Primary school auties: summer and beyond - thread 5

[openupmyeagereyes]

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

Thread 4
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3748449-Primary-school-Auties-into-2020-thread-4

Sorry to hear it's been a tough day open. Sometimes it's hard to keep your cool. On Friday we didn't bother doingg HHh any work at all because both kids were so wound up and we all just needed a break from one another.

Danni glad dh found another job. Sorry it's all going badly but great about the new school. Finger's crossed for you.

Sorry have been reading along but keep forgetting to post. Hope everyone else is ok.

We're alright just feeling a bit fed up with it all. Already getting worried about the idea of the kids going back for potentially a very short time before the end of term (if they go back this term at all).

Oh Danni it always seems to be one step forward, two steps back with the school. Hope that you get something sorted soon. Good to hear that your husband has a new job.

Open I have shouted at DS when attempting to homeschool more times than I would like to admit - that's one of the reasons I have sent him back in. We had an email from school earlier to say check your email in the morning to see if school is open as snow is forecast tonight - I am already feeling stressed at the possibility of home schooling tomorrow.

Liv I think that you were right to recognise that it wasn't going to work that day. I am too stubborn.

MumofSend that is a lot to process.

We're doing okay. DS appears to be enjoying school. DD has now taken her first steps. My Mum and Gran have both had first vaccine. Things seem to be getting slightly easier but the thought of returning to work (not until April) is filling me with dread.

Thanks for the support. Our day improved once some work was done. His biggest problem is not enough sleep I think. It leaves him a bit highly strung some days.

danni I forgot to congratulate your DJ on getting a new job so fast. How resource he is.

liv hopefully kids can go back sooner rather than later. Vaccinations are going well.

dimples I wouldn’t worry too much about home learning for a snow day or too. Pre-covid they wouldn’t have set anything. Maybe some reading and phonics. I’m sorry work is looming for you.

Ds has been awake since 2am. He woke up wet and didn’t go back to sleep. Still, we got home learning done without a battle. Early night for us all tonight! 😴

@danni0509 it honestly makes me so cross on your behalf! I do think it often boils down to lived experience, you can be as trained as possible but experience of autism and pda is so important. I would demand that her time be spent supporting DS via video calls rather than allowing her to become additional support for the whole class!
Glad your DS got another job too, Great news.
@openupmyeagereyes home ed is tough I think with NT kids let alone demand avoidant ones! My DS is back at the moment due partly to not engaging in school work at home (and having major anxiety last year after being off in lockdown 1), he likes things separate (home and school), which I think is common with aspie kids.
@dimples76 are you working from home at the moment? DH and I have really been enjoying it and don't want to go back physically now! And I'd probably have to change my hours due to ds not coping at wraparound care.
Hi @livpotter and @mumofsend!
Saw some of DS' work from school recently and he is doing more writing there and phonics, which I'm so pleased about, and they've started sensory circuits with him which is going down well. He is so clever with the right support, I think they're happily surprised, as when he feels overwhelmed it's a totally different story. Hence why I wanted the special school ah well ho hum!!
We have also supplemented Countdown with the occasional afternoon of Lingo on itv.
Oof @open have all the coffee!!!

Open that's one way of getting through the home learning! You must be exhausted.

MrsDubeke I'm on adoption leave until April. I have been liaising with work about my return. I can definitely work at home April to September but presume face to face teaching (university) will resume then.

I'm celebrating today, first incident since last Monday (as in the 24th). Longest we have gone incident free since she started school!

Trying to decide what to do re specialist school provision. There is a perfect one starting at year 3 but a) no guarantees they will take her b) that is a whole additional year where she is. I hate decision making.

@Mumofsend I worry I’m making the wrong decision with ds every single day, the special school he’s going too, I think he will be one of the most high functioning based on what I’ve seen / read on the new schools website, I didn’t have a lot of choice though it’s the only one within miles with a place who said they can meet his needs the others we consulted with have all said no, they do use bug club reading scheme and certain learning programmes his current mainstream school do though and all the children’s education is planned to suit the individual needs and level the child is working at, it has a high number of autistic children attending so I’m assuming they will be more experienced to deal with ds and they follow the curriculum loosely and incorporate other areas in as standard (sensory / social interaction / life skills) which sounds heaps more beneficial for someone like ds.

