I'm worried about DS's anxiety and changes in his behaviour, can anyone help me to help him?

[FlyingFig]

DS's teacher spoke to me this morning as she's concerned about DS, over the last 2 weeks he's become extremely tearful at school, crying on and off for most of the day. It's little things that are setting him off (well not little to him), such as making a mistake on his work but also his refusal to accept that the other children aren't always acting with malice towards him (for example another child accidentally stood on DS's foot yesterday but he point blank refuses to accept these incidents as accidents so ends up wound up and cross, thinking people have deliberately set out to hurt him).

He's also started to say he doesn't want to do his school work and refusing when asked to do it; this is really out of character for him as he's always been a stickler for rules and regulations. The teacher is finding ways of compromise but she admits she doesn't always know if she's doing the right thing by DS. The SENCO suggested talking DS to a quiet area on his own when he's getting wound up, but the teacher says she doesn't want DS to feel he's being singled out, she's also concerned DS will cotton on and think if he refuses to do his work he'll get to leave the classroom?

I haven't noticed much of an increase in stress at home, apart from him saying he's "had a bad day" but not telling me much, other than saying classmates are 'selfish' as they won't listen when he wants to tell them something and that 'people who smile when they say sorry don't mean it, they're tricking' (!), those two are things that have really bothered him this week

I feel sad and worried about him, he's 6 btw.

We have no ASD diagnosis (can't seem to get one either), but a diagnosis of low muscle tone, hypermobility, dyspraxic tendencies (can't get an official diagnosis for dyspraxia either!), auditory processing difficulties and sensory difficulties. He has an IEP.

I don't know who to turn to or how to help DS, any advice would be much appreciated.

how sad, my DS ASD traits age 4 is a bit like this but he is not a school yet.

i can only tell you what works with my DS which is that I pander to it completely.

so if he thinks he has been 'wronged' or 'slighted' in some way I completely agree with him, am sympathetic, if he thinks something is MY fault, I agree and apologise and generally make him feel as if he is control (only do this for minor things). this approach seems to defuse the anxiety and works a lot better than contradicting him (even if he is wrong).

for anxiety about getting work wrong i tend to avoid anything that smacks of 'testing' and do all his learning in a roundabout way. So we would do chalk on the pavement rather than paper and pen if that makes sense.

not sure if that helps but you struck a chord and I have found that the above approaches have really helped and reduced his anxiety overall and left him better able to cope when things go wrong.

HTH.

Dd3 struggles with anxiety, she didnt used to be able to tell anybody and always ended up being sick and then getting sent home.

We eventually for lots of reasons, moved her to another school which is brilliantly inclusive.

When the senco found out that she had been sent home a couple of times due to anxiety she said enough was enough, she told Dd3 she wouldnt be going home anymore and if she felt sick she had to go and see her. She is fab, she has been working on ways of calming her down.

I am telling you all this because i think you should try allowing your senco to try things. Many ASD type children like rules so the senco will be able to set some to ensure your ds doesnt try to con her.

One thing i have learned lately is that it is good to let someone at school shoulder some of tue responsibilitt for the anxiety as it it very difficult to help when you are at home or work and they are at school.

As for the being upset by other children, that is a whole other ball game.

Good luck.

Lots in your post struck a chord with me as well.

One of my ds1's (10 next week, AS) biggest problems is over-reacting to benign actions/behaviour of other children. He tends to be convinced that they are always acting with malice of forethought and always wants them 'dealt with' by an appropriate adult (teacher, dinner lady, me etc). We have learned to take the tack of acknowledging and validating how he's feeling, but being firm with explaining that the other child has apologised and didn't mean it so we have to leave it in the past. It doesn't always work, but I think he has improved with it.

Firstly, I think a lot of our dcs are exhausted and have had enough by this stage of term - even my nt ds has been a proper old ratbag this past week. Ds1 suffers very badly with anxiety anyway, but the past couple of weeks he's been all over the place, tearful, angry, ranting, refusing to participate at school and his teacher has been shocked, because he is usually so keen to please his teachers and really polite and well mannered with adults in general. I think its come as a bit of a shock to her system after half an academic year of him being angelic for her, then coming home and taking out all his bottled up stress on us.

Your ds could well just have had enough for one term and is overdue for his holiday.

The single biggest thing we've done to help ds was to get him to record his feelings using simple emoticons. Initially we just got him to give each day an emoticon at the end of the day and explain why he chose that emoticon, but now he fills in his feelings diary after morning play, lunch and just before he comes home. We have done a fair bit of work with him on identifying his own emotions and assigning them an appropriate word and number on a scale of 1-10. He identifies how he is feeling and assigns a word and number to it, then his teacher writes a brief sentence explaining what it relates to. So, say he's fallen over at playtime and is really upset, he might put 0, sad and then his teacher would write 'fell at playtime - cut knee'.

