Anxious stressed teen - worried about being late for school

[FlemCandango]

Dd is 14 and in year 10. She is a very well behaved and good student. She has ADHD and Autism and this means she can get stressed around transitions, easily distracted and zones out, very disorganised and sometimes obsessive.

So this year she is walking to school with her big brother (also autistic but very organised and in y12 so less pressure to get to school as he doesn't have to go to registration). Dd cannot walk in alone as she needs someone to keep her on track. Takes about 25 mins to walk.

Dd has been very stressed about being on time to school. I do what I can, waking kids up at 6.45am (earlier sometimes), helping with lunches, checking the timetable, getting uniform (washing uniform almost daily at the moment cos Covid). Dd also need to take meds before school. Also ensuring they have masks/ hand sanitizer etc. All so that dd and ds can leave by 8.05am to be on time but not too early as there are rules around staggered entry times. I have a younger dd and I also need to get ready for work 3 days of the week. So plenty going on.

Unfortunately even if dd has everything she needs after she goes up to her room after breakfast generally not later than 7.30am. she seems to spend spend 30 mins staring into space then I start calling up with time checks and she will seem to wake up to herself and start panicking. This slows things down considerably, as dd will stand still, with no socks on saying "I am going to be late" on repeat while staring desperately and not doing anything. I will prompt action ... But once she starts edging into meltdown it gets worse.

Ds meanwhile will be ready to go yet still have his sister stressing at him, potentially tearful all the way to school even though they will be on time. Dd has been late once (in her time at high school) but as she fell apart it wasn't recorded by the teacher.

We try to keep her on track but as I am getting myself and helping everyone else, get ready it has sometimes got a bit much. DH works from home so if dd falls apart he will drive them to school. We try to get stuff ready the night before and wake everyone up on time.

The issue with being late stems from a fear of getting after school detention. Dd is self sabotaging as her fear of being late is paralysing her to actually be more at risk of being late. We do all we can to get kids up and out on time.

I contacted dds keyworker this week to discuss the issue. She confirmed that the school don't want to make exceptions so if dd is late she will get a detention. This is understandable but no sign of a reasonable adjustment for a well intentioned child with a diagnosed condition, that is actually more likely to be late because of stress about the consequences of being late! Ugh.

Anyway I'd love to know if there is a magic solution to this that I am missing? Anyway wise words appreciated here thank you for reading.

Thanks again some really helpful suggestions and the sympathy is also appreciated!

I am going to have a think over the half term week. Which is a good time to re-evaluate and is this week so - yay.

Dd can be helped at home and is,but I agree that the school could do more. We really do not ask for much. Dd needs support in school and if she gets the right help she will reach her potential. They are - I hope - recognising that she will sometimes fall apart, in lessons because she wants to do well, not because she cant be arsed. It is the same with the lateness it is fear of failure that causes her stress.

And yes organising myself is a challenge I don't always succeed at so being family organiser sometimes feels like a bad joke. But we are generally where we need to be when we need to be there, if disheveled and a bit out of sorts!

If the school are reluctant to relax their lateness rules to relieve things, would they instead be able to relax the don't turn up too early bit so your daughter could aim for an earlier time than she needs to be there? Then "help I'm going to be late" can be reframed to "yes I've still got time". Might work for her, might not of course.

Sounds super tough. Yes you need to be tough with school on this.

I don’t have the same issues with a SEN child but much younger children who need a firm direction to get to school on time. I also work long hours and have to leave early with them.

I am exceptionally organised - all ready night before unless I know DH is around to help. Uniform clean and dried etc. And if it’s so bad can you or DH not take her to school? Is it really impossible? Perhaps a few days at least to give some breathing space so not every day is a battle. The day DH doesn’t work is my favourite because it’s not a military operation. It’s my job tbh to do everything I can to make their mornings as easy as possible. I don’t think that changes at secondary.

A couple more ideas on the uniform front:

• Can someone (you/DH?) nip down to retrieve the uniform from the dryer before/just after waking her?
• Do you have an airing cupboard? DD's uniform dries perfectly well overnight on a hanger in the airing cupboard - we don't even have a tumbler. That means it's upstairs for grabbing easily in the morning. (I realise not all uniforms are quite so easy-care, though.)

I agree about not having to go back upstairs making things easier. We've always kept toothbrushes and toothpaste downstairs for morning use.

A bit different but could you ask the school if she could voluntarily sit in dentition one afternoon with the optic of leaving if she wanted to so she can see it’s not as bad as she thinks?

