Horrible start to Year 7

[StrawberryDaiquiriPlease]

Hey,

Really need some suggestions.
My DS (diagnosed with ADHD) has started Secondary School and in the first two weeks of Year 7 I thought he was doing really well. I was thrilled, he seemed really independent, I'd get up at 6am, at 7am I walked with him to school in the morning for the first week - dropped him off, he'd be texting me at the end of the day - had a great day, buying maltesers to celebrate, met a year 8 boy on the way home...
(when I'd still be in work) I'd be back home by 7pm to help him with homework, dinner, bath and bed.

But by week three he came back from school, I found out he was skipping/forgetting to go to lessons, I realised he wasn't making friends. One day he wouldn't go in to school for hours, I thought I dealt with it well - really calmly - and he started opening up about everything that was upsetting him.

I started emailing all the relevant staff to try to get the school to communicate and join up their thinking. I found he had a hall pass and he told me he simply leaves all the classes and stands in the hall. This morning his dad dropped him off (I usually take him to school in the morning) and apparently DS simply stared at the floor ignoring a teacher who came to speak to him.

I'm feeling overwhelmingly stressed, normally keep phone away in handbag at work, but I've been receiving texts
from DS - "I hate school - year 9 kids are evil"...
and phone calls from teachers - "your DS had a melt down, he ran away from a teacher, he refused to do PE, he threw chairs on the floor to stop the TA from following him"...

My responsibilities at work have gone up and just when I think I can leave I get asked to quickly sort something else out. I'm jumping at the sound of my phone and dreading reading the emails from school.

I've initiated the idea of more communication with school but I'm finding it oh-so-stressful.

I think combined with sickness, work stresses and anxiety about my Dchild's transition into year 7 i'm becoming incredibly stressed and that means I can hardly even be the mum I want to be to my DS.

It is so frustrating that he barely attempts his homework without waiting for me. That I'm out of the house for 12 hours may be very normal for most working people but suddenly seems incredibly exhausting at this moment in time. When I show even the slightest frustration - "DS why do you go out of the classroom? What do the teachers say to you?" he becomes very aggressive towards me. I've stood in the kitchen having drinking glasses hurled at me, and pretty much as many heavy objects he can carry in his hands...

I'm starting to have thoughts about what will happen if he does not want to go to school any more or he refuses and I feel really upset that I've failed him as a mum. What can I do? My brain is currently fried by it all...

Does your son have an EHCP in place?. If not I would be looking to obtaining one of those documents for him as soon as you are able to do so. He is in an environment where his needs are clearly not being met hence all the problems both he and you in turn are experiencing now.

Have you had any opportunity at all to meet either the pastoral care manager for his year (many secondary schools have such people) or just as importantly the SENCO?.

I would also contact IPSEA for their help and advice too. Their website is very good and they have been very helpful to me in the past www.ipsea.org.uk/

ADHD is very difficult to manage at secondary school, both for the child and for the teachers who hasven't met him before and just see a child hurling insults/chairs

Is he medicated for his ADHD?

Yes he has an EHCP, and I've been speaking to the head of year and the SENCO. We have a meeting set up and we're going to call an emergency annual review but the problem is... when children don't feel able to keep focussing - a key problem with ADHD really is the difficulty with being able to keep persevering at their studies. Just wondering if anyone has any strategies or ideas?

You have not failed him, he is just not coping with the change and needs more support. Just like you feel stressed and overwhelmed so does he, his behaviour is a reaction to this. Secondary school transition can be overwhelming for neurotypical children too, it is hard. You need to have a meeting with the school as to how they plan to support him, if he is struggling he needs a safe place with a few members of staff he can go to to get away not just a hall pass where he is left to wander unsupported. What did his primary school do that worked that they might be able to implement?

Rather than questioning him about why he is doing these behaviours maybe start with asking how he is feeling and see if he can articulate what he feels might help (he may not know at that time or be able to identify his feelings, but listening to him is important). Try not to make it confrontational, he needs you to reassure him.

If he is acting out then say what you see "I see you are really angry about something right now, would you like to talk about it". If he is past the point of talking let him calm down alone for a bit and do it retrospectively "earlier I noticed you looked really angry, would you like to talk about it".

Strawberry, the issue is not his inability to focus on his studies, the issue is that he is risking expulsion if he continues to throw chairs. You need to focus on the issue at hand. Haven't you medicated him? ADHD is a neurological disorder, you cannot therapise and strategise it away.

