AuDHD DD13 and school

[FairRedRobin]

My daughter is 13 and diagnosed with ASD and ADD. She has missed most of year seven and year eight due to behavioural issues in her first school and then being bullied in a smaller private school. She is now in a mainstream close to home and they are pretty supportive but after two months, it seems like there is always something. Today she’s complaining that her English class is too easy so she won’t do the work in there. She had a detention for not going to PE because she doesn’t enjoy it and then she will refuse to go to the detention which then escalates and I have to keep stepping in. Is this normal behaviour? I just feel at my wits end today that there is always something for me to have to speak to the school about and ask for special treatment for her. There are lessons where she does well and she is slowly starting to make some friends although there is some low-level teasing that she is finding it hard to deal with as well. I don’t really know what my question is, just wondering if it’s the same for others with similar children?

How much information does the school have about her diagnoses and the accommodations that would help to reduce the number of detentions and occasions when you have to speak to the school.

Would it be useful to ask for a meeting with the SENCo, who could share information with subject teachers? You could mention the teasing too, before it becomes a big thing.

It isn’t typical.

What support is the school providing? What have they already tried? Does DD have an EHCP? If your area still has them, has the school asked for advice from the specialist teaching service?

Have you raised the teasing?

Does DD take medication?

My children would have these kinds of reactions. Doing something they find too easy equals a waste of time in their mind and that causes refusal. Anything that is not seen as useful/important or as very overwhelming causes refusal, and PE falls into both categories. One of my children, also ASD with ADD, is hypersensitive to teasing/banter ('rejection sensitive dysphoria', caused by the ADD difficulty with emotional regulation and the ASD difficulty with understanding intentions/meaning). Probably, the kids in your daughter's class are genuinely mean, so you'd need to speak to their teacher and ask them to intervene, but my child definitely struggles with 'normal' behaviours that wouldn't count as bullying. E.g. they can't understand that people might tease as an expression of affection, or be rude/short because they are upset/stressed/disappointed themselves (empathy deficit), and that resolving the situation would require some patience/understanding/comforting/backtracking on their part, or that their own behaviour is upsetting/comes across as rude/annoying/controlling (limited self insight). Because of this, there is usually always 'an issue'. If this applies to your daughter to some degree - I don't want to imply it does, bullying is a real issue and it's healthy to be upset about bullying, and if it is bullying the school needs to deal with it - could you ask the school for ELSA interventions? I find it definitely wearing having to intervene all the time. Luckily we were able to move one of our children to an online school with a mentor program (MVA), so everything goes through the mentor first and they speak to teachers/offer some handholding and advise/listening ear/help practically, as in getting them into different settings/classes. It's a total game changer. All schools should have mentors. Before that, at bricks and mortar mainstream, they had a brilliant school councillor who helped a lot with direct interventions behind the scenes and we had a very understanding and pro active SENCO, who put a lot of support in without us even asking (1:1, special small group teaching, no PE, noise cancelling headphones, even sunglasses, peer mentoring and play ground buddies) and a very switched on headmaster who dealt immediately with any bullying, but all of this wasn't enough to make it work, there still was always something that caused a meltdown in school/screaming all night at home that they don't want to return to school. It's a lot better now that none of my children is at a physical school but there is still always something.