Would you take your child to a child/educational psychologist if your spouse/partner was against it?

[bossykate]

hello all

i am pretty sure i want to have ds (aged 7) assessed by a child and/or educational psychologist.

my reasons are as follows:

• ds can be difficult to deal with and the bog-standard behaviour management techniques don't appear to suit him well. i feel there is a lot of conflict and worry that it does not bode well for the future.
• ds seems rather immature in certain aspects of his behaviour, e.g. still has tantrums, in floods of tears over the slightest thing.
• i have never felt that ds is doing particularly well at his (highly regarded, outstanding ofsted-ed, state) school. it may well be that i am just an overly competitive, pushy mum - but i'd rather have an expert assess ds's progress and tell me that rather than continuing to live with this niggle about his progress.

in addition to a proposed assessment, i will be getting out the trusty parenting manuals for some revision!

anyway, i've suggested this to dh and told him my reasons. he is not keen for ds to have this assessment.

should i go ahead anyway?

over to you wise mumsnetters TIA

hello everyone and thank you very much for all your replies.

having thought more about this overnight, i agree with jimjams that i have yoked two different issues together.

taking his behaviour alone, i'm pretty sure the "issues" fall well within normal bounds and do not really warrant investigation by a child psychologist. having said that, i do wish there were some middle ground resource between full-on child psych assessment and revising the parenting manuals. i recognise the "challenges" we are facing are more than likely far from unusual and i bet we are not the only parents who could be dealing with it better. or think that we could be dealing with it better when maybe we are doing fine.

on the educational side, i do have "concerns" (not more serious than persistent "niggles" as i said earlier) about his aptitude and yes there is a noticeable gap between his written and verbal work. so thanks again to jimjams for clarifying that is ed psych territory.

i will have to think about this some more and find out more about what an ed psych could do or tell me before proceeding down this route.

the thing about going ahead when dh was not keen is really a whole different can of worms and should probably be addressed separately under relationships!

thank you very much to all, especially those who shared their experiences of the "journey"