Support and advice needed, please: son miserable at school

[ToffeeChristmascake]

Forgive the long back story here, but it is necessary. I feel really down about this today and could do with some MN wisdom.

My son (11 and in his last year at primary) is dyslexic and has problems with anxiety/OCD. We have had a lot of problems with school over the years. He had a very difficult time in his early years and was quite disruptive. Once he was diagnosed as dyslexic (at 6), he received the extra help and understanding he needed and his disruptive behaviour stopped. However, the anxiety that manifested itself in disruptive behaviour now turned into OCD behaviour - rituals such as hand washing, checking things, shutting the bedroom door a set number of times, etc. We have been to CAMHS more than once to help him.

Two years' ago, his anxieties became so great that he became hysterical every morning before school. He was unable to face going into class, so spent half days in the school office and came home in the afternoons. We were seeing CAMHS at the time for help with his anxieties, so we were given a lot of support in helping him to overcome his fears. He was given his own teaching assistant - a wonderful, intuitive woman, who was a great support for him through this time. He is a brave boy and he managed to overcome his fears and get back to school full time and without a TA.

The next year went well. However, things have deteriorated since his return to school in September. He feels that he does not fit in with his classmates, he finds playtime stressful, he finds lessons either boring or stressful. He seems to worry all the time.

He feels sick a lot; he has stomach aches a lot; he complains of having nightmares about going back to school; his hands are dry from all the hand washing; he spends large parts of the day completing rituals to make himself feel safe.

I keep an eye on him constantly to see how he is, as he does not always want to talk about it. I have noticed all that was going on, but I hoped that two weeks' relaxation at Christmas might restore him.

Today, he told me how unhappy he was and asked me, not for the first time, to home educate him until he went to secondary. I pointed out that this might make the transition to secondary school much harder for him. In fact, I would do it like a shot if I thought it was the right thing to do. I hated forcing him go to school when he was so unhappy about it two years ago, but I did not want him to become school phobic. He does say now that he is no longer scared of school - he is simply miserable.

I'm planning to go in and discuss this with the headmistress when term starts, but, in the meantime, any advice and support would be much appreciated.

I would pull him out of school, give him a year to find himself and take it from there, Schools cannot deal with bullys for all they say, it will just happen outside of school. I dont see why we send kids to school when it makes them so sad.

homeboys you shouldn't believe everything you read on the net ya know!
There has been no "big mistake" in entries. There is, and always has been, some debate as to whether Aspergers should be included with Autistic Spectrum Disorders in terms of diagnostic classification as set out in ICD10 (diagnostic "bible" for all illness, not just psychiatric) but really that is a technicality and not something which has much baring on getting a diagnosis or managing Aspergers or ASD.

I would have to say that IMO Aspergers is probably still under-diagnosed. Yes, it is now diagnosed more than before, but so are MANY things - this is the result of research, training and education of professionals.

toffee when you get your app through for the Psychiatrist why not ring up and ask if you could go to initial appointment alone (without ds) that way you can have an open discussion with psychiatrist and see what you make of them and whether they would consider a further assessment and all without worrying about upsetting ds further - that way there's nothing to loose.

Zoe - he is looking forward to going to secondary school, but will get seven months at home first, which I hope will give him time to recover. I will be keeping a close eye on him at secondary school.

OFM - thank you for clearing that up about the AS entry. That's a very good idea about seeing the psychiatrist alone first, as I know it will be upsetting for DS.

Toffee I think deep down I have a lot of Asperger's traits. I was never diagnosed. A lot of people in my mother's family suffered crippling shyness. I know that at Primary level I was incredibly socially isolated (never had anyone to talk to in playground etc, always had to sit next to same person to feel safe etc), whereas at Secondary I was fine - it was a very academic, supportive environment for me. I think it will always be a struggle for me to "read" people, and be "outgoing", be good at team sport. I hate large gatherings of people for example. I know that I can have very black and white responses to people and am not overly tactful..or more I have to think very hard and say something tactful, my automatic responses can be illjudged. I experience a lot of anxiety to do with people related situations (like giving a dinner party for example) or deadlines. I feel overwhelmed "organisationally" quite easily. Yet I do have the ability to set my mind to things and do them quite well. I get very interested by things and concentrate on them brilliantly I can deal with difficult problems, as long as they are not "people" situations.
Most people would just say this was shyness, yet I'm quite loud and overbearing (sometimes)for someone who is shy

I am telling you all this because to some extent I had to learn all my emotional intelligence, and I haven't yet finished learning it, aged 45. That may be the case with your son. But you don't have to despair that he will be socially isolated. Yes it may be hard for him to make friends, but he will have close friends, and people will want to be friends with him. The more time you can give him to make him confident in his own abilities at this age, the better it will be for him later.
I think when you have an Asperger's like temperament, you want to be with people, you want people to like you, you just don't quite know what the tricks of the trade are - and that is what is a slow and painful process. Any help with understanding how to get along with people and for people to understand that you may find it difficult to get obvious things (organisational, conversational,emotional) right are invaluable. I would have welcomed that sort of safe place/and advice as a teenager.

To sum up, don't be despair. He is himself, and that self is special, interesting, lovely, affectionate, sensitive in a whole variety of ways. But to get along wth other people than just his nearest and dearest(which is deep down what we all want) he might need some help.

Hope this is not TMI. I just felt you were worrying so much about his happiness.

Re-reading your post about the friend, I suspect that it was combination of friend being insensitive and your son being oversensitive. It is quite easy to fixate on things when you feel ill-used, and that is another aspect of emotional intelligence that has to be explained, that we can move on when things go wrong, and in fact it is more interesting to move on, than to analyse the past. Often you can have expert critical faculties about analysing the past, but less expert critical faculties to judge what is needed to survive right now! IME

Anyway I must stop..

Swan - thanks for your lovely post and for sharing such personal information. It is interesting that you identify so strongly with Asperger characteristics. You can't know for sure without being diagnosed, but it sounds as if you have learnt strategies to cope with your difficulties anyway, so a diagnosis might not help. It is really good to know that you actually found secondary school easier than primary. I am open to whatever happens there, really, and just planning to prepare DS as much as I can, but it is good to know that it is not inevitable that he will find it hard.

Your description of learning emotional intelligence rings very true for my son. He very much wants friends and actually people do like him, but something goes wrong each time. You are probably right that his best friend was not sensitive enough and DS was oversensitive. His self-esteem is so low at the moment that he interprets everything negatively.

At the moment, he is enjoying being at home and doesn't seem to want to see any children of his own age. I think it is just too stressful for him. My instinct tells me to just let him be for the moment. I'm sure that, in time, he will be able to venture into the outside world again.

Incidentally, the online world is a good one for people with any kind of social difficulties. I am amazed at how my son comes across in his Roblox online world - confident, very witty, bright, decisive. Not at all like his RL self (except with close family).

Last night I found out that Kidscape do a free assertiveness-training course for children who have been bullied and I am thinking of applying for that for DS. It might help him learn how to stand up for himself at secondary and avoid the same thing happening all over again.