Tinsley House Support Thread

[IndigoBell]

An awful lot of us are now doing Tinsley House, either by going there, or by following the recommendations in The Brain Food Plan

So this is just a general support (and hopefully good news) thread.

Stage 1 of the TH therapy consists of:

1. Multivitamins

• Omega
• Zinc & Magnesium
• Multivitamin

1. Healthy eating diet

• High protein, low sugar, no artificial sweeteners, additives etc.

1. Specific exercises done 3 times a day

My lad is entitled to FSM and although I really support what you are doing in terms of trying to help these kids Indigo - NOTHING annoys me more than schools making assumptions or introducing interventions without MY full knowledge and involvement.

Frankly although I fully support your goals you'd still find yourself at the VERY sharp edge of my tongue if my child was roped into some pilot I knew nothing about!

A large part of my reasoning being school usually have NO idea what interventions etc I'm doing at home. All they know re his diet for example is that he is clinically diagnosed dairy intolerant. The supplements and tweaks I make to his dietry regime I honestly condsier none of their business and I'd be furious if some well meaning plonker started inadvertently double-dosing his vits or epa behind my back. If I'm working on physical therapies at home with him - how is anyone to know that some school scheme I know nothing about won't mistakenly undo all the progress he's been making on the existing regime?

I work too damn hard at helping him to overcome his difficulties to be prepared to tolerate what you are proposing. Poor doesn't always equal ill-informed or inaction on the part of the parents.

If it's worth doing - it's worth demonstrating the common courtesy of informing the parents and obtaining permission before commencement of any programme. Otherwise you may face some pretty unpleasant parental backlash in the future!

Your children are having amazing success with this programme & I accept that, and am very happy for you. However the guy who runs this is not a medical doctor, neither are the teachers at the school. Neither you NOR the teachers will know if you have all the information to hand to warn you of any possible serious contra-indications to a child commencing this programme with other people's children.

Call a meeting - talk to the parents - gain their buy-in before going ahead. After your own success many will I expect be really keen to see if they can obtain similar results - we ALL want the best for our kids. It's the right thing to do. Doing stuff behind parental backs is just wrong on so many levels.

I agree Indigo except if the results aren't accurate and people withhold or load DC with minerals based on the results of an inaccurate test it could be serious. It may well not be but it rang alarm bells with me.

Bochead - we won't give any supplements without parents permission.

The fact that Robin Pauc is not a medical dr is totally irrelevant.

Schools dont need to get permission to do exercises with kids. What did your child do in PE this week?

Schools do braingym, primary movement, INPP, activate in the classroom, wake up shake up, aerobics, and loads of other exercises with whole classes without getting permission.

I haven't given permission for any of the many interventions my children have been on while at this school. Some I've been told about, some I haven't.

boc ds1 is on interventions I know/knew nothing about!!!

I can see both sides, and understand your views.

jal ds1 gets loratadine from the GP for hayfever...will be interesting this year as his asthma is soooo much better...in fact we go back to his paed next week and I need to admit ds1 has not used his inhaler since Dec!!!!

His excema is also much better

Robin is a state registered Chiropractor. He is more specialised at what he does than a doctor would know, same as I am not a medical doctor but know more about Clinical Chemistry analysers than my medical dr head of head of department (although they might dispute that ). Medical doctors are not beyond reproach, they have been astoundingly stupid with my DS's care like a GP telling me to give DS peanut again after he had a severe reaction just to double check when I refused she said I could do it in the GP carpark so I would be close to her if he needed adrenaline! Erm...no.

Becaroooo is the loratadine in tablet form, same as adult? I have some that I am taking left over from last year. I usually take certirizine (sp?) it must have been on offer

And the only relevance of FSM is that means we get pupil premium of £400 per child which we have to spend on them. So we have the money which we wouldn't otherwise.

Ds1 had loratadine in a liquid jal on repeat prescription too but we have none left.

I tend to buy whichever is on offer but tbh havent really found one that helps me that much

Cheers Becaroooo will take a trek to the GP in the hols then, piriton until then...

Hope you find one that helps. It's a shame the old beconaise (sp?) nasal powdery inhaler isn't still about that was fab.

Ds' allergy Consultant says not to use Piriton on a daily basis because this only works for about four hours per dose and is not suitable for long term, daily use.

Instead, he has said we should give ds Clarityn. One tablet per day. This, he says, is safe to use everyday and even throughout winter too if we need to.

