Situation with tutor reached boiling point today, advice please

[claw2]

I have started a few threads about home tutor and ds not engaging with her. Ds is 9, been out of school for about a year, due to school anxiety and self harming and receiving 5 hours HT.

Ds is due to start school this week for half a day. Tutor has been trying to increase work to help him cope with demands of school day.

However, ds was previously engaging with tutor, but has now stopped due to the increase and no doubt the pressure of knowing he is going to school.

Today, I had to carry ds downstairs and he sat refusing to engage with the tutor curled up in a ball.

After half an hour, tutor came out and told me she didn't see the point of continuing and wanted to leave.

I went into the room and managed to pursued ds to engage.

Any suggestions please on how to help ds cope with this?

Let her leave?

You can't control what she does with him, she's there to tutor him. If he won't engage with what she's doing, she has two choices - she either changes what she does so that he will engage, or she leaves.

Oh, poor you. I think you might just have to ride it all out tbh.

Bribery?

After she came out and told me she didn't see the point with continuing and was leaving, we went to sit in the room with ds.

I just used a bit of humour and gentle coaxing and he came out from his ball.

I think it is my responsibility to work with her and show her how it is done?

I see your point, Claw, but your DS is going to have to respond to adults without your presence soon. Do you not think that by stepping in, you are reinforcing a notion that only Mum will do? The tutor really should be able to deal with your DS, and if she can't....what's the loss? If she's leaving lots of homework anyway, then you could just work on that together and cut her presence out of it.

Agree with Lougle

Really the tutor ought to have the skills necessary to engage kids with issues around anxiety. If she can't, I would not engage with the process. Just let her leave or it will create further issues.

She's increasing his anxiety, so not really serving any useful purpose. Suddenly throwing lots of work at him seems counter-productive, too, so let her go. Probably best to make sure you correspond with the tuition service to get this on record, though.

Any specialist school worth its fees will be inducting him gently, giving him the opportunity to actually like being there. Academic work is secondary to that for a child with extreme anxiety and school refusal, IMO.

Lougle, she was asking me to go into the room with ds. She came to the kitchen, told me she didn't see the point of continuing and was leaving.

I went into the front room and it just turned into her giving ds a lecture, while he lay curled in a ball, with his hands over his ears, rocking. Telling him it was '5 year old work' and 'that she didn't think he was ready for school, if this is how he carries on' and 'you can do this, just refusing isn't good enough' etc, etc

I would have been happy for her just to leave and I suggested several times, that maybe she should leave and 'I would seek advice from CAMHS'. But she wasn't leaving, she was lecturing and making the situation worse. I kinda stepped in, to diffuse the situation. He was being asked to draw a picture of me for French work. I joked with him, that I wanted him to make me look beautiful etc and that if I sat there he could do a portrait of me as I didn't want him to confuse me with his dad. And I wasn't quite sure what colour my eyes were, as I needed him to have a look, as I couldn't see my own eyes etc, etc.

Don't let her back in, claw. She's worse than inept - she's pretty damaging.

And complain.

Ok...well, what advice do you want? I have to say that at this stage I wouldn't have let her carry on like that. I'd have asked her to leave my house. I have the luxury of saying that though, because I'm not in the situation.

How do you envisage the school dealing with your DS? Do you think they will sit with him and make jokes and cajole him to do one drawing? For how long?

I'm not sure what advice can be given. You aren't going to change this tutor. To what end, anyway? She's going to be out of his life in 5 weeks if all goes to plan. Quite why she would go with your DS to the school is beyond me - he won't work with her when she's in his home, so she's hardly going to be a stabilising factor at the new school, is she?

Several of DS1 tutors told me that tutors aren't allowed to leave in these circumstances.

When is he due to start school? I think it is of concern that one afternoon a week for the rest of this term has not been decided upon because it is in the best interests of the child or because this is the school's normal integration policy but because it fits EOTAS provision. DS1's tutor told me that the 5 hours can be used for direct tuition but is also used for taking the child to/from school/remaining with them.

I thought that DS's evaluation went well? I think one half day per week is not sufficient (you have been keeping to the structure of formal ed 5 days a week), he will be confused and this would make it difficult for anyone to aclimatize let alone practise social skills. How many other children in his class have an adult with them all the time? The peer group need to be appropriate and he needs to fit in with them not marked out.

Do you think that DS needs the tutor with him - perhaps she could do one hour per day but not remain with him so that he could access half-days each day for the first week and then perhaps full days for the next week.

If she is going to add making threats to being unsuitable you need to move away from her as soon as possible before she messes up placement. Once the LA agree to fund, EOTAS have no role other than reintegration in line with the school requirements and pupils needs. Do the school think he can only cope with one half day per week and needs 1:1?

Well I have asked ds did he find it helpful having the tutor with him in school, his reply 'no, but it makes me calm' it seems just having a familiar is helpful to him.

Lougle i was trying to show her that her approach isn't working. I suppose i expect school to have some strategies in place, such as motivation, as oppose to you will do as i say and negative comments. which just make the situation worse.

Keep, i am still waiting to hear about dates, which isn't helping either.