No suggestions, OP other than what others have suggested. But with a DD with some of the same characteristics your post really hit a chord of "that could be me". I confess we have always insisted that DD get dressed before she comes down to breakfast, becuase of these kinds of issues (and going back to the days when I could still get away with dressing her, half asleep, which made getting ready for school so much easier, even though it was our guilty secret, as she was well beyond the age when either of us could admit that mummy was still dressing her). And I am afraid we do not wash very much, at least not key outer garments - the good news is that they are increasingly saying that it is areosol transmission, not surfaces, and especially not cloth services that transmit).
But what really struck home about your post is that, bizarrely, I have to thank the school for something that has driven me mad for years, which is the random and frequent and unjust handing our of punishments, including detentions. Both my DC learnt very quickly in Year 7 that punishments and detentions were handed out like confetti, that it just depended on whether you struck a punishment minded teacher or not, when and how often you ended up in detention (and you couldn't avoid having at least some of those), and that you just had to suck it up and get on with it. Bit like rain really. I had always felt enraged by this, believing that punishments should earned, and meritocratic, and the randomness and injustice was a poor teacher. But as there was nothing I as a parent could do, I just boiled away in silence, and my kids just shrugged their shoulders. But your post has made me realise that this was a very good thing. DD has had to many detentions (and so have all her friends, and everybody else she knows) to get anxious about it. Of course, if the point of a punishment is get behaviour change, then having kids regard punishments as being like the rain, messes up your day, but what can you do, they are not going to get behaviour change, but it does mean that those towards the anxious part of the spectrum will not have it trigger their anxiety, and perhaps I should be grateful to the school for this, instead of frustrated.

DD is NT but is a massive “latephobe”. I googled it and apparently it’s called “Allegrophobia” officially.

She finds lists help. Times listed for each morning task. Eg.

7am - get up
7:15 - eat breakfast
7:30 - get dressed
7:45 - downstairs with bag to check
7:55 - shoes on
Etc

Plus she also has a checklist of what she must take.

Eg.
Pen
Pencil
Homework due in
Snacks?
Etc

Some items are vague but refer her to check if needed eg homework.

She follows her times now without them being written but still uses a checklist written for things to take.

You could print a copy and put one in her room and another downstairs.

In addition, DD uses Alexa to set weekday repeating alarms in her room to remind her to get a move on.

Could you get her an Alexa for her room, and programme in reminders to keep her on track during the 30 min that she is staring into space and not getting on with things? It could be both simple time reminders, but also reminders about what to do at various stages - in a gentle way so not to panic her. That would save you having to call up time reminders, which sounds stressful for you too, as it's one more thing to organise.

(oh sorry, just seen that someone else mentioned Alexa)

Thanks again for every thoughtful reply to my thread.

I have reviewed and made some changes to our morning routine this week it is working so far.

Dd has had a good week no meltdown. She was helped by having a week and a day off. So we started on Tuesday with everyone checking their clothes the night before. Though with varying success.

Dd is still vague and has a tendency to procrastinate while obsessing about the thing she is not doing! Classic ADHD. So she might say she will do something but I still end up checking twice and then doing it/ standing over her while she does it.

She gets dressed before breakfast, that helps a great deal and our washing machine was playing up so not washing every night!

And after a fantastic progress report with amazing effort marks her confidence has improved. So a good start!

Bring clean underwear and socks down every night and have her get dressed in the bathroom or sitting room where you can keep an eye out for her standing staring into space!😉

Great news!

The good start our second half term came to a screeching halt this morning.

A combination of issues. Dd1 did get dressed before she came down for breakfast and was broadly on schedule. But we started talking about PE which was her first lesson this morning. I discovered that she has been really struggling, more than she had let on. Apparently the teacher had a talk with her this week and has concluded that dd does need some reasonable adjustments (dds words) as she is trying really hard but finds team games tough. Dd is dyspraxic - so all well as struggling with processing teachers instructions and the demands of team mates she is unable to coordinate her limbs as well as others. The school should already be aware of this and I am tired of repeatedly asking for consideration 😬

Anyway time passed while we unpicked this and I was trying to give her encouragement to see how today's lesson went etc. She was stressed and I realised they were a couple of minutes past the time they should set off (still in time if they hurried). Our car won't start so a lift wasn't possible.

So I shifted them out the door - after they left I noticed she hadn't taken her meds and left her lunch behind. She has meds at school fortunately and credit on account for school lunch. and her phone was out of charge so I couldn't ring her! Fucking mess!

I emailed the school so I heard back that she made it on time but had a meltdown and needed some time out to recover. So argh. I am struggling a bit at the moment, work is stressful and DH work is a shitshow. I need the weekend but dd1 parents evening today so need to bring my A game to talking through what the school is doing to help her. And what they should be doing.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrerr4ggghgggghhhhhhhhhhh