(this is long but I need advice) I can't seem to work out how to help my child more. Abroad I knew the system well but since we've been back in the UK (less than a year) I can't seem to get any therapy etc in place for him.
-He has previously been diagnosed with PTSD.
-He had parent-child-therapy when he was 3 - cut short by pandemic - but I was given weekly support via phone to learn to deal with symptoms.
-He had ABA therapy which was originally adapted for trauma and when given 'regular' ABA it only frustrated him and we had to end it.
-I've taken an in-person course on ABC behaviour model
-I've had child assessed for ASD in which case the neurologist said it would get him therapy and the psychologist said she did not see it but he has at asynchronous development
-A large number of blood relatives are 'gifted' now know as a neurodiversity>
-He has a history of speech delay and from 3-5 had 2x pw speech therapy in-person and via video. He pleaded to end this because he felt he was treated like a baby.
-nursery in the UK everyone adored him and commented about how sweet and funny he was. Staff had tears when we left!
-he started right away in nursery then 'preschool' abroad and it was night and day - he was never happy like he was in the UK!
-He was in private reception and did well except he exploded with emotions when he couldn't speak. Year 1 teacher did not want to teach any kids with special needs after returning from pandemic...so because I refused to send him to a school for Moderate/Severe needs he was sent mainstream with an aide who chaperoned him around and basically just made him angry. In Year 2 his aide was still following around and the co-teachers asked for the aide to be terminated because it seemed detrimental to him in teaching and only useful when he had a meltdown.
-Year 3 - we came back to the UK and it started very badly because he was scared having just moved countries and the curriculum is hugely different. He loves living here. But je went from being one of the top students to in his words "being at the bottom".
Outside school everyone remarks at how friendly/social/funny he is, that he is full of energy....but when things go badly and spiral downwards he too spirals out of control and tends to make bad situations worse. He is petrified of anything happening to me because we don't have family...just friends. And he has expressed that he is aware of the difference. He is super calm and increasingly self-sufficient. He is an easy child to parent. It is easy to redirect and teach him life skills. It is over the top difficult to teach him math!!!
His teacher tells me that she is the only adult he will listen too at school. His behaviour on a recent trip was 'dangerous'. He's complained of being bullied a lot but she says he is just as much an instigator. Though I have seen first hand how he gets picked on and how he struggles to fit in. And he really just wants to fit in. He tells me people say his name wrong. He gets teased all the time. Once we talked about the trip he says he felt sick - the teacher says she asked all the kids who get motion sickness to sit at the front and didn't know that he had motion sickness. (Well I'm telling you he told me he started to feel sick and everyone was rowdy which made him feel more sick and he didn't know where the bus was going and every time they started driving again he was more worried). So on the trip he got so angry about something he was swearing (Shocking really) and lashed out at other children. I still don't know why.
I was encouraged to try and get him more help/support. I had an intake appointment for an neuro-evaluation in February and have no updates.
I have private insurance but for the life of me I don't know how I can get more therapy with it? Nobody seems to be able to explain how it works. Abroad we had only private insurance and there was no other choice. You could log onto the insurance website and see who providers are and call them and see if they had availability or not and off you went. Then the providers were responsible for getting estimates and pre-approval and you went from there. But I just can't seem to find any provider to go to or figure out what might help? But I'm so tired of hearing how i have this horribly misbehaved child at school who is the opposite at home - mind you this has always been the case from Year 1. In Year 1 they said he couldn't draw anything more than scribbles...so on a Zoom meeting with his teacher and several school officials I held up many examples of SUPER intricate drawings he did at home....they were gobsmacked.
Help!