It has helped him develop an awareness of his own emotions and also to get them into perspective, as he will see that although he gave morning play a 0, he gave lunchtime and the afternoon an 8 and 10 respectively, so the day wasn't all bad. Prior to doing this he saw everything and every day as extremely negative and would describe each day as 'the worst ever'. We have just averaged out his scores for this academic year so far and he was amazed to see that the majority of his scores fell within the postive end of the scale. Presenting this information to him in the form of a graph really helped him to accept it as the truth - because obviously computers don't lie.

On top of helping to develop his emotional literacy and awareness, just having five minutes of an adult's attention a few times a day and being able to discuss his worries or concerns with them, makes him feel listened to, understood, validated and more in control.

In addition to all this, he has a half hour session once a week with an inclusion teacher from ASD outreach, where all they do is discuss anything that has happened over the last week and come up with strategies for dealing with those situations in future. He has improved no-end since he started having these regular sessions, as again he feels he is listened to and validated by someone he has grown to trust. Perhaps this is something your SENCO might consider doing for your ds?

As for going somewhere away from the class to calm down, I think the teacher should consider this as an option - but needs to understand that if he is at the point of refusing to work - they have left it too late. He needs to go and find some peace before he reaches that point. It could be that the classroom environment is just too much for him for long periods and he needs to take regular breaks. My ds has a couple of 'jobs' to do that mean he can legitimately leave the room when it gets too much. (eg One is to keep the books on the shelf in the corridor tidy.) Other strategies she uses are getting him to take a note to the SENCO. The note is actually blank, but the SENCO knows that receiving a note via ds means he needs a break.

I would monitor these 'accidental' standing on his foot type incidents very closely.

Children do pick on children like ours. Schools are not always truthful - they will frequently deny a child is being bullied or at the very least, not be as vigilant as they should be.

A bullied child is a very unhappy, anxious child.

Moosemama. Loved your post about the emoticons. Definitely going to pinch that brilliant idea.

Thanks for all your messages; just about to dunk DS in the bath and put him to bed so I'll have a good read through later and reply.

Again, thank you so much; I really don't know what I'd do without this board

WetAugust made a good point.

It is important to keep a log of any 'incidents' he reports, even if at first glance they seem innocent enough. Ds1 was bullied for years and the worst culprit was in his class and constantly doing subtle thing to ds, such as poking him under the table, 'accidentally' knocking all ds's equipment on the floor etc, as well as doing the more obvious playground/physical bullying. I kept a diary of everything ds told me and that, in conjuction with the feelings diary helped us to reach a point where the bully has finally been dealt with. This year is the first year ds1 hasn't been bullied since he started school. I feel it was the bullying that supersensitised him and made him over-reactive to other childrens' actions in the first place. The bullying has definitely stopped, but he is constantly hypervigilant to it happening again.

By doing the feelings diary thing, it makes it easier to keep a track of what's going on and see patterns and recurrent culprits. It can also help to identify flash points and trends as to what's going on at times when your ds's mood is significantly different from his norm. It all helps to unravel what's going on.

ASD Sensory & Emotional Detective Work.
Love it!

I have the deerstalker and everything don'tchaknow.

Funny girl

Some fantastic ideas here moosemama, I think I might pinch them too.

I really can't take the credit. I got the idea for a feelings diary off this board, then developed it a bit and then improved it with advice from ds's Ed Psych. The EPs helped him to start recognising and developing his emotions, then helped to devise a scale and we built on it at home.

Forgot to mention, we a have parent/teacher contact sheet on the back of each feelings diary page, as it makes it easier for her to remember to comment on things as they come up. It also means that I can be sure she will see any comments I write first thing in the morning.

Love moosemamas emotional graph. I want one myself.

We do graphs and pie-charts actually.

Thanks for the fantastic advice, I feel like I can gain some control over the situation now, rather than the hopeless, sinking feeling I had yesterday

I think I should also arrange to speak to the SENCO myself, rather than the teacher acting as a go-between; she's already started Circle of Friend' with DS so she must have some idea of how he operates at times.

moosemama I've spoken to DS about having a diary, he's really keen on the idea, so we're going to start with that, just at a basic level at the end of the day and then hopefully integrate it into his school day too. You're right about DS needing a break before he gets to the point of refusing to do his work; again, it's only by coming here and having some external advice that I start to see ways round all of this, for which I am extremely grateful.

WetAugust Yes, you're right about the incidents possibly not always being innocent, I hadn't really thought of that aspect so I will keep a note of anything that happens. I suspect as well that once the other children cotton on that DS is easily wound up and upset, that some will take advantage and provoke him. It's a really small primary school (60 children in total) and I think that DS is beginning to stand out. I also suspect DS himself is beginning to realise he's not like the other children.

