8 year old with anxiety about going to school

[katie123456]

Can anyone help please?
Our 7 year old son gets very upset about going to school after weekends/half-term/holidays. This has happened at 2 different schools (infant and junior) and there are no problems with either of the schools. I think he is just an anxious boy. We can't find out what the problem is other than that he worries about changing for PE in the class (so he is allowed to change in private) doesn't like the pushing etc in the toilet before lunch (so the school have allowed him to go in before the main rush)
There is no problem with any of the other children (no bullying etc). It is a small village school(about 25 in his class and 100 in the whole school) and they are very kind and helpful so I have no complaints as they do everything they can to help
I just want him to be happy and enjoy school (he is usually fine during the day when he is there)- it is so hard seeing him upset on sunday nights and having to leave him in tears at school and I just think it's wrong that a child of 7 should be worried like this
I am wondering whether it would be beneficial for him to be referred to CAMHS although I feel very unsure about this -I even think it might make the problem worse if you happen to see the wrong person and of course the waiting list is bound to be months anyway. I just want to try and nip this in the bud before it gets worse as it will be much more difficult at secondary school where it is so much larger and impersonal. I will discuss with our GP but would very much appreciate any experiences and/or advice from other parents
Many thanks

Have school got any other concerns about him?

Sounds quite unusual for him to be so anxious for no reason.....

A CAMHS referral won't make things worse, but may be very hard to get, and may or may not help.

I have such empathy with children like this! I was exactly like your DS as a child. Then I had children and they had similar traits (although my daughter did adore her Montessori pre-school) and a friend of mine recommended The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron. I found it terribly reassuring.

It explains that these kind of highly sensitive children/people are in the minority (approximately one in five) but the traits are not necessarily signs of a pathology (although if handled badly pathologies/mental illness can develop). Parenting highly sensitive children is tricky!

However, there are lots of amazing things about children like this: they are usually very bright, sensitive, empathetic, and highly creative. As teenagers they tend to reflect more than other kids, so get into less scrapes! Have a look at Elaine Aron's website at www.hsperson.com/ If it's any consolation, lots of my friends are highly sensitive people (HSPs) and they are kind, successful and generally happy, despite being highly sensitive!

Thank you, IndigoBell, the school are giving him extra 1 to 1 help to bring his reading and maths skills up to the level they should be. I did ask his teacher if it was normal to be so sensitive and she did say it was quite unusual but so far they haven't recommended any further help
I have just rung the Educational Psychology Service to see what they thought (as to whether it is considered an educational problem or a mental health problem as this would depend on whether he might benefit from their service or CAHMS) - they are going to find out and call me back.I know our GP would support a referral if we felt it would help and I'm sure the school would too

Thank you too, wordsmithsforever, that is very helpful and I have now ordered the book you recommended from Amazon.I think that might be the "problem". His previous school expressed concern that our son might have a problem such as Aspergers but we couldn't see it and neither did our GP- we all thought that it was more just a developmental "delay" and when he left that school they had to agree that they then were wrong about him having a problem such as Aspergers.
Does the book recommend any psychological help or just parental strategies?

I think the gist of The Highly Sensitive Child is that being highly sensitive isn't a psychological pathology in itself, so her approach is more one of suggesting good strategies for dealing with the downsides associated with being highly sensitive. The book became my parenting bible when my children were at school. (We home ed now, but my DC's highly sensitive traits were just one of very many reasons why we chose this route!) The book was however very useful indeed in dealing with the school situation.

Does he have any sensory issues? eg struggles with loud noises, being touched, smells, clothes, hot & cold etc......

