Reception auties 2018/19 - thread 2

[openupmyeagereyes]

Thanks to LightTripper for the thread title. This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of dc with autism in their reception year at school. Please join us if you can or, if you have dc due to start reception in 2019, feel free to drop by and ask us questions.

Thread 1

Thanks for your words of reassurance Light and good luck tomorrow. I think part of my problem is that I don't find the girl's parents v approachable - it's one of those situations where you're not sure if they are shy or just don't like me!

Hope school goes well today light. Great news on the playdate dimples. Ds has a friend from his sen preschool. Their needs are very different but they adore each other.

We have had the usual screaming, crying and me having to wrestle ds into his school uniform again today. Along with not sleeping properly last night. I'm so tired.

Phew.... so dropped her off this morning and she seemed fine. I wasn't quite sure as she zoned out a bit when I was actually saying goodbye, but after a minute she told me she wanted a hug goodbye, and then went off to play with a big tub of Duplo with her friend who also arrived at a similar time, so it seemed amazingly good (don't want to jinx it!)

Part of the classroom reorganisation also means they've moved the boxes for their book bags much closer to the door which is great, and I think will help DD with going in to drop her bags by herself in the morning ... getting her to walk across the carpet to the book box on the far side was always the hardest bit!

That all sounds really positive light! Hopefully she'll continue being relaxed.

Great about the play date offer dimples. I hope you manage to sort something out with the other parents. There's no way my ds would cope with being picked up by new people, so I definitely don't think it's unreasonable to want to go with him on the first visit.

Hope you had a better morning today Ellie.

Ds has his flexi day today and dd doesn't start her new nursery till Monday, so when?3 been on a dog walk and are now holed up watching movies. Really nice not to have to bribe a kicking an screamign child into school today!

That sounds good Light. I am v jealous of your day Liv! I have had a lousy day at work, DS is exhausted and took himself off to bed at 4:30 yesterday! We are going out for tea to celebrate my nephew's 18th birthday and I'm dreading it.

Spoke to playdate Mum and she was v nice - I'm going to take him and have a coffee with her. DS is super excited about it!

Sorry you're having a bad day today dimples. That's brilliant news about the play date though!

Thanks Liv - the evening was pretty bad. I think we may have been banned from the Brewers Fayre (as my sister said - we are plumbing new depths). At least we can laugh about it! Her twins are being assessed for ASD at the moment. It was meant to be the feedback meeting for my niece tomorrow but they have now said that they want to do further observations - a home visit and a messy play group. Did any of you have that experience?

Sorry about the tough day dimples but it's great that the other Mum seems nice! Sometimes people seem standoffish but they're just quiet.

We didn't have any extra sessions with DD's diagnosis, though they did come to see her at pre-school and they had reports from Physio and SLT who had seen her at home (and I think we even sent them the report from an ABA consultant who came to see her at home) so they had some second hand reports on how she was at home. Did they go to see your DN in another setting already, or have they only seen her in clinic? Maybe if she was anxious in clinic they want to see her somewhere she is more relaxed?

Drop off good again this morning. DD was very excited because they are making gingerbread today. The school know how to help with transition!! She seems to have completely forgotten her little "goodbye" rituals from before Christmas and today I had to remind her that I would like a goodbye hug or she would just have run off to play... which felt odd but has to be good I think!

Oh no dimples! A sense of humour is vital in situations like that.

I think because ds did a couple of 6 week salt courses they used that as evidence towards diagnosis, as well as all the private reports we had. They also asked the nursery to give feedback but they didn't actually go and visit him there.

That's so brilliant light! I would definitely take forgetting to give you a hug as a good sign!

Ds went off pretty happily this morning. I always feel sorry for his 1:1 on days like this though, as the better the more I g he has with us, usually the worse he behaves at school!

Hope today is better for you dimples. When my eldest was being diagnosed they visited him at school to see him in his own environment and how he interacted with other children. We haven't got that far with ds yet, his assessments have been paused because of staffing issues.