Ds has allergy to house dust mite, tree pollen, animals and if he reacted to nuts, we would then give a Piriton 'top up'.

Can you honestly not see how incredibly arrogant and rude it is to even consider implementing an intervention programme without having the common decency to inform the parents Indigo?

Just because others have crossed the ethical & moral line with impunity does not make it OK for all those who follow on in their footsteps. There's a really important principle at stake here.

I'm SO sick of reading time & time again on this very board how parental concerns are so often ignored & belittled to the detriment of our children; by those who claim to have our kids best interests at heart.

I've called out my son's "educators" and the LEA in the past for this kind of unacceptable behavior and I'm really upset to feel it neccessary to have to call out a fellow Mum from this forum. It's so depressing that you cannot seem to see why this is wrong. I'm not someone who cries easily, but this really leaves me feeling utterly despondant and bereft of hope.

Please be a part of the solution, not a perpetuation of the serious systemic problems regarding SEN in this country.

I can see you have a point.

But while you keep on harping about Robin's qualifications I have nothing else to say to you.

You need to make a coherent argument about what possible harm this intervention could do. Which you haven't.

You are blowing out of all proportion doing exercises with kids at school.

You know nothing about these 9 kids or the school. You don't know if these kids are looked after by their parents, or if their parents will talk to school, or if their parents acknowledge their child has a problem. Or if their are serious concerns about their welfare.

These aren't hypothetical kids, these are real kids who the school knows very well. The school knows whether or not they'd be able to talk to these particular parents/careers.

If I depress you so much, stay away. Stay away from this thread and from me.

boc Not every parent is as caring/interested in their dc as you are. Sad, but true. Some sen kids come from deprived backgrounds and have parents with sen themselves.

What indigos dc have done and what the SENcos at their school have asked her to show them is a simple exericise done 3 times per day that will not hurt/upset/distress the children - unlike a lot of other sen internventions IMHO.

Sorry, but I fail to see why that is such a terrible thing?

boc agree totally with beca on this aswell. My DD has gross motor skills problems she has dyspraxia and there are also some other children in her class that clearly have it but it is undiagnosed the teacher helps them with different exercises etc to help with this. I do not know exactly what she does andneither do the other parents but I know everything is for the benefit of the kids. That in my opinion is the sign of a really great school that go above and beyond what is expected of them in the curriculum to help the children.

These are a few basic exercises they aren't getting electric shock therapy. Well done to the school and to Indigo you should both be applauded I wish more schools were as tuned in to helping kids with SEN.

And let's not forget everyone this is our "SUPPORT" thread so let's not dwell on the negatives. It is a positive sharing experience for us that has helped me out so so much I do not want it to turn into a horrible negative bun fight which happens on so many other threads on this site.

Well said Holy and Beca, Indigo is doing a wonderful thing and the process is entirely non-invasive as far as I can see. What possible harm can walking up and down 3 stairs do?

I could maybe see a point with supplements but they aren't even doing that, it was my question to Indigo that mentioned fish oils, sorry to muddy the waters.

Right, if we can re-wind the last page it is very interesting to hear about people's challenges and successes with this. I just came across the book in the library and was planning to dig for dirt on the internet after I read it all but saw this on a search for a writing slope (the SEN at my son's private school "doesn't see the point" of a slope).The mention of the DH cross about the "omega supplement cupboard" made me wonder, how many of you are doing TH programme without partner's awareness and/or support? Because parenting book after parenting book I have read and tried to implement on my own and can't see doing this unless we do it as a family.

Totalyahoo that was just my little joke (Omega cupbard) My Dh knows all about the TH program. He is fully behind it as it works and he can see that. I didn't seek his permission before starting it he is busy with work and as I am now a SAHM I have the time to research these things. We do not all take the supplements am not sure if that's what you meant by "doing it as a family" it would cost an absolute fortune for one thing but also we do not have the same issues that DD has so there really is no need.
I think the problem can be that you can try so many things that your partner just thinks "Oh here we go again another new fad or regime to try what a load of rubbish" so I guess I am lucky we started down this route before he became really sceptical. There can be a lot of reasons why one person in the relationship is more gung-ho about trying new things one being that sometimes one person may still be in denial that there is a problem however we are talking about using supplements here and healthy eating so it would be really hard to imagine why anyone would be opposed to trying that out it will not be harmful in anyway.
Does your DS have dyspraxia?