Strawberry, right now the focus needs to be his emotional, pyschological and physical wellbeing. There is no way he can focus on his studies while he is such a state. Once he is better supported and having his needs met then that can be addressed. Does he have any contact with specialist adhd services/clinical pyschology/community paediatrician/camhs that can support you ?

He tried medication but he doesn't like it. It involves swallowing pills everyday. He didn't feel like eating when he took it.

He does just stare away and not talk after a long day of school, it is usually better if I cheer him up with distraction.

He is allowed to go to the Inclusion unit to calm down, which he does. Maybe this week will be better than last week. He says today was good.

I understand that he didn't like the medication - does he like feeling unable to control himself though? Does he like throwing things at his mother and not being able to stay in his lessons?

There is more than one medication for ADHD and I strongly advise you not to dismiss it. ADHD wrecks childhoods.

What other solutions are there for children who get very angry? They're sitting down, they get focussed on something, an adult tells them its time to go to the next lesson, but they don't want to, it's a lesson they don't like next, the adult keeps pushing verbally until the child gets extremely angry.

The adult is supposed to push verbally, it's their job. If the child cannot be told to do something by an adult without an angry outburst, the child cannot be contained in a mainstream setting.

The reason the adult is verbally pushing the child to leave is that the next class is coming in. He cannot continue to sit there. When the bell rang, that chair became someone else's place to sit, not his.

He's been excluded. I wish I didn't have a job and I could just focus on DS.

What specialist provision has he got in place, does he have an EHCP, have you spoken to the SENCO and has he seen a paediatrician recently?

He has an EHCP but as I've been told, the teachers are unlikely to take the time to read it. I am speaking to the SENCO and we want to review his EHCp. I will try contacting my GP about seeing a paediatrician.

You do need to ask for compassionate leave.
In my experience secondary is harder to combine work and children with SN.
If he has been excluded do you have a proper letter? What are the conditions, when will he be readmitted? What steps are they going to take then to handle his re-integration?
It is still early days. The exclusion shows that things are not "going okay" and is evidence that he needs more support.
No teachers will not read the whole EHCP - but the SEN team should highlight key points and this should be circulated to all his teachers. A hall pass should mean he has to go to a specific place to calm down, not he can just hang around the corridors (especially in your son's case, my DD often just needs to get over crying and can return to class).

And yes I'd try different medication.

OP sorry to hear you are having problems. As a parent with a dc with ADHD, i can assure you all dc have problems with the medication to start with. They all have to take pills daily (that's how it works). But its the benefits of that versus the risk of expulsion and disengaging with school.

One of the main side effects is lack of appetite. So you have to work around that ensuring he has a good breakfast in the morning before using his medication. The medication lasts about 8hrs then by bed time it would have worn off so his appetite will kick in and have a large dinner. You can also make him sandwich to to keep by his bedside so if he feels a bit peckish around 10 or 11ish he can eat that.
As time goes on his body will grow accustomed to the medication and the effect on his appetite will become less.

You have to persevere with the medication, (find the right one of course) and find the right dose with the help of your paediatrician. It gets better as his gets used to it.There is no quick fix and leaving him without medication will mean the daily stress both of you are going through.

You really need to let go of the idea that medication didn't work and therefore is useless, and you need, for your son's sake, to persevere.

I can try to seek out better medication, however I struggled before to get him to take it as he refused. And it's not so effective if he's not taking it every day of the week.

Dd has ADD and ASD. She is 17 now. It took some experimenting to find the right medication and the right dose but she would absolutely not be without it now. It made her life manageable - she got GCSEs at good grades and is studying for A Levels now. She says nothing would persuade her to stop the medication now and her consultant says there is no reason for her to stop until such a time as she wants a family (current medication not recommended in pregnancy). It wasn’t just the concentration issues - she had problems with impulse control so would get upset, then angry, then leave lessons within seconds. All of our lives improved when she started taking it! There are really good slow release versions now that impact less on appetite.

Its a game of encouraging and cajoling to make him see the benefits of the medication and rewarding him too. There's a lot of support also on MN from parents who are in the same boat with the meds. We went through a time when we discovered ds was spitting out his meds and hiding it under the skirting boards, he hated it. But now asks for it himself. He now sees the benefits of using it and that he no longer sticks out, no longer the crazy dc in detention everyday. He is very happy and aiming high academically. But it was a long journey.