Primary school Auties: into 2020! - thread 4

[LightTripper]

This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of autistic children in Early Years and KS1. Most of us are parents of children in Reception or Year 1, but all welcome!

Here are the links to the previous threads:

Thread 1: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3080753-DS-with-ASD-starting-school-Sept-2018-I-am-feeling-overwhelmed

Thread 2: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3451020-Reception-auties-2018-19-thread-2

Thread 3: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3628263-Auties-transition-to-Year-1-thread-3

Danni sorry that things are so tough.

I was meant to be starting introductions to adopt a baby girl tomorrow but following yesterday's announcement they were postponed indefinitely today. It has been a tough day and it's hard to know what to say to DS.

DS has done pretty well today. I have decided that we're definitely scrapping hand writing practice from our work (DS can just about write his name but that's it) - I don't know have enough patience! Tomorrow, however, I'll be 'back' at work (from home) so that will be interesting

I'm so sorry dimples. That must be really hard for you both

Oh dimples, I’m so sorry. That’s heartbreaking

Re the handwriting, can you do mazes and dot-to-dots? That’s what we’re mostly doing at the moment. Good practice for pencil control.

liv ds didn’t do PE with Joe this morning, he was ‘too tired’ so I had to do it by myself.

Today has been trying but hopefully he’ll be asleep soon. He’s been waking at 4/4:30 again so that doesn’t help. Tonight I’ve had to set my alarm for midnight to see if I can get a Tesco delivery slot for 3 weeks time.

Thank you Liv and Open

We switched to mazes etc. after writing 'l' proved too challenging but his concentration is so poor - he also often does not look at the page. I might see if he'll sit next to me with the mazes whilst I do something else because my instructions don't seem to help!

DS mostly watched me doing the Joe Wick's class yesterday so today I put on another JW kids workout on You Tube which was 15 mins long and he made it to the end.

I just need to lower my expectations, especially of getting it out of the way in the morning.

Tomorrow is a new day!

Dimples I'm sorry to hear that. Bless you x

Ds has done 15 minutes sounds on the school homework page. That's about it for today. He did a lot of drawing at lunch time including on the walls where he was sat he also threw a hot cup of tea across the kitchen and it went all over his hand! I put it under the cold tap for 10 mins and there is no lasting damage thankfully.

He was on the trampoline whilst I stood and watched him drinking a cuppa then he got off the trampoline and started chucking shit so to avoid yesterdays performance of it going over the fence I started gathering it all up and he ran inside and did that with my cup. Usually it's up on the windowsill out of reach. But of course the one time he's outside and I've put it on the kitchen side!

I've had toothache since Friday morning, I've had to ring my dentist this morning and I went at 9.45 this morning whilst my mum watched ds in the car. I've got an abcess! So I'm on antibiotics and have to have the tooth out next week, thank god they are still seeing emergencies! Nearly £150 for the appointment and antibiotics though

plus it's one of my teeth near the front (upper pointy tooth) how embarrassing! It's been root canaled and it's failed so I'm going to look like jack sparrow next week 😩 so now will have to save for a false one which at this rate with Dh thinking he's losing his job might be a long time away.

danni I’m sorry to hear that your dh might lose his job, that’s awful. Regarding your tooth, well at least you won’t be seeing people for a while. Hopefully you can get it all fixed up sooner than you think

No school work done today. Ds up for the day at 3:30 and it didn’t seem right to force it. Hopefully he sleeps better tonight.

They have cancelled my tooth removal on Monday because the new COVID 19 guidelines changed yesterday. Dentists, emergency or not can only prescribe antibiotics and can do no extractions or fillings at all.

Wtf. I just got to hope these antibiotics work, I'm not hopeful. Amoxicillin which is what I have are apparently not great at treating dental infections. So I may need to get some different ones if I can to buy me some time until they are ripping teeth out again. Which as she said yesterday, could be weeks, could be months

Hope you are all doing ok today. Sorry about your tooth @danni0509; toothache is the worst. 💐.
Today presents the most challenging verbal stim to date: “rap rap baby rap rap mole...and they come bearing gifts” again and again and again! My god I could encase my head in concrete quite happily at the mo! 😫

Oh Danni poor you! I woke up with an abscess on Christmas Eve one year. I got antibiotics on Boxing Day but couldn't get an appointment for treatment til a few weeks later. The antibiotics seemed to bring the infection and pain under control v quickly. Hope that you have a similar experience.

furry deepest sympathies that would do my head in.

DS and I went for a lovely walk earlier but then he dropped his favourite toy off a bridge. I ended up going into the river to rescue it. The things we do for love!

Open we're taking it pretty easy on school work. We are doing about 3 15 min sessions a day

Oh danni that sounds painful. I hope the AB’s work. I asked my niece who is a dental nurse and she said emergency work is cancelled but the worst cases can be referred to specialist centres if antibiotics aren’t effective. 🤞

Furry I hope you made it through the day with your sanity intact. Is it anxiety do you think?

dimples well done for braving the river. You could have done without that really!

