Probable ADHD...moan..long

[TICKLETUMBLE]

I have posted here twice before. My step son has been having behaviour issues at school and they got someone in to assess him. The report stated SA+ for behaviour and emotional development delay.

What I am struggling with is the change in how the teachers and support workers are with me.....which may or may not be imagined.
Although we made some input, providing family history about premature birth, generallly having a slower than expected development in many areas, significant speech delay which is well documented would have an impact on social and emotional development, he went to nursery and pre school and has been in kids clubs for fun and socialising too...none of this is reflected in the report.

There are some comments about his behaviour, his lack of planning and forethought, impulsivility, poor spacial awareness, poor consentration, poor emotional vocabulary etc. and a suggestion that there might be a neurological problem that should be investigated, but actually states several times that more commonly this sort of delay is caused by poor or absent parenting with a lack of nurturing (or worse).
I knew the report would make the picture as black as possible to secure the funds for one to one help for DS, but this is pretty hard to take, and anyone having sight of it who does not know our background would/could think the worst..and it makes me very angry and upset.

How do you get past the implications made by strangers that its something you did or didn't do, when you know you didnt do anything particularly different to any other decent parent doing their best?

We are pretty convinced that this is a case of ADHD, with all the behaviour and emotional issues that go along with it seem to describe DS pretty well to a tee..and now we have that idea we deal with situations differently and hopefully things will get better. But I still feel like I am being judged as a useless mother for not doing this is the first place, but it snot until you get all the pieces toegther you notice your child isnt just a bit of an individual, but really is not like all the other children and needs a bit of lateral thinking to deal with in a different way.

I have to admint there may be some animosity towards me by the school staff as I ripped the proposed IEP apart as it was poorly devised with woolly goals, actions that didnt address the goals and measures that didn't measure the success of the actions. I proposed better goals and measures, which they have taken on board....but the SENCO stated it was just thrown together to get the funding and parents dont usually make such a fuss about them, they just sign them and go away. WHAT????!!!! WHY would any parent not bother to make sure the extra help their child is getting is actually valuable?
MY partner says dont worry what other people think, we know what the suituation is and that is what matters...and that is the healthy way to go, I am just not there yet.....:(

I just need to grow a thicker skin, knowing we have done and continue to do our best for DS that we can........

I have read many threads where peple have been upset or angry taht the professionals have pointed the finger at them, so I am aware it not uncommon...its just a bit of a bitter pill to take without spitting it out and giving them a piece of my mind.

Not looking for an answer, just needed to vent....

"sign them and go away"

Charming. Well, sounds like your SENCO isn't worth much. Ours is quite happy to get input from us on it, and we always have loads of discussions over what to include in the new IEP at every IEP review, which we have every other month.

If they're not going to provide APPROPRIATE support, what's the point of providing support at all??

1. You do a formal request for copies of your child's GP, HV & nursery files. Check there are no adverse comments made about your parenting. (You'll prob find you queried speech delays years back and were told not to be over anxious.) HANG ON TO THESE FILES FOR DEAR LIFE.

1. You phone the person that wrote the report and call them out on their comments on your parenting. You point out the out of school socialisation opportunities you have provided and ask why these haven't been mentioned. It's OK to say you thought the assessment was to assess your child's development & not your parenting. Be polite, but don't be ashamed to say the references to poor nurturing have deeply upset you. (As Mums we should NEVER be ashamed to state that we are determined to do right by our kids!)

1. Never sign anything you are uncomfortable with - it'll only bite you in the ass later! Triggles point about appropriate support is spot on.

1. Write to say no outside expert can go into school without first asking your permission and that you expect to see ALL reports prior to them being shared with other professionals. This prevents sloppy inaccuracies being passed round as gospel truth - errors on reports my son has had at first draft have included fundamental stuff such as his name.

I just learnt the lesson about outside experts going into school without my knowledge very recently when I got burned badly. Hopefully I can now guide other parents away from that trap.

Interestingly, DS2 has ADHD (among a number of other things) and we were NEVER told that this is in any way related to any parenting problems. It has never been brought up at all or suggested in any way.

I think it's sloppy to put something like that in a report. It really only says "more commonly this sort of delay is caused by.." which is very misleading. He's not necessarily saying it is in your situation, but rather IMPLYING it, IYSWIM. And that's sloppy IMO. Unless he knows it for certain, and can provide relevant examples, it's got no business in the report.

Thanks....I know that we have on record that we queried speech delay,were told to wait as he was too young to decide at the time we were asking. he had surgery for a tongue tie and got speech therapy eventually.

Personally I think that the statements are cut and paste out of a standard set of things to write next to a particular score. Lazy and innacurate.

We dont have to sign the report or agree with it, its a stand alone document, but is used to define the strategy to help DS.

We are asked to agree to the IEP devised by the school, not the report made by the third party.
Implications and omissions of facts paints a blacker picture than is the case...gets the higher level support, or so we are told.
I will call the person that wrote the report as I think excluding the facts skews the report...knowing DS has had plenty of socialisation and early years learning opportunities etc but is still where he is points to a more possible clinical/neurological issue than is being reported at the moment.

I have rarely had a report with DS2 that we didn't technically agree with, however, we did have one that had some glaring errors in it (personally I think they got DS2 mixed up with another child in that instance). I simply wrote a letter to that particular professional (doing a cc to anyone who received a copy of the report) acknowledging receipt of the report and carefully pointing out the inaccuracies. I put it as "most likely due to miscommunication" IIRC. My way of saying "they didn't listen to us when we were answering their questions." I requested an updated report, and one was sent out a few weeks later (to all that had received the original one). Nobody seemed upset or irritated over it.

But I would quite willingly do it again if a report was inaccurate. It's to DS2's benefit to have the reports correct in the long run.

I would, however, make any such requests in writing. Paper trails are very important. And nobody can then miscontrue what you said in a phone call. And that way, if they refuse to correct the report, you still have your views in writing (and in record).

Thanks. I'll write a letter, so it cannot be stated we made no comment about the content of the report.
A lot of the report is simply observations of how DS actually was at the time of observation, there is nothing to disagree about with that.

i understand they look at specific set of criteria, ask specific questions and record the response and that leads to a score indicating a level of comeptency in a particualr area. No issue with that.
The suggested reasons for the responses though do not seem to take into account all possiblities.......which seems rather short sighted and biased.
If he didn't answer a question correctly or as as expected, this could be because a) he doesnt have the vocabulary capacity to answer (their conclusion), he interprteted the question differently than expected (possible), he was not consentrating and did not really hear the question but knows you want an answer so gave one (possible), simply did not understand the question (probable), was pressurised by the unusual situation and clammed up (probable). Could be a combination of a number of these.
In any case. Its needs discussing with the report writer one way or another.
thanks for the input.