No diagnosis yet. The Neuropsychologist who saw him while we were living in Switzerland gave ADD as the reason for the gap between his ability to produce work (low) and his cognitive skills (high), and while there are some issues you could clearly hang on the ADD hook, there are other things that haven't been diagnosed and which ADD doesn't cover. This is why one of the central ideas of the Robin Pauc book is so interesting: that all these different disorders are in fact the symptoms of an underlying developmental delay. DS has been seen by an NHS paed who referred him to the OT. The OT said while it is not her job to diagnose dyspraxia, DS's results in terms of balance, fine and gross motor control (average in bottom 25%) are not low enough for him to be likely to have a diagnosis of dyspraxia (separate from being given treatment). DS is always the slowest runner in his class and has lots of problems with writing, both in terms of organising and presenting ideas, as well as the actual handwriting, and other fine motor skills. For the whole family to do it, I meant in terms of DH reinforcing change in diet

The main change we have had, diet-wise, was making sure ds had meat/fish at breakfast. Dd has been quite happy to do the same - she likes her food!

I thought that cutting out all the sugary snack foods would be awful but I just don't have them in the house and have found alternative post-school snacks e.g humous, carrot and pitta, sushi.

We have had the odd meltdown about wanting sweets bu nowhere near as many as I thought.

Dh does let him have fizzy drinks/chocolate when he takes them out (which really annoys me) but as it is rare that they go out without me, it is not the end of the world.

As I said up thread, I am keeping a skeptical but open mind. After half a term on the program our house does seem to be a calmer place.

totalyahoo I cant speak for other on this thread but dh has been behind me 100%...he doesnt have time to read all the books and do the research that I do. He can see the improvements since ds1 started TH (and from AIT and RRT too) and so is happy.

Wrt to the dietary changes, I think we are all healthier since ds1 started the TH programme!

Hello again TH
Well its been a month since we started the stairs exercises. (He's been on vegepa fish oils for a while) Tbh we've been pretty useless about doing them. I also got ds a trampoline and took him to a trampolining class this term. But the good news is that ds 5.1 yo can now catch a ball and has developed a new interest in football. Woo hoo!

I'm also reading Sally Goddard Blythe the Well Balanced Child. It covers lots of similar ground. I'm sure improving balance must be key for ds, given his history.

I went to a movement and development talk recently. A woman in the audience described how she lost her balance after an accident and how incredibly difficult she found life.

Anyway because we're so rubbish about doing the exercises I'm trying to persuade ht to introduce INPP type exercise programme at school.

Whilst I can see no issue with doing an exercise with a child that might help. I am a bit surprised that you are saying 'we have the pupil premium money'. Surely this money is paid to the school for these children. Using it to buy multivitamins and other supplements would be surely crossing the line quite dramatically into medical matters? Are you part of the staff of this school Indigo??

Oodles - good luck introducing INPP. Are you talking about INPP or activate in the classroom or the other one county Durham is trialling?

Cansu - the HT is considering spending part of the pupil premium on this. this money needs to be spent on helping these pupils. No decision has been reached yet, and I suspect she won't approve it.

Currently it's spent on lots of things, including things like martial arts lesson.

County Durham have done several different trials of giving all pupils omega supplements, so it is certainly not unheard of for schools to spend money this way. And of course the whole point of free school meals is to try and make sure poor kids get adequate nutrition.

the govt gives free vitamins to pregnant women and children under 5 if their parents qualify for benefits. Surely giving those same vitamins would be fine?

Anyway, it's certainly not my decision. And it def wouldn't be done without the parents / carers permission.

We have been a bit slack on the diet this weekend and it isn't even Easter yet! We have kept up with the exercises (I think there has only been 2 missed both the middle stairs on a Monday when I work long hours) but food is proving tricky. We have introduced sausages at breakfast, brown bread instead of white (and pasta too) and ricecakes/popcorn (plain) instead of crisps. We haven't had crisps in the house for a few weeks.

Sadly it's chocolate that's the problem. Especially parties, party bags, easter egg hunts at Beavers etc. I feel awful saying no...so I don't Ice cream and lollies now it's hotter too. I try to limit to once a week...but I'm a weak lady when it comes to food.

I think that saying "no" all the time is counterproductive tbh jal I think its fine to have chocolate 2/3 times a week. We all need treats!!

I am very lucky as ds1 doesnt like choc and sweets!!! I know!!!

I also make oaty cookies and flapjacks so i dont mind him having 1 every day as I know what went into them!!! (i.e. no additives/e numbers)

"The well balanced child" is a really interesting book - ds1 went to INPP and I was very impressed.