This IS wrong area, and I don't want to be insensitive, but you might understand..

[worriedsilly]

I have a dd. She is just 7.

I am so worried, alone, bemused, shocked and gobsmacked. Suddenly nothing that applies to anyone else applies to us or her.

I am posting here, where I know some of you must want to slap me! as my problem is so not actually special needs one, and many you have children who will never have such an education issue and this must seem so so trivial to those with serious ongoing concerns. I am sorry and also sensitive to that and will have the thread moved asap if it is wrong to be here. But I know that here some parents must have experienced this same sense of having the rug pulled and perhaps it is a common ground. A similar experience, with a different cause.

She has been increasingly unhappy, anxious and 'odd'. Coming home from school with a red nose and mouth from picking her skin and holes in her clothes from chewing. Naturally we raised this at school and their take was she is achieving well but has some social skills to learn. Seems happy at school, interacts well and contributes, but has (reading between the lines and teacher speak) tendency to be lazy with writing and presentation. Chewing etc is common in this age and she must learn it is not the done thing.
Her writing & social stuff is a blip - it isn't up to her usual standards in other areas.

So, we bit the expensive bullet, and took her to an ed psych privately. I am very aware that for a child who is achieving well there is no money in the pot for such things so we just got on with it.

So, findings suggest her anxiety and failure to socialise is to do with her high i.q. and cognitive development. She operates at between ages 9 and 12, occasionally 15 in some areas.

Suddenly nothing that is 'standard' can be trusted. The standard reading scheme, the standard year of school per year of life thing, the standard girls make friends with girls and have things in common and go for pizza......all that never fitted my dd. Now we know why.

I wondered if she had dyspraxia and some emotional issues - the ed psych feels her cognitive development is at the root of all her clumsy nervy ways and if we can get her to a comfortable learning zone with like minded learners she will be relaxed, stimulated and thrive. Her self esteem will rise and she she will stop trying to 'fit in' where she simply does not.

I posted here as I thought some of you might know that same feeling of knowing that the reality is...school can't deliver this. They (nor I) can wave a magic wand of funding or provision and make school fit this individual.

My poor girl is going to have to get her spiky diamond shape peg self and just bloody well fit the state education small round hole.

I feel sad and under enormous pressure. Scared of approaching school and totally unsure of how to look after my dd.

Argh1!

Just to say we have the report!!

It will take some digesting and we have asked school to read it and meet with us. I have asked the primary ed lot what they would do. I'll maybe start a G&T thread when I can get my head around the fact she is G&T

Spoke to a nurse to day who suggests CAMHS and OT refferal, so we are at the GP Monday.

I hope they take us seriously.

I have just seen this thread. When I first started reading the SN section it was way before both my sons were dx with Aspergers/High Functioning Autism. After a while I realised I felt I fitted in here. My older son is on the G&T list too. He has been at school all the way through, now doing AS levels. My younger son came out to be home educated when his anxiety levels continued to escalate, even though the school said he was 'fine' and his spelling and tables were good.

I agree about dealing with the anxiety first. The joy from seeing your child happy again is so good. We actually feel relatively normal and relaxed in our house now, compared to the bad years. I write notes in all sorts of different formats to collect data on biting finger nails etc so I can look back to pinpoint what was helping and what was not. Often I work on one aspect of life one month and ds2 would suddenly make progress in a different area, eg focus on brushing teeth and he would start flushing the loo by himself every time or ask me to come and see something (shared attention).

Dealing with my own anxiety has been very important too. Not denying it, but finding where, when, with whom I feel more hopeful. Activities, foods...which help me be a version of me I am more comfortable with. A lot of our lives has been altered due to the whole process of ensuring greater comfort and joy.

Good luck with the report.

Oooh TooJung. Can we come and live with you for a month? Like an anxiety bootcamp?

Well done you - tell me more about the note writing. You mean you kept a sort of diary? Hope not - I'm pants at that sort of thing.

Well, I do use a day per page diary! That is because I blank out details of life if I don't write things down. Other people are good at remembering or voicing facts while I have a survival mechanism of stuffing it down and smiling saying yep everything is fine! So writing things down in private is my way forward.