We had a stand off yesterday. I told ds he would have no screen time until he’d done his school work. We had mostly good day and it wasn’t stressful but he held out from 8:15 when everything went off until about 4:45 when we did half an hour of work after a mini ‘sensory circuits’ session and story time on the carpet. On the plus side, that’s the longest he’s gone with no screen time for quite some time

I made an exception after lunch and put on the Bear Hunt cosmic yoga but he didn’t do any of it.

So today will be the same. I will let him play for a while and then I will try the same routine with circuits and story time. I think he also prefers to use his little table rather than the kitchen table so I’ll change everything around.

Lots of WhatsApp talk yesterday about the work the dc are doing, though tbf it was mostly the girls.

Kudos to anyone trying to wfh and school the dc. It can’t be easy.

Thanks open that's kind of you to have asked.

My dentist has added me to the urgent local centre waiting list. I think my dentist will be the 'centre' because they are usually the out of hours service in the area on an evening so they think they will get the contract so I'm told.

The centres haven't been established yet so no idea how long I will be waiting but the dental nurse from my practise who phoned me Thursday afternoon said they have to be up and running ASAP as many people have abscesses / severe swelling & infections and just cannot be left with repeated antibiotic prescriptions.

I finish the amoxicillin tomorrow and they haven't worked so far so Monday morning I have to go collect another prescription for something else.

Hoping something works.

I'm not on any school what sap or group of any kind thank god.

No parents even know me since ds has always started and finished at different times and always gone in / left via the office.

I much prefer it that way!

Yesterday the dc were supposed to have finished a piece of English work they’ve been working on all week to create their own version of a particular story. Some of the girls posted videos of them reading their stories which was very sweet however several mums of boys posted to say they are having trouble getting them to do anything. A clear gender split in our class.

The English work is too advanced for ds. They need to provide something more at his level. I need to try and work out if he knows what an adjective even is. I need to go through the weeks work and pull out the salient bits we may need to work on but I feel I shouldn’t have to do this. They should know what he needs to work on.

He refused to do anything yesterday and had no screen time from 8:30am-ish. It was quite refreshing though I did have to play a lot more with him. He’s making up for it today though...

I got the book Five Minute Mum today (delivered by Amazon 🙏)

I saw it recommended on another thread - there is a website and Instagram too - and it has lots of fun ideas for quick games to set up. Plenty of them involve numbers, phonics and writing too. Going to try some ideas with ds, I think he will like some of them. Like this one

fiveminutemum.com/2018/09/04/the-code-breaker/

I'm really struggling this morning. The weekend went pretty well but I have been impatient and less empathetic with DS this morning. I have come for a lie down upstairs to try and re-set my mood as I just shouted at him when he weed on the sofa (which is a pretty regular event here and normally just elicits a sigh). Hope that you're days are going better.

dimples I hope you’re feeling better and your mood improved after a break. I guess you’re not getting a break at all so go easy on yourself . Lowering expectations helps massively I think.

Ds has been pretty good here. We’ve even done 20 mins of work this morning, I’m still trying to persuade him to do the remaining tasks. Not sure how successful I’ll be...

Thanks Open. Sounds like you're making progress in getting DS to do some work. It's definitely not easy not getting any breaks. Any way I got the work I needed done, DS did some work, we had a sunny walk and are now watching a film - phew!

Sorry you had a tough morning dimples. Glad it got a bit better this afternoon.

Well done on the work open.

We have been mainly watching Disney films and eating chocolate cake here. There has been next to no educating, just trying to get them settled into the new normal really.

They really miss their grandparents, we normally see my mum and DH's parents 2-3 times a week, so it's a big change for them. Dh's dad has been doing bedtime stories via FaceTime every evening, which is very sweet.

Ds is actually really enjoying not having to leave the house, not sure how long that will last for. I think he also likes knowing that we're all here and not going anywhere. Who knows how we're going to get him to go back to school in the future!

liv getting used to the new normal is probably most Important at the moment.

We’ve been FaceTiming GPs on alternate days. Ds makes them walk around the house, show him what’s on tv etc.

We did some more work this afternoon so he is currently on the iPad. I really should be doing housework...

We really miss Granny and the rest of the family too. My Gran (who is 98) is v poorly at the moment (not the virus it's her heart). I am just sad that I can't be there for her. They Iive ten mins walk away so we walked to their house the other day and shouted 'I love you's' over the fence. This evening DS was busy planning his Great Granny's 100th birthday party - apparently a bouncy castle and a 100 candles are required. It was really hard not to cry although DS spotted that I was 'emotional' - I was quite impressed by that.

That's sweet dimples! It's hard isnt it. I'm really missing my parents even though I'm talking to them more often than usual, and don't usually see them more than once a month anyway (and saw them just before this all kicked off at the end of February)... but knowing you can't see each other is very hard.

Sorry I've been a bit absent from this thread. DD doing well and very interested in Covid - I think I've been the one struggling to adjust to WFH and just processing everything! Doing OK now though, and have been much more productive at work (at home!) I think just trying to ignore the news a good deal has helped...

Kids are still loving Cosmic Yoga. Maddie from "Do You Know" is also doing a daily science show with her other half which is fun. It's at 11am (but available afterwards) and lasts about half an hour. Last week was nature stuff (minibeasts and plants). This week is bodies. They made poo on Monday. It was entertaining :D