DS has been not wanting to go to school again today and he has started wetting himself at home again which he had stopped doing during the christmas holidays. DH takes him to school and says he is fine at drop off and the teacher says he is happy and mostly well behaved at school. I don't know what I can do to help him and the teacher probably thinks I'm overprotective.

Sorry haven't wrote for a few days, I have been reading.

Ds went back to school on Tuesday, he's still only part time until Easter (term after he's 5) but will start to stay a little extra each week from now, so by Easter he will be full time if that makes sense, just how his school wanted to do it, start him on part time and gradually build his hours up, i stay at home now as I gave my job up 18 months ago, so I can be more flexible with the reduced hours so hasn't been much of an issue apart from doing the school run then hour and half later doing it again.

I'm looking forwards to the progress he will make when he's full time though as his school and 1-1 are working hard with him and he's definitely coming on so I wonder what full time will bring.

He seems so much more chatty this past few weeks, he's talking non stop, still not back and forth conversation. more of me asking & him telling me and nothing further, but I do think the back and forth will come one day, were as up to now I've been unsure. If I ask him what he's done at school I'm getting a fairly understandable explanation, I said what have you done at school today ds, he said PE, I said what happened at PE, he said run round and round and round and miss xxxx said well done (ds name). (He had actually done pe today & his 1-1 had told me he had done really well so I'm sure she would of said well done to ds!) still takes a lot of prompting and quizzing on my behalf but he's getting there.

He's also eating loads lately, can't fill him! This is a child that lived off crackers and about 2 bread sticks a day for months! Today he's eaten a toasted tea cake, a buttered bread bun, pasta and sauce, bowl of fruit, 2 yoghurts, 2 nutri grain bars, and a soreen fruit loaf. Then ate a pear and carrot sticks at school. His getting really chubby cheeks on him

Also random, he keeps calling me pingu's mummy, instead of just mummy. I just keep hearing pingu's mummy!!??? Don't ask cos i have no idea! I'm assuming he's decided to be pingu this week, he was Humpty Dumpty last week 😆

Behaviour wise, i won't go there!! defiant little toad but the behaviour is 100% on my to sort out in 2019 list!

His sleeping has been really poor lately not settling until 10/11pm but thankfully he's gone to sleep at 7.20pm tonight which is rare, long may it continue!

X

I’ve been reading too, will have to post properly later. Ds was back to school on Monday and seems to have had a good week based on comments from the TA when I pick him up. They are supposed to write an update in his communication book on Fridays but there was nothing which I was a bit irritated about but one of the TA’s is sick I think so they may be short staffed. The teacher did tell me that he’d sounded out some words and blended so that’s great though I’ve not yet seen him do it myself. He’s so resistant to doing that sort of thing at home, we really need to work on it.

His birthday went well, thanks. We had a family party and he had lots of fun. He’s come on again over the break and is very chatty and responsive at the moment which is just lovely. Sleep has gone pear shaped again this week though. Up for a couple of hours two nights, then back to sleep. Awake at 4 this morning. Fun times, if it carries on we’ll have to get the melatonin out.

danni I take heart from your ds’s new found love of food. I can’t see it happening here but you never know!

@openupmyeagereyes ds lived on spaghetti hoops and yoghurts from age 2 to age 3.5 I should of had shares in Heinz! bowl of them every night for 18 months I was sick of the sight. Then from 3.5 to 4 it was crackers and bread sticks and for the last year mainly fresh air and chocolate and a bit of fruit.

His always been limited in what he eats, not sure what's happening but we've had a good 6 weeks of eating (still same select foods but plenty of it) I'm wondering if having his tonsils and adenoids out 10 weeks ago has helped, really hard to understand why he's suddenly eating more since it's always been an issue.

