11 year old DS, severe separation anxiety and secondary school struggles - suggestions for alternative London schools?

[usernamebore]

Hi

DS is 11 and just started secondary at a relatively kind and supportive London co-ed private. Unfortunately he has developed acute separation anxiety and every day for the last two weeks has been brutal. He has had multiple panic attacks in the morning, including in school. This morning he was screaming in fear, sobbing, begging me not to leave, begging me to get him help as he was so scared, hyperventilating etc. When I tried to leave he was so terrified he pushed past the teacher and was basically fighting to get to me and grabbing on to my work bag with white knuckles. He seems terrified of being alone in the school without us. It seems he had a propensity for this, but Covid and the recent death of his grandfather (they were very close) has pushed him over the edge. Pre-Covid he loved having playdates with friends from primary school, but when the restrictions lifted he just refused to have them. I wonder if being told to stay at home with us to keep safe from Covid just exacerbated this sense that he needs to be with us.

I have managed to get him in school every day for the last two weeks, and he has taken part in almost all of the lessons, but it is brutal for him and for us. The school are being helpful, and he has an appointment with the counsellor. We are also looking to try and get him seen by someone privately to help. I worry about the fact that all his peers have obviously seen some of this, and dont want him to start getting bullied or ostracized for being the weird crying kid. It is also hard not to think it is annoying for his teachers....

But part of me wonders if a big, competitive school like this is just not going to work for him. If it gets to that stage, does anyone have any suggestions for smaller london schools with really good SEN provision, or that might otherwise be better able to support him and us with this? Anyone had any experience with separation anxiety issues like this and have any advice, or know of a school which might be better for him? Dealing with getting him in every morning, and then going off and doing a full days work is just killing me and I worry a lot about his long term mental health.

And of course he is neurodiverse, as am I. That does not mean he can’t develop ways and strategies to manage everything life throws at him. We are supporting him every step of the way

Well done, OP! So happy for you. I'm glad you're making so much progress. And I wanted to suggest checking your own anxieties so that you're calm and confident - as your son will feel that.

And @jamoncrumpets I absolutely disagree and am curious about your background story, why are you so adamant?

What I see in this thread is this: a parent helping getting their son get used to living in the real world, with real humans and helping him navigate that. Teaching him coping skills and enjoy life.... instead of having him live in a bubble.

I think your family is doing incredibly well.

Your journey sounds similar to ours, all be it that yours had been rather faster. We went from thinking DC wouldn’t lead a normal life, couldn’t go to school, to wrangling with the pointless CAMHS. What seems to have worked has been the specific therapeutic help. It sounds similar to what your son has. Our school has been less helpful but not hopeless.

I am concerned that your sons behaviour is seen as so typically neurodiverse. DD therapist asked if she was autistic and I was surprised, she doesn’t have any of the characteristics I would associate with this. But maybe I’m thinking if the wrong traits.

@Hamsterdamn @weRone Thank you both. I think my view is that "Neurodiverse" is a very wide category, if it actually means anything (wouldn't the correct term be something more like "neurodivergent"?) as is "spectrum". I certainly have elements of what could be classed as mild autism in my personality, but you could also say I was an highly sensitive introvert with some social anxiety, GAD etc etc. Self evidently DS is not "neurotypical" (or whatever the phrase for that is), or he would not be so far from him peers, but then aren't all the more interesting people? 😉

My feeling is each kid is so completely unique, and their challenges similarly so, that you just have to take it each day at a time and try and do what seems best for them. We can see the change, and the increasing confidence (and we were really pleased to hear at parents eve this week from all his teachers that he is doing fantastically in lessons), even though he still needs a lot of help (which is why he sees a child psychologist every week and we work with him on this stuff every day), so we have confidence in where we are going. If something changes that makes us feel differently, we will deal with that then. It all takes time and patience and is bloody exhausting, but I really feel hopeful for the first time in 3 months.

I am cheering for every step your boy is making @usernamebore

What excellent news that he's going into school by himself, and congratulations to you for your patient, gentle and consistent approach.

