School discovered DS was previously abused - now treating him like damaged goods

[abcd321]

DS5 is in reception and was previously at nursery elsewhere. During his time at nursery when he was 3.5yrs there was a 1m - 2m period where he suffered some mental/physical abuse at the hands of a non-family member. As soon as this was discovered, police were involved but there were no consequences. The abuser is not in our lives anymore.

Straight after the abuse was discovered, DS was a mess - scared, angry, upset. Nightmares all time, throwing tantrums, angry at his little brother, tried to hurt himself with toys e.g. running sharper toys over his skin to make himself bleed etc. We sought help from CAMHS who diagnosed him with acute stress disorder. We attended family talking therapy but these sessions made things worse - as soon as he heard us talking about the events, he would get angry and start screaming and trying to destroy things in the room. In the end we gave up as he would be a mess after every session and it would take so long to settle him again, it felt like we were going backwards. Nursery were fantastic throughout all of this and gave him lots of support.

In the end, we just did the best as we could as a family by providing as much empathy/care as possible and slowly, he has been moving in the right direction in terms of better temperament, less nightmares, talking about the events less, etc. Today I would say he is 99% back to normal.

Things changed slightly at the end of last year when, during "Police week" at school, DS mentioned to one of his teachers that "Mummy had to call the police" because someone abused him. Cue teacher calling me in a panic and my being dragged into school to explain the whole situation. When I mentioned that the teacher had called me about this to DS, he looked really shocked - it was as if he didn't even remember talking about it.

Straight after this, DS started asking to go to the toilet every 5mins at school - and by every 5mins, I mean LITERALLY every 5mins. This obviously alarmed the teachers even more and they started suggesting all these interventions e.g. walkie talkies, someone accompanying him etc. It took several conversations for myself and my husband to convince them to just ignore the whole thing and just let him go to the toilet freely. Lo and behold, his toilet going behaviours have returned back to normal.

But since then, when DS does anything that's maybe slightly unusual, the school calls me. He was tired one day and apparently refused to do PE at school so the teacher called me (sounding very panicked!) to take him home which I refused to do because I didn't want to start a pattern - this happened just once btw. Another time, he started going to the toilet more frequently again but just in one lesson. Now they're telling me DS apparently occasionally knocks over other children's models for no reason - he always apologises afterwards but can't explain to the teacher why he does it. Their suggestion now is that he be put into a social intervention group with other children and I'm being asked to go into school again to discuss this along with other interventions to help him communicate his feelings better.

The above is the totality of the issues btw. He is not behind at school, he is not disruptive, he is well liked and happy. All of the above and only the above are the reasons why I'm being asked to go discuss a social intervention group and other interventions with the school.

AIBU to think that the school is treating him like damaged goods to fit their narrative? All of this is prolonging the pain of what happened in a child that is on the path to recovery. If he were still suffering then I would 100% be looking at every solution available but he appears to be almost 100% recovered.

DS is a completely normal child outside of school - happy, energetic, curious, talkative. He attends different activities, is well socialised and sleeps and eats well - his toilet behaviours are normal outside of school. Had it not been for the school I would have zero concerns about him. I would add that I myself have perhaps not recovered from the trauma of past events and maybe a lot of the reluctance to engage is due to my own reluctance to keep revisiting such a painful part of recent years. We are also considering therapy for DS now that he's a bit older and have discussed this with him although he is still reluctant.

Sorry for the long post - would just like to get some perspective here as I don't know if my view is clouded.

They will, unfortunately, have more experience of this than yourself so I'd listen to them with an open mind but ultimately you know your child best

Oh my brother was like your child. My parents tried therapy too but gave up bc he became a regressive, howling violent mess. I think they thought he got better and was thriving, but both as a teen and adult later on, it became clear they should definitely have faced the problem. He tries his best and is clever, functional, and articulate in many ways but the trauma and reactiveness is deep rooted and has affected our family in horrible (yet unspoken) ways.

I do see your point about not turning things into a bigger deal than they have to, not normalising certain (perhaps attention seeking?) behaviours from him, but I hope when you're ready you consider whether the unaddressed abuse situation could be worth revisiting. Whether that's now or later when he's older and more ready to understand the confusing, awful thing he has memories of.

That's my issue - his reception teacher who keeps calling me in a panic doesn't seem to have a clue what's going on. She doesn't seem to have ever experienced this before.

Ah ok. Speak to the head.

You do seem to be very much minimising at terrible traumatic experience that your small child went through, what, only a year ago?
You didn't tell his school about it, and now you seem angry at their understandable concern.

Thank you for this. Yes this is my fear and exactly why we continue to broach the topic of therapy with DS. But there's a difference between therapy for your specific issue vs being lumped into a group session with various neurodiverse children of different ages to talk about your feelings right? I just don't know how this can help him.

It was 2yrs ago. I do not mean to minimalise it. I just don't want his life to be defined by it as a result of various individuals panicking out of inexperience.

A person set out to hurt him and succeeded. They will continue to succeed to hurt him 2yrs, 3yrs down the line if we, as the responsible adults, don't make the right choices for him. I question whether what the school are doing are the right choices. That is my perspective and I seek other opinions on here out of the sensibility that my own perspectives may be clouded.

I’m surprised nursery didn’t pass on details of what they had on record to the school. I’m also surprised you didn’t give school a heads up.

Many children, for a variety of reasons, are struggling with SEMH (social, emotional and mental health) needs and schools are having to deal with this.

That’s not what the group will be. Check exactly what it is, but don’t assume it isn’t suitable.