We will have to see how it goes but if I’m not happy I’ll always say so 😂

I couldn’t of kept ds where he was / still is. At the very least I wanted him to have some sort of interaction with the mainstream children so he can learn how it works but he’s not even allowed that at his school.

I think long term it will be the right choice I made even if I’m doubting myself now x

Ds has formally been accepted to start in September at his special school the La phoned me yesterday they have received all of the official paperwork.

What the SS have actually gone on to say is they are hoping they can offer ds a place for after April Easter break! That’s a couple of months away! They weren’t promising but she said it made sense, if he’s starting September anyway she’s going to see what she can do to get him started before.

They’ll be in touch with me to arrange me to drive down and sign some paperwork and have a meeting to let them know all about ds then they’ll arrange with me some sessions I take him in and they will visit his current school and do a home visit.

I drove there Saturday morning (non essential to most but sod it I needed to know how to get there and show ds where his school is and we took some pics so I can show him at home)

It took me 29 minutes, no traffic, I know it’s a work route so mon-fri I imagine it will take his taxi transport a bit longer.

So for anyone reading in future looking for special schools, ds got refused a place for this school Tuesday but 2 days later on the Thursday a place had become available and they accepted him!

How bizarre. X

Danni that's great news. How are things going with the specialist teacher?

FML!

DS refusing to do home learning today, it's now a battle most days and even the threat of the teacher calling to speak to him (she doesn't tell him off, just tries to motivate him) isn't working. He's also already saying he's not going back to school

He's been up since 3:45 and is so tired and grumpy. If it was a one off then I'd be happy to bin it off but since this is pretty much his normal, there's not the option of that every day. I'm so bloody fed up with it all, bloody pandemic.

I just want to go somewhere and scream for about an hour. That would make me feel a lot better I think

On the plus side, all of our parents have now had their first vaccine which is great.

Well, he's happy enough if he's doing what he wants to do...

danni that's fantastic news about the school. Hopefully they can take him after Easter and you will be done with the awful place he's at now. How is it going with the specialist teacher?

I say fuck my life most days open 😂

I hope you managed to get some bits done today and i hope he sleeps later than 3.45 tomorrow morning x

The specialist teacher was ok today, ds had her for the full morning but he won’t let her take him to the toilet, he’s back to holding his bladder again or crying for the dinner lady to take him so they are having to get dinner lady to take him to the toilet every hour (his schedule at school is hourly, which is too often in my opinion as he’s at the stage now were he’s doing well with toileting so at home I’m increasing the time until I take him so he learns to go longer, I leave him 2-2.5 hours now and he’s fine but never mind leave them too it! Once I have done a set period of 2-2.5 hrs I will then work on him telling me himself, never imagined 2 years after I started toilet training him it would still be work in progress)

i also found out school have been bribing him again with ice lollies and Bourbon biscuits which I had a problem with before and told them off for it! you don’t bribe a child to go to the toilet ! His teacher accidentally let slip that’s what they do with him 😩 just creates more problems at home for me.

They want me to take his lunch tomorrow BUT still pick him up at the same time 😂 just to get used to having his lunch there and they want to do that for a few days see how he goes.

If there was an award for biggest piss takers they would have the office full of framed certificates!

Just my yearly reminder for you all to remember to apply for family fund if you don’t already.

I put in for ds again (I always apply for day trips - they pay the cash into your bank, then we use it for outings throughout the year) third year I’ve asked for that and they have awarded it again just checked his account and it’s been accepted.

Only applied 5 days ago so they are on the ball this year, never that quick x

We had our first award last year, have another in at the moment!

Gosh, I had a right rant didn’t I? The day turned out ok once I’d accepted it (admitted defeat...)

His teacher called and we had a nice chat. He told her he’d do his work after lunch (yeah, right). Otherwise he was in pretty good spirits really. The only thing that prompted him to do something was when a toy he’d ordered with a Christmas voucher arrived and I said he couldn’t open it until his work was done. He couldn’t get to the table fast enough then, little monkey, and he did some maths, English and phonics. He did really well too, all that bloody whinging!

danni FML just reminds me of The daily struggles of Archie Adams book which dh bought me a few years ago

And it’s really not funny but I can’t help smile at them having to get the dinner lady out hourly to take your ds to the toilet. It sounds like they really don’t have a clue!

