prognosis is so very uncertain. So it's all very individual and temporal, and I wouldn't blame the school (and/or any school) if they didn't quite know where to go with him.

I have some ideas (though they might not all be right ... ) though. For instance, without a shadow of a doubt, one of his best interests (if not the single best) at the beginning of this year was to be able to make & have friends again - and really the school has (as I said below) got a gold star there. There are other putative best interests about academic stretching - but I'm not as convinced about those ones. I don't know really.

Anyway, I'll report back. In true Bink-minor contrary fashion he'll probably be exemplary b/w now and Friday.

Oh, I should say you all (and our nanny) have chased the gloom away. Thanks!

Hallgerda · 03/10/2007 08:02

Sorry to hear about the meeting, Bink - and I know it's horrid being left to stew for several days. Would it be worth asking your DS whether he's been in any kind of trouble, or if anything exciting or funny has happened, or do you not want to worry him? (One of my really big frustrations with school is that the teachers call me in instead of talking to the children; DS3 is considerably more capable of responding to constructive feedback than they give him credit for - aargh!) All the best for Friday +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(positive vibes - or you can sharpen the ends if it gets bloody).

Issy, your post on Big Meetings really rang a bell with me - I've got numerous rants among my computer files that were written as Big Meeting preparation. I generally console myself with the thought that the "other side" has to be professional and I only have to avoid abusive language (so have kept off the painkillers this far).

Welcome to the thread, IMHO and josiecat.

katepol · 03/10/2007 11:36

Good luck wishes for Friday from me too Bink. Must be very frustrating not knowing what they are gearing up for.
The new school sounds like it has been great for your ds, I really really hope they are thinking in terms of what more they can do. What do you think thye might be thinking in terms of a 'diagnosis'?

IMHO - hello, I am a newbie here too. I liked your comment to Bink about how to approach Friday's meeting. Plus being orbited by your lo. DD doesn't orbit as such, but trails around my legs often causing us both to fall over...

Issy - your description of 'big meetings' - spot on, unfortunately. Amazing how you can feel exhausted after 'just' sitting in a a meeting for an hour...

katepol · 03/10/2007 11:48

Winge coming up - and sorry Bink, this doesn't compare to your concerns at the mo, but I need to vent.

DD is a COMPLETE space cadet at the moment. It is just like speaking to a brick wall. She is just lost to us for huges swathes of time, and when you do get her attention, it is short lived.

We have just established that she has been moved out of the top groups at school, and she hs said she is pleased, because she doesn't have to do such hard work now. Problem is, unless she is pushed, she never will do any good work. She just doesn't feel the need to bother, and is happy when doing shared work for the other person to do it all. It worries me that she will actually go backwards at this rate, as I don't think the teacher has seen what she is capable of, as her dreaminess has been so overwhelming since the start of term.

I am her parent, and I have to admit she comes across as quite slow for about the first 5 minutes of doing anything. Once she is interested though, she is very smart, but you really don't realise that unless you probe. It is like with maths - ask her a simple question (say 12+7) and she will umm and ahh and then get it wrong. Persevere, and she reveals an instinctive grasp of numbers and is quite able to do more complex sums instantly. However, I do not blame anyone for giving up before that point!

It is hard though, how can we explain this without coming across as pushy parents? I am worried that school will lower their expectations of her and that will be that.

More significantly, how can we get her out of her own thoughts all the time??? She is slightly under the weather, she is tired because she can't get to sleep easily, but we have tried and failed to change this....

Argh! (and sorry to go on...)

Bink · 03/10/2007 12:50

Don't worry Kate - I don't think my concerns take precedence over anybody's! (And I go up & down all the time in my feelings about ds, so the Gloom below was just a bit of a bad moment, oh and possibly a self-dramatising melodramatic one . School may not be planning to say anything Heavy at all.)

Now you. It sounds like you have two issues - how to wake your dd up a bit generally; and whether, if the standards she has to live up to (at school) are lowered, she'll do herself justice in the long run.

On the second issue, have you seen tortoiseshell's current thread about her ds? (OP is about coaching/doing extra work etc., but the gist is the same - how can you be sure a child is learning to its real potential.) As for tortoiseshell, I'd think your first port of call is dd's teacher? - find out exactly why she's been moved?

On the first issue, a long long time ago there was a thread (started by me, I admit) which asked those of us who were dreamy at school how & when we got out of that. The universal, fascinating, message was - we grew out of it: usually around adolescence. That may not be very helpful to you now, but it might give you strength for the future.

Also on that first issue, and depending on how old your daughter is, something that I have found wakes ds up is real responsibility, where he can't passively rely on somebody else compensating while he zones out. So - for instance - he's wonderful if I send him on an errand to the corner shop.

And another example: this morning he & I agreed he was going to be in charge of getting to school (we go on the Tube). We got to our stop - but he gazed out of the window - I bit my tongue - the doors shut and on we went. We had to go on to the next stop, change trains at complicated station (all done by him) & scramble back to be at school by skin of teeth.

I am quite looking forward to tomorrow's trip to school as, now he's had to live through the frantic consequences of zoning out, I do NOT think that will happen again.

Hallgerda · 03/10/2007 13:48

katepol, I was in a similar situation with DS3 in Year 1 - he was moved down a Maths group. I was not informed, but was able to work out the "code" because DS2 had been in the same class with the same teacher the previous year. I asked her straight out whether it was her intention just to let him bump down the Maths. groups, and what the school intended to do about it when he hit the bottom. After a face-saving (for the teacher) few weeks of "building up his confidence" in the lower group, he was moved back. I suspect that wouldn't have happened had I not been a pushy middle class parent, but I'm not going to feel guilty about it. I also gave DS3 some grief about exactly how he thought he was going to get through life without making any effort - it transpired he thought he could just live at home and not get a job. (Bloody social skills sessions really didn't help... seemed to be concentrating on making the pupils feel good about not doing very well, rather than building confidence in their own abilities, but that's another story.)

singersgirl · 03/10/2007 13:55

As a note of hope on the academic side for parents of dreamers, DS1 has now in Y5 just scraped into the 'top' maths group; he has always been in the second one. I assume he has scraped as all the other children in the group are the ackowledged 'good at maths' kids. I don't know if he'll stay there.

Katepol, both DS1 and DS2 are a bit like your DD with regard to maths - good conceptually, but not that great at basic number facts. Perhaps this is why DS1 seems 'better' in Y5 - he has had time to learn basic number facts and the conceptual stuff is starting to become important.

Bink, I think letting your DS take charge of the tube journey, and the consequences of zoning out, is a brilliant idea - if requiring a lot of calm breathing on your part. DS1 is allowed to go to the corner shop now, and so far has crossed roads safely and returned with the right order and the right change!