Onwards and upwards!

Just thought I would report in for those following our progress, unfortunately the return to school after 3 weeks of holiday has not been easy and he is struggling with a lot of anxiety. It is only the second day back, but I have had to take him in to the nurses office both mornings, and we have had tears and he has needed to miss some parts of lessons to go and be with the nurse. Not as bad as it was, but still heartbreaking to have this setback. It is just so hard not to feel disheartened and discouraged and to worry that he will never be ok. Hopefully he can find his feet again relatively quickly, but it really feels like a punch in the gut for all of us. We just have to try and remember how well things were going last term and know we can get back there.

Maybe time to get that autism diagnosis now, OP

I think it will get better…. Early to mid January tends to be the most depressing time of year, even for adults. Monday 16 January is meant to be Blue Monday.

It is dark in the mornings and dark in the evenings when the DC go to school and come home. It is wet and cold. All these things have an impact. Don’t lose heart and carry on.

@jamoncrumpets I appreciate your views, and I can see on here from your other posts that you have strong views re autism, but as I have previously explained we are working closely with a child psychologist (who is extremely experienced and highly qualified and who has experience with autistic kids) as well as the school counsellor and a further psychologist who is assisting my wife and I. All these individuals are collaborating together and with the school. None of them think autism and, indeed, when i mentioned it, they said very clearly they see no signs of that at all. He has anxiety (as I do, and as his grandmothers on both sides do - all diagnosed and all (save for me any more) on medication for the anxiety). He struggles with intrusive thoughts and worries and doubts his own ability to cope. He is also clearly highly sensitive and has always been (again, as I am). He is just having a tough time separating from us again after having 3 weeks together on holiday, and a hard time adjusting back to the school environment.

Hello - good to get the update have been thinking of you guys. We experience a similar set back at the start of each term, albeit a smaller one each time. Its always a hump to get over after a break, especially one as long as Christmas.
We're 3 years in now and each time it gets more manageable and he bounces back into routine more quickly. Last week we had tears and refusal to go to lessons on the first morning but he was back into the swing of it by the afternoon and full of beans by day two. It's unrealistic to think it will ever go away, but just to reassure you just because he's had a blip doesn't mean all your hard work is wasted. I know first hand how easy it is to catastrophise when these blips happen. Give him a week or so and I'm sure he'll settle. It sounds like you have a great support team around him.

p.s. For what it's worth my son is a carbon copy of yours with a similar family history and while we were briefly considered for inattentive ADHD due to other symptoms the CAMHS psychs were always very clear as part of those assessments that he was in no way shape or form, autistic.

Difficulties around transition are most DEFINITELY an autism thing OP.

Well you can lead a horse to water... if the expensive psychologist says he isn't despite displaying several flags then far be it from me, not just an autistic person myself but a professional working within the realm of neurodiverse, to suggest otherwise.

@jamoncrumpets the difference is they have all met my child and spent hours with him, you are diagnosing him based on some posts on the internet, often written by an anxious parent who is probably over emphasising things and not giving anything like a complete picture. I am not denying there are some potential flags in his behaviour but that is something we are all keeping an eye on, rather than somehow “getting” an autism diagnosis for him.

By all means keep wasting £350 a pop on the expensive therapist but this:

"he is fine with talking to the adults there, just his peers which is hard

he does not want school friends to come for play dates as he sees home as his safe space

He also has social anxiety and struggles with the other kids

He is extremely empathetic though (too much in many ways - he gets upset about other kids getting in trouble etc)

he has all sorts of slightly OCD behaviors (he has to arrange his stuffed animals in bed in a certain order at night, likes all his books lined up straight)

is much happier talking to adults than other kids

likes a routine

has always gotten very obsessively interested in one thing at a time

has things like needing the tags to be removed from his clothes

getting overly bothered by sock seams

no matter what time he goes to bed he always wakes up super early and has done since he was little

we have tried listening to music, but he seems to find it too much when he is on edge

actually doing excellently in class apparently - just the transition"

This is autism. Now and in 5-6 years when he really breaks down and finally gets diagnosed. His life is in your hands but he is going to ask you why.