Yes Keep, his 2 half days spent at the school went very well, in as much as he didn't refuse to do anything, he was just very quiet. Apparently he needed lots of encouragement to join in with PE for example and had to watch for a bit etc, but he did join in eventually.

The 1:1 home tutor going with him, was kinda part of the deal to get the school to agree to evaluation, as they had reservations about being able to cope with his level of anxiety.

Lougle, at the moment im not even sure what advice i need. I just panicked, tutor saying she was leaving, ds refusing to engage etc would result in school place being withdrawn. As you say if ds cannot engage with a tutor at home, for one hour.

Im just trying to think of ways to keep this going, until he is in school i suppose.

OK the school had concerns back then and wanted him to be accompanied on evaluation but he passed.

Her continued presence can't be part of the deal once he is on the roll as a pupil at that school. The school haven't said they can't meet his needs as a pupil without 1:1. She is only 'needed' in so far a she makes transition easier. You imagined it would be worse, but, miracle of miracles, he enjoyed attending despite being shy and quiet and is keen to go back etc. The school are keen that he is f/t as soon as possible. In other words you don't need her anymore.

Speak to the school about their plan and type behaviour / anxiety programme they will be using. I would assume it will be a plan based on positive rewards and motivators. In which case I would tell school what tutor is doing and reservations about whether her doing transition is best approach. They might say he doesn't need her and they can then use one approach consistently? It would be better to have school say she is not needed than you to be seen to fall out with another professional. Can school staff do some home visits so they become familiar??

I am trying to be very careful about 'bad mouthing' professionals, as both tutor and her husband have proved very helpful in other ways.

School staff doing some home visits to become familiar i think is a much better idea, as it most certainly is a 'familiar' face that ds is finding helpful.

I have been trying to ride this out, but ds's relationship is getting worse by the day with the tutor.

I am scared to say to school that ds is refusing to engage with the tutor.

You don't need to tell the school that - it is her fault not due to anything about him.

EOTAS may have been useful in the past but their role is done now - this is not badmouthing profs.

The only reason they have for continuing to be involved is to help with integration. This includes butting out if that is what would really help.

I would be suspicious if the LA will not allow him to attend for more than one afternoon. Call me paranoid but I would think this was EOTAS provision rather than integration. If it were genuinely integration I would expect that the goal would be to keep moving forward not to get him used to attending school one afternoon a week with a 1:1 when this is not the endpoint.

Just spoke to CAMHS they are very much for positive motivation and rewards and asking ds what he thinks he can manage to do with tutor.

I have asked them to talk to tutor directly with their suggestions.

Why does it have to be bad mouthing? Why can't you say something along the lines of:

"DS is struggling to mix the thoughts of home and his new school. As home tutoring is associated with a very anxious period in his life, and the school placement is a new beginning, I wonder if it would be better to keep the boundaries clear. Do you think it would be a good idea to see if DS copes with school without the presence of his home tutor, as I'm concerned that it would be another hurdle to overcome later if he was to start with her with him?"

Ignore the terrible grammar of the last sentence, please.

Lougle ds is saying he wants the home tutor to go with him, he has said he doesn't find her helpful, but feels calmer.

Their relationship has been more positive than this previously, its just her very bad handling when he refuses anything, things then spiral.

Previously she was leaving the work for me to do when he refused. It has now spiralled to him refusing to do any work or even talk to her.

Their relationship started very badly, her trying to force, the more she forced the further ds withdrew and we were in exactly the same situation. I introduced positive motivation and rewards, movement breaks, ds being able to start the lesson with 5 minutes of him showing her something of interest to him etc, etc.

That worked fine, he was having more good days, than bad. She then stopped using these methods, which was fine, as he was engaging well.

Then starting school next week, lets try and cram in as much as we possible can and increase the work, overnight and its resulted in this.

I did suggest previously that we reintroduce the above again and now CAMHS will be suggesting the same to her, i stand more chance of her following it.

The situation is complicated when DC are unable to attend and out of school for some time. There is an element of nervousness that you would find in NT DC too.

DS1 did not speak to anyone during his 3 day evaluation but has begun the third week, his second week boarding on his own, by choosing to travel alone in the taxi down for his second week boarding. I was keeping everything crossed that he would be able to attend at all and would never have believed it possible.

If you get placement right, DC can do so much more than we have become used to in the m/s.

Keep, i am sure ds wont refuse in school, IF its explained to him in terms he can understand. I have just looked at the work he was refusing to do today, as its been left for me to do.

1. Maths - You have 10 oranges and you have to share them etc. I asked ds what the problem was he told me he gets very confused when its oranges and people and why cant it be a 'sum'. 10 divided by 2 for example written as a sum, he would have no difficult with. Ask ds to imagine sharing oranges with people and he is stuck! He needs concrete, I would get ds to make marks on the page or give him coins to sort into piles.

1. Literacy - read a story, then retell it as if you are the character. He is saying very confusing, he doesn't know how to think. He will need careful step by step instructions, as oppose to you can do it or being told exactly what to write. He wont just write what you tell him to to, as its not his work or his 'idea'. He needs to understand what is expected of him, so he can do it himself.