They will be doing nurturing activities- additional activities which help children feel safe and secure and able to talk if they want to. They’ll build a relationship with a staff member who won’t panic at non typical behaviours and will be able to support him and his teachers longer term with their personal knowledge of him.

They will do activities to build self esteem, identify personal emotions, what helps them feel better…
there may be a pet to look after.

It’s very age appropriate, it’s not therapy, it’s therapeutically trained support.

I think it depends on the level of expert care the ND children get. So the ND umbrella actually includes trauma (CPTSD, PTSD, developmental trauma, etc). Also worth noting that many ASD/ADHD kids present very well too and are bright and intelligent, and parents also struggle with whether to "label" them.

Additionally, childhood trauma can affect brain development and lead to manifestation of ADHD, ASD etc symptoms.

Thirdly, ADHD/ASD/etc can cause trauma (little t trauma though – I don't mean to minimise Big T trauma), eg experiences of ostracisation and humiliation and punishment, so a lot of therapy is geared towards that as well.

On the whole, a lot of therapy / treatment for ND kids (whether including trauma-affected kids, or just referring to ADHD/ASD/etc) can help in terms of managing emotional reactiveness and impulsivity, expressing their negative emotions appropriately, self-soothing, separating their feelings from their thoughts/bad memories, and so on.

Obviously targeted therapy/programme would be better, but IMHO I personally don't see this hurting (unless academically he's not fulfilling his potential). It's better to learn all these skills when he's young rather than when it's too late.

You talk about "damaged goods" which makes me think there's a stigma – do you feel this is more projected on your part, or a real issue from the school's perspective in just chucking all the ND kids to a corner?

I see. Thank you. We haven't had the meeting yet but it did sound kind of bizarre when they suggested it to me. What you described would be something I would be far more willing to consider. Can I ask in what context you've experienced this type of setting?

I think this is setting off alarm bells for me as "I don't want his life to be ruined by it" is what my parents felt. Not to scare you, but just be aware that objectively it may be better to deal with it than deal with an unstable teen/adult child. I'm not pushing you in any particular direction now; I'm only suggesting continued awareness.

The school group is unlikely to be ‘therapy’ or ‘talking about their feelings’. In my DC’s school it’s a nurture session where they do age-appropriate activities as pp described. I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand before you’ve even found out what it actually entails.

And yes to pp encouraging you to seek therapy for your son. Just because the previous attempt didn’t work out, doesn’t mean all therapy is a lost cause. Have you thought about play therapy? While DS may be more happy and settled in everyday life the fact that it all bubbles up again when he’s reminded of his traumatic experience means it’s not dealt with, just been buried. And it will continue to impact him unless it’s properly worked through at some point.

So sorry that he and you have been subjected to this.

One of my children was offered this sort of support to cope with neurodiverse traits making them feel socially excluded. The other because she was struggling with me and her dad splitting up, a relocation and her sibling's neurodiverse behaviour. As stated by the PP, it's very much a supportive caring environment, not therapy. I would definitely recommend talking to the person who runs it and seeing how you feel about them as a person and how theyr describe the group they run before you decide

Thank you for this. This is really informative for me.

I refer to "damaged goods" because the school seems to be perpetually in a state of panic whenever he does something seen as slightly unusual e.g. complains he's tired and doesn't want to do sports on ONE occasion. My concern is that now they know what happened to him, they turn every event, whether normal or not, into an issue that needs intervention.

Sometimes, for example, when he started visiting the toilet every 5mins, the more attention you give it, the worse it gets - pollakuria is associated with anxiety but the management is to let it run it's course.

When I even sent medical links to the school to just ignore him and let him go to the toilet, they were still coming up with random suggestions e.g. walkie talkies. I understand it's coming from a good place but it's also coming from an anxious (their anxiety) place which isn't making matters any better for my DS.

Thank you for this. Do you know how to access play therapy? I suggested it to the head and he was dismissive unfortunately. He is quite old school and doesn't believe in therapy.

I would add that I myself have perhaps not recovered from the trauma of past events and maybe a lot of the reluctance to engage is due to my own reluctance to keep revisiting such a painful part of recent years

Have you had therapy or counselling?

I just googled play therapists in my area. Or the school senco might have ideas? There’s also a register of play therapists I think.

Former foster carer and teacher.

My FDC went to nurture groups maybe ten years ago.

For children with divorcing families, domestic abuse history, ND, very shy, very loud, lost a grandparent… all sorts of children would have a spell in there. As I remember it, some opted out when they no longer wanted to do it and they were more interested in sticking with the class than in having time out. I think one of mine was in and one out, by choice. There’s only so much hot chocolate and tlc a child needs 🤣, and they move on when their resilience tank has been topped up.

Obviously you need to check out what’s offered in your setting- I’m sure things have moved on in ten years.

I use all the therapeutic stuff I learned in every area of life. If someone has trauma in their history, it’s not about papering over the cracks and being able to look like everyone one else. It’s about helping the body repair from stress damage, and teaching self care skills that last a lifetime.

I was great at ‘powering through and over coming adversity’. What I needed was to experience emotions safely, to learn to love and cherish myself, and recognise when I was struggling.

Only some of the above will be relevant to you, but sometimes a fuller explanation helps other people too!

Thank you. Did you choose to participate and if so, did you feel it benefitted your children?

To he honest, some of your language does sound very negative. A school being concerned and looking for ways to help him is "treating him like damaged goods". The teacher is always "in a panic". A suggested intervention is prolonging the pain. You were "dragged" into school to discuss it. Are you sure you're not minimising the situation?

I'm not sure. Hence the post.

No as you maybe can tell! Again, on the perpetually growing to-do list.

https://www.bapt.info/

@abcd321 It does sound to me rather as if you've made your mind up.....