Might have to check for worms

Don't joke about worms Danni we have had to take worm medicine tonight - it tastes disgusting! DS took his v well and was most amused by my reaction to taking my dose.

danni my ds has eaten a very limited diet since he turned 2 also and he’s dropped more things along the way. Before 2 he ate a much, much wider range of meals. I remember feeling quite smug because he’d eat vegetable dishes and mashed avocado and banana, things I thought were so good for him. Well, that taught me a lesson

dimples sympathies on the worms, they are grim, I had them as a child. Glad your ds took his medicine ok.

Ds was awake again from 2-4ish last night. He’s definitely having the melatonin tonight. I hate giving him it though.

Well the melatonin only kept him asleep until 4:15 . I guess that’s better than him being awake 2-4 then sleeping until 6 - same sleep but a longer block.

@openupmyeagereyes my ds went to sleep last night at 8pm slept until 12.15am then awake 12.15am until 3.25am finally got him back to sleep and then he woke up for the day at 6.10am. I feel your pain

I've had about 4 hours sleep myself.

Does your ds get hrc?

@dimples76 hope the worms have cleared. I got a text recently about worms in my child's class.

Usually it's a text about head lice but I don't worry about those as ds doesn't go that close to the other children so we are safe

I feel for you with the sleep issues Danni and Open - I think the fact that my boy is a good sleeper is the only thing keeping me sane(ish).

My boy has had worms a few times now - it doesn't help that he has his fingers in his mouth half the time.

Grrr ds refusing to go to school. Got him out of the door late but now refusing to leave the car...

Oh no!!! Did he leave yet? Can you bore him into submission by just waiting there? I have no idea how you are supposed to parent that with NT kids even, but our ND kids are so much more determined!

danni we haven’t applied for dla yet. It was on my list of things to do by Christmas but I didn’t get round to it. Part of me thinks we wouldn’t get it because, by and large, ds is not too problematic but I expect that’s because we have adjusted life to allow for what he can and can’t cope with that it’s become normal for us when in reality it’s probably very different to NT parenting. We have loads of official paperwork I guess so I really must get on with it.

Light I got him in at 9:15 (30 mins late). I waited it out in the car and even with the bribery of a new toy () he didn’t really want to go. I have to say, I feel awful making him go against his will. The only thing he would give as a reason was that he didn’t like the songs on the smartboard. I told him that he could go to his area outside the classroom if he didn’t want to listen to them and made sure to tell the TA’s and follow it up with an email to the teacher. I hope he has a good day, last week he was fine. I’m hoping it’s just a blip like last term after his initial enthusiasm wore off.

I’ve been meaning to say that I went to a talk last week given by someone from the Curly Hair Project. It was on meltdowns and shutdowns and was quite interesting. It was nice to see in her suggested list to prevent them from happening that they were all things we are doing. To be honest though, I’m still not convinced ds has ever had a true meltdown. He’s had some mega tantrums but these are over things that he’s wanted to do and has not been allowed for example. If he’s feeling overwhelmed then he tends to put his hands over his ears and wants to take himself away which we always let him do or we might be able to manage it with screen use.

Sorry been reading along but been a bit distracted.

I've just started a 12 week parenting course for families of children with disabilities, did the first session last week and it think it will be good.

Ds has been struggling a bit to settle back into school. We also went to a birthday party this weekend, which he was brilliant at but it really threw him. We had a full on 45min meltdown on Sunday where he punched me in the face. He did calm down eventually and had a very good afternoon but he was very anxious this morning.

He hit his teacher in the face this morning because she got right up close when he was very distressed. I had a meeting booked in with Ds's support team tomorrow anyway so I imagine that will come up.

I'm struggling quite a lot with Ds's teacher, I'm sure she is very good with NT kids but she doesn't really seem to get ds and she's being quite difficult with me.

We have a theatre trip this week with the school, which I am dreading but hopefully between me and the 1:1 we can manage Ds's behaviour.

I'm sorry you had a difficult morning open. Hopefully ds will have a good day now he is in.

Hope your day got better after the fair dimples!

liv I’m sorry you’ve had such a difficult morning, it must have been hard. In what way is the teacher being difficult with you? I hope ds settled down once he was there