We do have friends who home educate but they have 4 children. As our son is an only child and my husband is dead against home educating I think that it is in our son's best interests to go to school IF we can somehow overcome the difficulties. I spent ages looking for the best school I could find for him and visited about 13 before we chose this one! We are happy with the school per se and don't feel that there would be any benefit in moving him (unless it was completely out of the school system).
I am looking forward to reading the book when it comes & I'll let you know how I get on, IndigoBell

I am not quite sure about sensory issues - he has commented that he finds the noise in the classroom too loud but then, on the other hand, he himself can be very noisy at home! and it doesn't seem to worry him when we go to the cinema and the sound is very loud there. He doesn't like going barefoot for PE as the hall floor makes his feet dirty. No problem being touched but he doesn't like children being right "in his face" when they are queuing up.
I haven't noticed any problems particularly with clothes - there have only been a couple of items that he has completely refused to wear for no particular reason other than he just doesn't like them. No problems with hot and cold or smells. He does have very good sight, smell and hearing.
He is particular about washing his hands but this is probably because I have taught him that!

My son has Aspergers (which I didn't realise at all until he was 9), as part of his Apsergers he has all sorts of sensory issues. Which again I had no real idea about (noise, clothes, smells, touch) - they weren't so extreme that I noticed them, until I started looking for them IYSWIM.

My son has benefited enormously from Auditory Integration Training. Because it cured his hypersensitive hearing - which I didn't even know he had.

I have no idea if your son has this or not. IME it was impossible to tell. There was no real way I could have known that it was the noise of the class which was bothering him so much. Nor could I have known that AIT would have made such a significant difference to his life.

But if your child does complain that the class is noisy, it is possible that hypersensitive hearing is his problem.

(Only possible. It's also possible it's absolutely nothing...)

A sensory trained OT could also assess your son and find out if he has any sensory problems....

But this could all be just me because of my experiences, and totally inappropriate for your son....

It's very useful to have this information, IndigoBell - thank you for sharing with me.It's something I didn't know about
I am interested to know how you became aware of your son's Aspergers as the signs were so difficult to spot. How was it picked up and by whom? Our son doesn't have the lack of eye contact or unawareness of others feelings or difficulty interacting with others that I understand are some of the features of Aspergers. On the other hand maybe if it's only mild these signs don't manifest themselves.
It is great to hear how well your son has responded to treatment and very encouraging

PM'd you

There is a lovely book called "What to do if you worry too much?" where you can work through various activities with your child. The idea is that it helps them to tackle worries with logic and to talk about it with you.

I worked through it with my daughter when she had just started school - she wasn't worrying about school in particular but had just become overly anxious in general about things she didn't really need to be worried about at all. She has been a lot calmer since we worked through the book. It is aimed at 5-10 year olds I think.

Yes, that book is good.

Thanks EleanorJosie for the recommendation - I've now ordered it from Amazon

Is your son just on a control trip? By getting different treatment from the rest of his class mates isn't this giving him more reason to think he's different? Am surprised the school are bending over back wards to accommodate the little tyrant. It won't help him in the long run, will it? Let's be honest.

What a hurtful mesage from Conmum. My son is certainly no tyrant - in fact he's as good as gold at school - he is one of only 2 or 3 in the class that never get warnings. He behaves impeccably and the school only help in small ways (but that can make a big difference to him) that don't set a precedant for other children and they are firm but fair about things that he has to do.They are not "bending over backwards" but being kind, compassionate and helpful within the constraints of the school environment and they wouldn't hesitate to give him a warning etc if he misbehaved.

Thanks, Toughasoldboots, for your support-much appreciated
I am finding it hard to locate a private specialist in this area - how did you go about finding yours?
Thanks too for the tip about posting in the special needs section - I hesitated to do that initially as I'm not sure yet if my son does fit into that category
I have now spoken briefly with the part time Senco at school to raise this issue and she will arrange a meeeting to discuss and also talk to the Head. she says it is getting increasingly difficult to get Ed Psych assessment. Her view is that she thinks my son needs more time to settle in (although he has been there 6 months now)

Thanks, Veritythebrave, for your comments and support.
Sorry to hear you have similar difficulties with your daughter and hope you are finding a way through.