Where is the 'like' button?

Have you considered hypnotherapy? It can work wonderfully to ease panic attacks and grief

OP why don't you just accept the school environment is not for your son? There are hundreds of thousands of parents on Not Fine At School fighting the same battle, forcing their kids into school and literally ruining their own MH at the same time by doing so, all in the hope things will improve. For some things may improve, but for the majority it causes way more harm than good.
If you try and grow a plant or tree in the wrong environment it's not going to flourish, doesn't matter how healthy the plant or tree is, if the conditions are wrong it won't grow.
Taking a child out of the school system is not the end of the world, in fact it can open up a whole new one and like me you will look back and wonder why on earth you put your son and your self through it. If you are having to resort to a medical practitioner in order to get your child to school, something is very wrong.
School is not the only way to gain an education, and a limited one at that. Taking a child out of school is not an indicator the child will fail at life.
What it will do is bring the anxiety down so you can reset, take a breather and work out where you go from here. My son was HE at age 13/14 after several years of being in similar situation to your own, we had exhausted all avenues. He has since told me he had a suicide plan in place because of how utterly hopeless the situation was. Fast forward 3 yrs, top grades in all he GCSE's, now studying A levels, working part time and more importantly as he said himself recently, never happier.

In October I warned OP that they were re traumatising their child by persisting.

I feel for the boy at the heart of this story. His obvious needs are being ignored in favour of a gradual exposure approach that will not work with his neurotype.

When he is fully traumatised and in his twenties he will have questions for OP. I hope they have answers. This thread is a dead horse, no point flogging it. What's going on here is something I've seen and dealt with a dozen times. It's autism. It's always autism.

But meh, keep throwing money at the therapist. I'm out.

@jamoncrumpets I appreciate that. I should say that some of those posts were drafted when I was worrying about him potentially being autistic myself (after excessively googling things when all this first kicked off), so I was worrying about, and exaggerating, those behaviors. He is making friends, and is starting to talk to us about chats he was having with kids in his class. According to his teachers, he laughs and jokes in class and is (according to one at parent evening) a "bundle of joy to teach". He confidently asks questions and gets involved in all his lessons. He was in the top quartile of his year for almost all his subjects, and similarly got outstanding for most of his class engagement reports. He loves listening to music, and indeed, we listen to some of his favorite songs on the way in to school now and it really helps.
The "overly empathetic" thing was more when he was about 7-8 or so at primary school, but it has always stuck with me.
Anyway, this is a pointless argument, particularly as I know it is coming from a place of concern from your side. I completely agree with you that the potential for mild autism to be a factor is there, and something we should be keeping an eye on, but not everyone with anxiety issues (and people with anxiety also really struggle with transition due to the uncertainty of change, like a routine, find interacting with peers difficult etc) is autistic. There is a family history of anxiety manifesting like this (I used to hide in the toilets most lunchtimes at secondary school and had a very rough time due to anxiety) and that seems by far the most logical causative factor.

I was a bundle of joy to teach. I went to a RG uni.

I'm autistic AF.

There is no such thing as mild autism.

OP is so far beyond the point of understanding it honestly isn't worth it. I wonder if her DC will be in my caseload in future? I pray not, for his sake.

This thread makes me so sad. My autistic son was just like OPs. I took him out of school and he got fantastic GCSEs, he's now at a selective college doing A Levels on track to a RG university.

OP thinks that autism is a life sentence and is clearly prejudiced.

ok I am not going to keep going on this, as it is pointless, but if autism is a "spectrum" then that means by definition people can experience to to different degrees. I am not remotely prejudiced re autism, just dont think it is helpful to leap to an armchair diagnosis of something which is extremely nuanced and complex, particularly as there are plenty of kids who struggle with anxiety and school who are not autistic

right but your child experiences anxiety AND has many many autistic traits.
You could help him by exploring that but instead you are trying to shove him into an unsuitable environment and are not considering the long term damage you are doing to him.

I find that really upsetting.