Before I started the daily diary/log I put myself online with others who spoke in kind ways and seemed able to name problems in a more objective way. Being around people who didn't use euphemisms helped me too. I tend to do that in real life the moment I am stressed and embarrassed.

What fits you and your ways? What works now may well not fit in a few weeks or months, so tweak what you do as you go along.

Ps note that I used the word 'relatively'. We have got used to a new normal and I probably do not push for changes as much as other parents would.

With my home education hat on: remember that you are the parents and you have currently chosen to delegate your child's care to this particular school. They are chosen by you. They are not to bully you or scare you. In no other circumstance would a parent feel obliged to interact with a carer for their child who scares them, makes them feel sad and under enormous pressure. Even my car is only given to a garage I trust and I choose freely.

TooJung - thank you for sharing all that. Gosh what a lot I am learning about families and children and what it takes to get the ship sailing smooth waters.

Maybe I need to start a diary. That would be a huge personal challenge, we have no routine to speak of as I work completely bonkers shifts. To even remember I am keeping a diary - never mind remember to write in it would be huge.

But maybe I need to seriously look at that.

I might write the words ' We have delegated this school/hospital/person to care for our child, they are chosen and asked my us' on a card and bring it to all meetings etc from now on!!

We have been to look at a private therapy centre. They suggest assessment with a possibility of finding a sensory processing issue. We can't afford it

I have no idea what you can do.

But, it's lovely to read about someone having such a concerned parent who would go to such lenghs to try and help their child and is doing all the thinking and worrying on behalf of the child.

Hope something works out

Thank you himnameisfred but seriously, I'm not doing all she needs. I haven't the money. Gosh that is a bitter pill.

But I have to retain a proper sense of prespective because dc's difficulties are limited and nothing like as fundamental and far reaching as others.

It's blooming hard though. I flip between feeling empowered and like I make things happen, to feeling at the mercy of untrustables, vulnerable and withouut any money power at all!

Which is why I posted here. I felt people who have to interact with 'the services' would get that.

Tonight for example I am feeling beaten. The more I read and seek opinions the more convinced I am that if I ask for help via CAMHS 'they' will either think I have some sort of attention seeking disorder [dd is eloquent and comes across as having not a care in this world] or simply tell us to get real. She probably simply isn't affected enough to warrant any treatment or interventions paid for by the NHS/LEA

I'm very worried about the GP tomorrow.

I feel so frustrated and sad and inadequate that I know pretty much who can tell me what dd needs and how to get it and they can also provide it - but she can't have it as I don't have enough money.

I'm begining to think about releasing money from the house to fund a sustained longer period of input. But where do you stop and what happenns when there is another problem?

Oooo come and hold my hand

Have basically had my mum tell me that I was the same at school and I was ok and that dc is worried about me worrying about her.

Message I got loud and clear was I am imagining the problem or making it worse. She stormed off in end when I said I felt shouted at. Apparently there is no point talking to me
I think there is plenty of point talking to me if I am spoken to like someone who has worries and none of the answers.

Feeling most vulnerable and wobbly. If she's right then I made a mistake - it happens!

it's hard for even close family to understand when we go into "focussed" mode.
I found posting on here all the time was the only outlet.

maybe your mum is sensitive to even the slightest fear that she didn't meet your needs.

re her "you were the same and you're ok" point. You get this a lot with grandparents and ASD. Grandparent says grandchild is like parent and parent is fine therefore no problem. Grandparent is probably right about grandchild being like parent. But not right to say this means there is no problem. The recognisable package of family traits only needs to be slightly stronger in child for there to be a huge difference in level of problems experienced. Like the difference between a full bath and an overflowing bath.

How true lingle. Thank you. Wise words. ALso, actually I don't think it is ok that I was anxious and bloody miserable some of the time. I didn't like it. I don't want dc to feel like I did anymore than is required. What is the wrong in that?

God if I make it worse I will feel truly awful but in my only defense and in all honesty - my actions were truly meant well and based the best info at the time.

As I said on my other thread [am a thread whore ] God God God God God God God Goooooooood couldn't you do without it?? No one can shake your resolve and make you feel as small and inadequate like your mother can.

Apparently we shouldn't ask for opinions if we aren't prepared for people to disagree. I'm ok with her or anyone disagreeing, but I also want my take on things accepted and appreciated.