I am going through this again. Last year my then 9 year old ds2 had huge anxiety issues with school. We saw the senco at his school who was fantastic. She talked with him and left a box in her office so that he could write down his worries and drop them in. Some of his worries were so far in the future and she helped him to realise he didn't need to worry about those! He was referred to cahms by the school and he had 3 meetings. Tbh they weren't particularly helpful. This year (year6) he seems ok at the moment. Still struggling to go to sleep, but anxiety is under control. He has always been well behaved at school and very able academically.

Now my year 2 dd1 has the same problem. The school are being very helpful and understanding. Ignore conmum - I can't believe people think like that.

We flirted with the idea of he for ds2 as he was so anxious, but I didn't want to go down that route. We had the book recommended earlier on the thread and also got a meditation cd to help him relax at bedtime....not working any more though.

Also, ds2 learns the violin. Over the past year it has become clear he has quite a talent for it. This has really boosted his confidence. Is there something your ds does out of school that could really give him a confidence boost?

katie take no notice of peoples ignorance, i think the majority see where your comming from IndigoBelL has a lot of exp in this area so have many of us if you need us on SN if you need to post further come join us, ive 2 NT DC's in MS seconadary and 1 ASD DS in SS so weve a mixture of both worlds IYSWIM , my DD (14) went through a very anxious time after joining secondary with no friends from her prev middle school going there and my Mother dying at the same time she aslo started getting migrains and periods bless her and the dreded zits but a year on and now shes in yr 9 shes so well adjusted got over it all and has so many friends and is so outgoing (im quiet and timid) dads loud and assertive but thankfully shes got so much better her confidence renewed what changed her well she found out i was right about school it will be ok dont be shy(easier said than done) but the biggest thing was she joined navy training corp and made numourous friends there too it gave her such confidence so id advise other than all the great advice indigo and the others have already given you but join a club separate to school like tae kwon do or judo or something and see if that helps, my daughters like a different person now

Thank you for the 3 further messages - most helpful and much appreciated. Sorry not to have posted earlier (does anyone know if you can set up an email notification when messages are posted like you can on Netmums or do you have to keep going back to webiste to check?)
I spoke to the school's SenCo and she had a word with the Educational Psychologist who said if we think there's a problem we should go to GP to ask for a referral. The SenCo said that they are doing all the things they would do anyway which is true. She also said that if they think there is a problem after they have given him longer to settle in and catch up then they will bring in some outside help.
I agree with Schilke in that I'm not sure that camhs would be particularly of benefit and I'm not sure about being referred to a whole team of people where you're seeing lots of different specialists.
Our son has recently started after school minisquash lessons (his choice much to our amazement!)which he is enjoying and the male coach is really nice, supportive, helpful and encouraging and the focus is more on having fun. He joins in straight away which is real progress. He also enjoys learning golf which we shall take up again now the weather is improving.
We have had a good couple of weeks with no problems or anxiety about going to school until this week when he woke up at 3.20am crying because they had changed PE from Tuesdays to Mondays
I am worried about how he will get on when they start swimming next term but I have got the phone number of the swimming teacher and will speak to her first and also have a word with the teachers at the parent consultations soon.
I have read about a third of the book "The Highly Sensitive child" so far and I think a lot of this rings true so I still haven't decided whether this is the "problem" or if there is a very mild touch of Aspergers. I have also got the book recommended " What to do when you worry too much" and will work through that with my son during the Easter holidays.
I will see how things go for a while longer and will post in the special needs section next time as you don't feel I would be out of place to do so.
You have all been so very kind (apart from Conmum of course!!)
any further comments always welcomed - I will keep an eye on this thread
Thank you very much

The SenCo said that they are doing all the things they would do anyway which is true - You still will be better off with a dx.

Your child won't always be at this school, or always have this SENCO.

The SENCO can access more resources (like the ASD team) if he has a formal dx.

And there's always secondary school, and next year's teacher, and scouts, and swimming, and .....

A dx will help.