My son has just started a new school nursery this week and unfortunately as he had a significant language delay and only about 50 words this is huge a shock for him as he can't fully understand when I try to explain it to him what's going on.
He's 3, he in his last nursery only ever played with one child or sort him out to play and tolerated playing alongside other children. He bites his fingers, bangs his head when he gets upset out of frustration, his play is delayed as his speech is delayed, he bites the pull cords of his tracksuit bottoms, never turns his head or responds when you call his name, doesn't look when you point to an object, he seeks me and my husband out to play and engages us but when we attempt to play with him gets upset if we touch his toys. He doesn't understand most instructions and gets very frustrated quickly if you even attempt to join in depending on activity. Also he's only started gesturing using books never done it to get something he normally takes me to what he wants and puts his hand to it which is a form of gesture.
He is really struggling at the new nursery as well I've only put him in a public school as I was advised it was better for the support and they were trained as the private nursery he was at kept telling us he was fine and wouldn't provide any extra support they had no experience with sen. I contacted the new nursery in May and spoke with the senco who told me they had many children with many needs, sent all the reports across and I met the teacher last week and she knew nothing about him hadn't read or seen his reports from speech therapist and Pediatrics. My son has glue ear he's had grommets fitted which has helped but he's repeats everything without understanding this has only started to happen in the last two months his grommets have been in for 9 months now.
Pediatrics doesn't want to do an asd assessment yet as she feels he's regressed from being at home in lockdown through lack of interaction and needs school and therapy. She says as he seeks us and another child out to play this makes her less concerned
New nursery he's goes in crying each day (I know it's early days as it's day 3) he calms as soon as I've left but I didn't realise how different public nursery to private nursery was. I've had to ask them to serve his lunch which today they didn't do he came home starving, when I picked him up he was covered in black marks his hands were filthy and looked like they hadn't been cleaned all day he needs help. He also had grazed his arm so has fallen. He looked like he'd been left to roll on the floor outside. They promised they would ensure a TA was closely monitoring him and providing support not 1:1 but simplifying language instructions and supporting him with self care. When I asked the teacher what he'd been doing as I'm learning you just collect your kid no talking in the new Covid world I get very little information back.
The school are on edge as I've emailed summaries of my discussions with them as the teacher obviously hadn't been prepared by the senco for my son but I feel like I'm now seen or labelled as the pushy mother all just because I'm really worried about my little boy he can't tell me what's wrong or express his wants and needs to people.
I'm holding my tongue as my mum keeps telling me I can't go in and complain but surely if a have worries I should be able to express these to the teacher without causing offence. It took me an hour to get my lovely son back to being happy this evening. I wish I'd left him where he was even though he wasn't improving speech wise he was looked after and happy.
I know we are in a new Covid world and I have to allow them some breathing room to allow him to settle but this is hard to see my boy so dispondent.