DS (8) advise

[PJCYJR2011]

DS has come back from a week at his Dad’s and said his Dad makes him stressed and gives him hives. He said he doesn’t have them with me because I don’t stress him.

His Dad is his number 1 & he misses him a lot - usually 60/40 in school time 50/50 in holidays.

He’s a very anxious boy & is waiting to be assessed for ASD.

Generally me & his Dad take the view of how I parent & how he parents stay separate unless it’s a very important issue.

He does have 1:1 with a LSA at school once a week so shall I encourage him to talk to her about it when he goes back or something more?

If your son has asd then he will probably thrive on consistency and knowing what to expect .
If you and his dad have different parenting styles this could create anxiety as your boy won’t know where he stands .
This became such a problem for my son that he no longer sees his dad .
You could ask school to talk to him more but really it needs to come from you. Ask him what the main worries are and then tell his dad so you can try and sort them out between you .School won’t be able to help with that .

Do you have a good co-parenting relationship with your Ex?
If so then I suggest you all sit down and discuss what is happening.
Let your DS talk about what stresses him out about is dads parenting and then take it from there.
Definitely tell the school.
And as PP says, if he does have ASD then you and his dad need some real consistency in parenting.
Be led by your DS.

My 8 year old DS has diagnosed auditory processing and sensory processing disorder. She has anxiety arising from this. I co-parent with her Dad, even though we divorced several years ago. Consistency between parents is important where there are child-needs. Regardless of the diagnosis, if your child has anxiety then you may wish to explore techniques that help with that. Personally, my girl responds well to meditation and breathing. I went to a course, but you can find this stuff on youtube etc. Another thought is that it may not be hives from anxiety, but a skin reaction to the environment at his father's home. My daughter is sensitive to certain fabrics, washing powders, shampoos, latex etc...so she will scratch and get a rash if new materials or products are introduced. It is good your DS can talk to you about stress etc, and you can use his concerns to discuss it with his father.

I think it would be difficult to discuss it with his Dad without him taking it as a slight against his parenting.

scooby your daughter sounds very similar to my boy, was the course you attended specialised for children & how did you access it?

He has got sensitive skin & eczema so he could be reacting to that.