Need some ideas please

[claw2]

At school ds is unable to express when he is feeling sad or upset. If he does express feeling sad or upset, he is obviously asked why, so he 'pretends to be happy' or replies he is 'fine' when teachers ask if he is ok.

This is an ongoing problem and ds internalising his feelings and self harms.

I have been giving the matter some thought and it has occurred to me that there is nothing to motivate ds to express how he is feeling, in fact quite the opposite, he is asked why. IF he does express to an adult he is feeling sad/upset, it doesn't achieve anything, as after expressing he is still feeling sad/upset and gets no relief.

At home for example if ds is feeling sad/upset, he can take himself up to his room and do something which he finds relaxing ie lining things up.

Any ideas on strategies school could use to a) motivate ds to share his feelings and b) make him feel better after he has expressed?

Ds is no good if asked why he is sad (he does better with happy e.g. 'because tickling' -meaning he likes being tickled)

Does your DS properly understand why/because? DS really struggles with this even in simple sentences e.g. show him a picture of child with umbrella and say 'why has he got umbrella' - DS can say 'because its raining'. But there was a SLT picture of a boy crying because a dog was chewing his shoe and DS could not link the boy crying to the shoe.

You may need to explore using comprehension pictures to be sure he really understands the concept of why/because. DS has worked on this for a while but still hasn't really got it.

DS is much better at saying like / dislike (more concrete - as only 2 choices, with 'why' there can be lots of possible answers).

We are trying to get DS to choose his own rewards more - so teaching language of 'like, don't like, ok, favourite'. Often DS won't say what he likes just look around the room, see something and say that just to say something! It can be that pressure to use language that causes added stress. So sometimes we use sorting to get him to show us what he likes most, whats ok, what he doesn't like by putting three pieces paper on floor with words written on them and DS has to sort items into three piles.

He's much better at saying what he does not like!

We're also working on teaching him to recognise when he is cross and relaxed (doing relaxation techniques), so he can calm himself down. (Its quite funny as he will now say 'I'm cross, deep breathing (then blows out hard!). Even just that self awareness is huge for DS. Before we started working on it he could not really identify his own level of stress. We also videoed him being excited and cross and showed them to him so he could label those emotions in himself - so we would show him the video and say are you happy, excited, cross etc - it was amazing how he couldn't often give the right label.

So now when we ask him to do something he doesn't want to (turning down volume on iPad is key one at moment), he will say 'I'm cross, don't like turn it down'. Sometimes he will write this down rather than say it.

Why does your DS have to say if he is happy or sad and why - isn't it obvious if he is or isn't?

He might find like / dislike easier and start with sorting say a list of activities into piles. Then he may like my DS start using that language during the day for things he doesn't like (which tend to be what makes him unhappy)

No Agnes, I don't think ds does properly understand why. Similar to your ds the umbrella and rain he could probably answer. However, similarly when SALT showed ds a picture of a boy who had lost his keys and had emptied his pockets looking for the key, ds answered 'he had dropped all his stuff'

When ds first started at this school it was fairly easy to see when he was upset as he cried, he was crying all the time. He has now stopped crying (as he feels like a baby) and 'pretends to be happy' or apparently yesterday his CT said to him you are looking tense/upset are you ok and he replied 'fine', although he tells me he was feeling sad all day and felt like crying.

This morning before school, he was tearful, not wanting to go and saying 'its all to much' referring to the school.

I emailed his TA and told him this morning, his reply was he will keep a close eye on him and he will talk to him when he arrives. I feel like screaming whats the point, if he is pretending to be happy and telling you he is fine! However I am trying to be more constructive. They seem to be missing the bigger picture and still focussing on the 'why'.

Maybe I just need to cut to the chase and tell them 'why'. His statement is crap and his needs are not being met.

Could you ask school to respond with a question about what would help DS, rather than 'why?'

So, perhaps

'How are you, DS?'
'Sad'
'Ok. Sorry to hear that, what would help you?'
'Quiet time'.
'Ok, have some quiet time.'

Obviously, you'd have to prep him with solutions and prep school with a plan.

The problem is Lougle, he wont say that he is feeling sad/upset. So the convo would go.

'How are you ds?'
'fine'
'You look a bit tense/upset'
'im fine'

DD2 is the same.

I'm sorry, I thought, from your OP, that he was only reluctant to say how he felt because they then went on to ask 'why'.

Its kind of more, he has stopped saying he feels sad/upset and pretends to be happy and fine, because they ask why. If that makes sense!