It breaks my heart when I collect him from school, when we're leaving the yard he always shouts out "Hello!" to his classmates, almost as if he hasn't seen them for days! Yet they just look at him, no doubt wondering why he's enthusiastically greeting them when they only saw him a few minutes ago in the classroom. He tries really hard to fit in (when it suits him) but the older he gets, the more I notice how difficult he finds it to integrate with his peers.

Thanks again, I've showed DP this thread and he's also grateful that we have some ideas to work with, rather than the pair of us bumbling on not knowing what the hell to do!

OMG next you will telling me that you are awfully good at maths, especially quadratic equations!

Flyingfig, glad to hear you are feeling more positive today. We've all been there and its awful when you are so worried about your dc and it feels like there's no-one to turn to.

The fact that the SENCO has started a circle of friends is a really good sign that she's on the ball. The new SENCO at our school is the first point of contact for all SEN related issues and I've found it works much better than going through the teacher every time and often helps gets whatever the problem is dealt with much more quickly.

My ds does the enthusiastic greetings whenever he sees a classmate on the way home as well and they either ignore him or look at him like he's lost the plot. He's always done it. These days I tend to just say I don't think they heard you because of all the children and mums around and then distract him. Obviously to him, when you see someone you know, the rule is that you should greet them nicely, he just doesn't get the subtler social code where you don't do it 'every' time you see them.

We struggled to get anyone to see that ds1 had AS at your ds's age as well and the school in particular refused to listen or refer. It was only once he started Junior school and couldn't cope that we finally managed to get taken seriously.

Your ds's difficulties sound very similar to my ds1's. He has Aspergers (dxd in January 2011 just before he turned 9) hypotonia, particularly in his upper body and core and scored on the cut off point for a dx of dyspraxia. He also struggles with sensory stuff and while I don't think he has APD, some tests the Ed Psych did last year raised a problem with his processing skills. This presents as a delay between him hearing, absorbing and understanding what's been said, so its a case of saying his name, then whatever you want to tell him, then giving him a couple of minutes before expecting a reply - not something most teachers or schoolchildren for that matter, are terribly good at.

SallyBear, nope I'm hopeless at maths - but I can just about handle MS Excel, which does all the hard bits for me.

Very interesting thread. Having issues with DS2 at school again. He is NT, but has many borderline traits. He is a rules man and very sensitive/over anxious.
Recently he has started to complain that he can't do his work as he finds that his classmates make too much noise and he loses the thread of what he is writing.
He is also upset at having no friends (heartbreaking stuff to hear as a parent) and that there is low level bullying incidents at school, which is predominantly different people - which is dealt with at the time, and in particular 1 lad who is known to us and is statement bound (who he would class as probably the only boy that likes him)
I agree with end of term fatigue - holiday might be a good de-stresser.
I also agree with Moosemama that you need to be keeping a record of incidents. That is how we worked out that there was general bullying. It seems that when children have a 'moment of naughtiness' that they take it out on the class victim - the one that they know will react either with tears/anger etc. The teacher may not see a pattern of who is the perpetrator, but do they have any other children in the class that is always the victim?
I would love to know about how successful 'circle of friends' has been. It has been muted for a while with my DS, but I am unsure of how it can really benefit someone who knows what he likes, and cannot see the point of making friends with someone who shares none of his interests. Is this a short term measure?

Auntevil, we are having issues with ds refusing to have anything to do with classmates who he doesn't feel share his interests etc. Circle of friends was mentioned by his inclusion teacher, though hasn't happened as yet, but in the meantime his class teacher has been working on widening the number of children he is willing to work with in class and during PE etc.

The first stage was to get him to work with anyone other than his beloved best friend. He was allowed to identify a shortlist of people he might consider working with and then his teacher worked on encouraging him to work with the children on his list.

He's done pretty well with it and it seems that he can now work with other children from the list on the days he is coping well with everything else, but when his anxiety levels are too high he needs the comfort and safety of being with his best friend.

The next stage is going to be to get him to widen the circle of children he will consider working with and see how that goes. (Might be tricky, as he has seemingly widened his rule from 'I only work with X' to 'I only work with X, X or X ).

This process will underpin the widening of his social circle to people he might not have a lot in common with, but can get along with, by teaching him that it is possible to work with them without them having to agree on everything. We have done a lot of support work at home about 'you don't have to like someone to work with them' and 'we all have to get along with people we don't really like sometimes' etc. I don't hold out much hope for this last stage, but it would be great if he can manage it.

The overall idea is that if he can learn to work with different children in class, he will then have something in common with them when he encounters them socially - even if they have no interests in common, they can talk about the work they did together, iyswim. The other children are more likely to initiate interaction with him as well, once they have worked together in class.