Grief some of you must have this most of the time and from schools and partenrs and care givers and over some potentially huge issues.

I am not strong enough for one small problem How In God's Name Do You DO This day in and day out? I'm worried sick here!!

"I don't want dc to feel like I did anymore than is required. What is the wrong in that? "

nothing, it's correct. You need to work on her weakest skills so that she can actually utilise all her many strengths and enjoy her abilities.

watch out for over-identification though - something which sent me down a wrong path a few times. Be just as aware of her differences from you-as-a-child as her similarities.

I will. I am very mindful that I don't read in to things or imagine stuff.

I hope that is the use of the professionals - the expert outsider who can form their own judgements, tell us how they see it and suggest some management.

They blooming better be for what they charge! It's hard to trust people. NHS I suspect of either not being 100% trained and motivated, or at least motivated by things other than the best for my child. I suspect them of being equally interested in service provision and cost implications

Private I slightly suspect of having the motivation of money. Although in reality I have no evidence of that and plenty to support their dedication.

T'is a trying time.

Your dd sounds a lot like my ds (8). Ds does not have great social skills - he will always be the child not invited to birthday parties etc. and the one who the others blame for things going wrong even when he was not even in the room.

We too had an ed psych report when he was 7 which said he had an IQ of 150+ and was functioning 7 years ahead of his peers across the board. He social problems stemmed from the fact he failed to understand the motivations of his peers. It was no use whatsoever.

He also gets anxious. At the moment he is too scared to sleep as he is afraid burglers will break in and kill us all. (We think this stems from an on-going bullying issue at school).

We stepped back and asked ourselves where we wanted to end up with ds - what was most important? We looked at the adults we knew who were happiest and none of them had been "gifted" as children and accelerated through school. Therefore we concluded that the best we could do for ds would be to focus on how he could develop the skills to interact well with his peers.

We have talked to the school and they have put in place several strategies to help ds de-code social situations which he cannot intuit. None of these cost anything - they involve things like groups of children discussing situations with a teacher mediating or spending 2 minutes with ds helping him see other perspectives on an incident. We have also enrolled him for lots of team sports with his peers so he can learn to interact with them in a situation where he cannot hide behind being clever.

It is a roller coaster and both he and I still often end in tears at the way other people perceive him. However, things are improving and the best advice I could give would be to step back a little and work out where you are trying to get to and then work on it little by little.

worried, I think goosey loosey's post is very helpful. I wouldn't put the professionals centre stage in your mind. Most people here find that they (hopefully) provide guidance but then you either do all the work yourself or you do it alongside your child's school as has been the case for goosey loosey. If you get good professionals involved, they will spot issues you hadn't appreciated, give the odd steer, mention things that have helped other children and help gauge progress if you should need it gauged. But that's about it.

Sometimes I used to fantasise that a professional existed to whom I could deliver my child then get him back fixed. But no-one, public or private, has that job. School is your closest ally. The time I spent saying to teachers "it's good you spotted that" and "I'm glad you made that judgment" and "yes, we get that at home too, he has overcome it at home, I wonder how we can overcome it at school" and other similar desgned-to-empower comments were probably the best investments I made. Other than the money spent on my internet connection and favourite books

Right. Let me mull that over.

I have found the ed psych report personally very helpfully. As in, to me, personally. It has given me some confidence to approach school and it just feels magic to have someone write or say something and for me to think - 'Yes!! That's what I sadi/thought/wondered'

SO now it is the focussing on what actually matters and how to get there.

I'm with you Goosey Loosey - perr interaction is surely the best way to happiness when you are 7. I mean 7 year olds have fun, play, eat sweets and try to stay up late. Life should be pretty simple I think?

As to how to help her interact with peers - well I'll be asking school.

The handwriting this is almost a seperate sub issue and I am still seriously considering that she may have a specific issue that prevents her writing the way she thinks.

Lots to ponder - thank you.

Today is a hard day in my head. I am feeling very wrong footed. Especially as school have now made the appt to see us. They say the report told them nothing they didn't know in regards to cognitive function - so how come we didn't know and that they are concerned we didn't approach them first. But we did send a letter to the teacher saying we were taking this step of seeing an ed psych and would value their input on dc's possible anxiety issues.

Hooooo hum.