When asked if he is ok, he will reply 'fine', even if he isn't. Even if they stopped asking why, he is now not motivated to tell them how he is feeling in the first place.

Polter yes I agree same process.

Can I ask how will school monitor your ds's mood? We have had smiley, sad face, 1-5 charts etc before and it doesn't take ds long to cotton on to, sad face = explanation, smiley face = no explanation etc.

I assume it will only work if no explanation is required at all? I think with ds this strategy has been used, badly (requiring ds to explain why he is sad), so many times in the past, he would just continue smiley face etc.

To me it is so bloody obvious why he is sad/upset most of the time in school. He needs are not being met and recommendations from professionals need to followed, he needs trained counsellor, OT, SALT input etc which is not featured in his statement. It was thought that just attending a school with much smaller class size would be enough, when it clearly isn't.

Exactly zzzz it would make more sense to just ask ds at set periods during the day would he like or does he need to do distressing activity.

Although he would probably say no, as he desperately wants to comply with 'being good' and 'fitting in', so it would have to be done in a very planned way to avoid him feeling 'different'

I have used the following strategies with children with similar issues at school:

1. Instead of asking "Are you ok?" Or "How are you?", which are questions which take an immense amount of courage for a child to 'correct' by saying "no I'm not", the adults around him should present a negative response as a valid choice within the question. So "Are you feeling happy or sad today?" Or "Are you feeling ok or not so good?".

1. A box, or discreet sticker/whiteboard/token using expression faces to indicate how he is feeling. He could leave one or more of these faces on the teacher's desk/in a box/somewhere the teacher can check without him having to tell them face-to-face how he's feeling. This could be paired with positive reinforcement for him doing this 2-3 times a day.

1. Use of social stories to discuss why sharing feelings is a good idea; showing him how it relieves stress, can make worries lessen etc.

1. Having a peer 'buddy' who he can tell his feelings to, who is trained to let an adult know how he is feeling. Circle of Friends may be a useful tool here.

1. Building a culture of discussing feelings into the classroom, so all children share their feelings either verbally or on a visual chart during the school day. This reinforces the message that it is good to share feelings, even if they are negative. Ideally, I would use Circle Time to do this, with children devising strategies to help each other when they are feeling sad or angry.

DS quickly cottoned on to the 'ask for break' strategy - pretty soon he was asking for breaks all the time whether he was stressed or not
DS would say 'I'm fine' too because he has learnt that as a rule if someone asks you how you are you say I'm fine. It's a language issue for him that's all he knows how to say.
We rely on 1:1 staff knowing him we'll enough to know if he's sad, stressed, getting angry etc and to then reduce demands.
Can they try and always give him a choice of two activities. Ds doesn't mind doing things as much if he feels he has had a choice ( I think that's about him feeling in control). He will then often do things he has previously refused.

Reading your last posts, I would say that point 5 above is essential. All children should be involved here.

And staff should be made explicitly aware that having to explain his feelings is stressful for him. Indicating his feelings is enough at this stage, and should be positively reinforced with access to a preferred activity.

"Our children put up with so many heavy handed amateur psychologists."

Yes. This. Couldn't agree more.

I think he needs to be rewarded for indicating his feelings, whether they are good or bad, and not quizzed on the matter.

I understand, PolterGoose, and I have used some of the techniques I outlined above effectively with children with ASD. The lack of understanding of their own emotional responses and the impact of them can be addressed later on- at this stage, I would focus solely on increasing the communication of feelings, even if they are not fully understood IYSWIM. As the OP says, her DS sees no reason to share negative emotions, as the consequence is something he finds aversive. Once this issue is overcome, the next steps would be to examine the reasons for the negative emotions- this should of course be done by a trained professional, and it is not always easy to access the expertise needed.

Love the engine analogy, BTW.

Tethers your point 1, you also have to be very specific with ds and like Agnes said in her earlier post ds is very much 'I like' and 'I don't like' without being able to say specifically what he doesn't like/dislike about an activity or lesson. He describes things in very general terms.

They have circle time in school and one activity was children writing on a chart 1. what makes them feel angry 2. what makes them feel upset etc, etc and ds was able to write 'school' makes him upset. However circle time isn't used to discuss school as such every week and as I say you have to be pretty specific to elicit a response from ds. He will often go off on tangents.

I think school are wasting far too much time trying to find out 'why'. We have reports coming out of our ears detailing exactly what ds finds difficult and exactly what provision he needs. Less 'why' is needed and more action.

Well, it sounds as if you know exactly what needs to happen in the classroom- good luck with it, and I do hope it won't be too much of a fight to get him what he needs