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not convinced he will be able to generalise the 'working' to the 'socialising'.

I suppose the last stage would be to do a similar thing with a circle of friends, other than the couple of children he will normally accept socially and go through a similar process. So maybe that's where the generalising comes in, as in it will be taught in a similar way, rather than him having to generalise by himself.

They do have this thing in class where they have a discussion partner for different topics. The teacher is going to work out how to make sure that DS2 gets different children to work with.
The sad thing is, when it comes to sport, and a partner has to be chosen, he is always one of the first to get picked as he is really sporty. He is a really good team player - because thats the rule of team sports.
It hasn't helped in the past when the teacher has said find a partner and my daydreamer hasn't yet woken up and by the time he has, everyone else has found a partner. Although his teacher is going to find ways around this too.
DH was like this - so was my brother. DH had no friends at all at school - not even secondary. He only found friends at Uni - and they have proved to be brilliant friends. Although there is a disclaimer with that - all his friends in some way were the school social outcasts for whatever imaginary reason - obese, aspergers, computer geek etc.
Just don't want to wait that long for DS2. Although we're looking into Karate - biggest problem there is that DS1 will want to go too. He got upset last time, so we stopped going. He is dyspraxic, SPD and hypermobile, and although the leader was very supportive and understanding, DS realised that he could not keep up with his peer group.

Auntevil, your dh's uni friends sound just like ours. Similarly, they have been the best lifelong friends ever and are stick absolute rocks all these years later.

I get what you mean about not wanting your dc to have to wait that long to feel that he belongs though. We are so lucky that ds1 has a really good friend and a couple of other children who are geniuinely fond and protective of him. His two main friends both have a sibling with ASD, so I think they just naturally 'get' him. They were friends with him for years before he was diagnosed as well, so its not like they made friends with him out of sympathy.

How old is your ds2? Have you checked out whether there are any ASD or general disability social groups in your area? You can search on the NAS website and your local SureStart centre should know, as should ASD Outreach. There's one local to us, but its from 11 years onwards, so ds is still too young.

I was wondering if there might be some sort of pen-friend scheme for children with ASD. Ds1 would love writing to someone, as long as he could type rather than writing the lessons. I think it would be a really good way for him to develop a friendship. Hmmmm, I might start a thread on it actually ......

Auntevil, I have no idea how Circle of Friends is going; DS doesn't tell me much about it. Last time I asked him, they'd watched a DVD that had a train (?) and covered feelings, such as happy, sad, angry etc. Then they had to talk about how they were feeling, I asked DS how it went, his answer was: "I said I was feeling 'toilet' as I needed a wee" It is heartbreaking when our DC don't feel that they fit in or have no friends, although my DS doesn't ask to see friends out of school (nor does he get invited anywhere, bless him!), he likes his own company. Not sure how I can get round that without forcing him into situations he can't handle or doesn't enjoy.

Moosemama our boys do indeed sound very similar! DS's low tone affects him all over but in particular he has pelvic and shoulder weakness; combined with the hypermobility (he has it in his fingers) it adds to DS's anxiety as he struggles with writing and can't really draw, so gets stressed out about colouring in etc. The OT and community paed say that long-term DS will need to learn type as he's never going to be able to write for any great length of time but at the moment we've to encourage using a pencil while he's still young.

The pen friend scheme sounds a great idea, I'll look out for your thread!

Just going back to the 'accidental' problems from friends, it's also possible that your DS does read too much into them. The DC I support thinks any bump in the corridor, anyone staring at him, anyone kicking his chair etc, are children purposely annoying him and he immediately calls on the teacher or me to deal with it. I'm not saying the other DC are perfect, but in the majority of cases it's a huge over reaction on his part.

I've developed an 'annoyance' barometer for him. If he's a bit irritated, just try ignoring. If that doesn't work, or he's quite annoyed, say, 'xxxx please don't do that,' but with a smile on his face. If that doesn't deal with it, or he's very annoyed, say 'xxxx, when you do that, it upsets me. Please stop,' with a serious face. Lastly, get an adult involved. It has helped loads, he is much more tolerant and if he calls on me over something minor I remind him of the levels, and get him to speak to them with a smile.

The constant 'telling on people' was making him quite unpopular and adding to the occasions that the other DC were purposely winding him up, so a vicious circle.

I agree; I think the majority of the time he does read too much into these incidents. He ends up outraged and wants the other child told off, I see him do it at home with his sisters. I can see how constantly telling will make him unpopular, he used to shout at the other children if he saw them running in school, there's a 'No Running' poster in the corridor and it drove him mad to see anyone breaking that rule.

The annoyance barometer is a great idea, will see if we can make something like that work for DS.