I'm glad that your day got better Open.

Danni that is so ridiculous re the toileting. I can't believe that they are bribing him with sweet stuff. If DS does a poo in the toilet at school he gets to put the screen up and down in the hall (for him a real joy!). Three and a half years here since we started toilet training, I would say we're 90% there but he's still not reliable.

DS has been rather challenging this evening including pushing his baby sister over - initially he seemed v excited that she could walk but now .... I found a social story online exactly on this issue which I read to him but I think that this is going to be our new challenge.

3:30 today ridiculous. Dh got up for a bit, now it’s my turn.

dimples hopefully the pushing over won’t turn into a new challenge and the novelty wears off.

Ds has been getting up around 6 for the last couple of weeks which is nicer but he’s being a twit at bedtime again, up down up down 10.30pm before he’s been settling and then if he wakes in the night he’s now scared to get out of bed so keeps shouting mummy quickly I need you, takes me a minute to see straight and get to him but because I’m not there in 3 seconds he starts loudly screaming and it’s that that I can’t stand.

Being woken up is bad enough but then having him tantrum when I’m half asleep winds me up! I go back to sleep (if I can) in such a foul mood 😂

Dimples I hope ds chills with his little sister, my sisters baby is due in a few weeks, I have zero idea what to do. He’s likely to Maul the face off a newborn so I’m not happy for them to meet. It’s making me really anxious. Ds is so unpredictable too!

When he was 4 my best friends baby was born and when she bought him round (he was about 6 weeks old) ds grabbed his face and squeezed it really hard and took his dummy and threw his bottle and slapped him on the head etc my friend left shortly after, it never got much better and ds hurt him a few months ago again pushed him flying and he banged his head on my wall. She doesn’t bring the kids around anymore!

Maybe he’ll have to do zoom calls to his new cousin for a while, I don’t know what to do? My sister obvs knows what ds is like but she’s keeping quiet and hasn’t mentioned anything to me even though I’ve spoken to her about it she just stays quiet (don’t think she wants to offend me) but I know she’s mentioned her concerns to my mum (fair enough - who wants their baby being hit)

She came to drop ds birthday card and present off last month and ds started barging her (she’s 7 months pregnant) so I’m like ds remember carefully, aunty xxxx has a baby in her tummy, quietly bcos your cousin is asleep in there etc and he starts ramming his head into her stomach saying wake up wake up 🙈 he literally has no idea what gentle / careful means.

Tricky!

I keep forgetting to post, then losing track!

Dimples I hope ds calms down soon. I remember my ds being very annoyed when dd started walking.

Open you must be exhausted! Not surprised it's hard to get him to homeschool when you all must be so tired.

Danni great news about the new school. I hope it all gets sorted quickly!

Hi everyone else.

We've just spoken to ds's school and they are going to try and get the kids back in part time after half term in the hopes that all the kids will be in full time again in April. It's exciting but I'm also worried about the transition for him. I imagine there will be a lot of bribery involved!

danni tricky situation with your sister's baby. I guess you have to go with whatever makes her comfortable. Can you meet the baby by yourself for a while?

liv good news that ds' school will open, at least part time. The longer they are away the harder the transition back. This is why we've taken the decision to send ds back after the break. He's likely to go in mornings at first, I will speak to them about it next week. I think he's at the point where he really wants to see other children again. We went to the park this morning and I think he was disappointed there was nobody else there. I imagine we will have to resort to bribery here too, we do for most things!

No home learning done here yet but I'm not stressing today. He's actually done really well and worked every day this half term so far. That's much more than we accomplished last time around.

@danni0509 my DD follows the same sort of going to bed routine as your lad... I’ve found giving a narrative over a two way baby monitor really helpful to stop the screaming on my way up to her room... “I hear you, I’m on my way, just coming up the stairs... blah blah...” cuts the panicky screaming out thank goodness!

@furrycat1978 we have walkie talkies we got ds for his birthday, some of the conversations I have with ds from downstairs are great, usually goes along the lines of lay down, close your eyes and don’t contact me again OVER 😂😂