Primary school auties : spring 2021 and beyond - thread 6

[danni0509]

Hi. New thread.

This is the continuation of the thread for parents / carers of autistic children / children with additional needs. Most of us are parents of children in year 1 / year 2.

Links to old 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

Thread 5 - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3953023-Primary-school-auties-summer-and-beyond-thread-5?pg=1

Everyone welcome x

MrsDubeke how frustrating about the school placement.

Had a call from school this afternoon to collect DS who had had a diarrhoea accident. Ended up being rather crazy as I was looking after my sister's three as well as DD and we were in town whilst my sister viewed an alternative school for her autistic trio. I have to say my nephews and niece coped amazingly with all the changes of plan. I am pretty amazed that I managed to walk the 5 kids home without any difficulties.

I haven't made it past the receptionist at post adoption support. Will try again tomorrow...

I think you might actually be superhuman dimples! Hope ds is ok now.

Danni I'm still amazed at ds's school, the LA must be furious with them. What a waste of everyone's time.

Did ds cope well today open? Great that you are managing to get him in for half days.

Very frustrating mrsdubeke. Did they give a reason for refusing ss?

Ds went back to school for the first time today since the Christmas break. I made a social story about going on the bus and that if he manages both days he gets a transformer (expensive bribery). Anyway it worked and he had a great day, which is a massive relief. Hoping tomorrow goes as smoothly!

liv we are bribing this week too.

dimples even the thought of that gives me a cold sweat. Good work.

That's good news Liv

I'm wondering what bribe I can give DS to get him to start using the toilet again. I don't think that he has a stomach bug. I will keep him off tomorrow but have decided not to do any school work. It's meant to be dry and sunny so hoping that we can v enjoy being outdoors together and reconnect a bit.

That sounds good dimples. I hope you all have a good day.

Sunny day outside together sounds lovely @dimples76 - really hope you have a good one (and I also think you are super-human for wrangling 5 children home by yourself!). Hope you can get through to the post-adoption support team too. It does feel like something that is probably quite common - probably even among younger NT children (I certainly have friends whose older NT kids regressed on toileting when a younger sibling arrived).

@danni0509 I would say it's unbelievable re: the specialist teacher, but nothing about your DS's school is actually unbelievable to me any more. Keeping all fingers and toes crossed that DS can move to his new school at Easter and that it is 100,000 times better than where he is....

We are all good although DD is struggling to get to sleep, so pretty tired during the day. Not sure if it's just the impeding return to school (which she's very happy about but I suspect still a bit of a source of anxiety) or something else....

Wow @dimples76 impressive well done!!
Nope no reasons given, everything very opaque, looking into legal representation, might wipe out savings, but worth it. Still quite livid.
Started a cygnet parenting course recently online, has anyone else done it? I was quite cynical by actually it was great and the facilitator was brilliant. I finally managed to see the connection between demand avoidance and mot being able to predict what comes next. And finally for a professional to validate our experiences. Was fab!

No I've heard of it but never done it! We did Early Bird + which was a bit old fashioned but not bad. Very slow pace though (given everyone was at least a year or two post-diagnosis). I think so much depends on the facilitator. Our best course was one our LA ran over two mornings just because they know the waiting list for Early Bird is so long, and actually I found it much better than Early Bird. It was soon enough, the right pace to be interesting, and we had a great trainer.

Did you get offered Cygnet through your LA, or some other route?

Really sorry to hear about the special school refusal. Do you think lawyers is the only way to go? Is it the kind of thing SOSSEN or IPSEA might help with?

Dimples 4 kids with additional needs and a baby in a pushchair! 😂 I can’t even get a single child home when we walk, I’m pleased you made it home! and I hope your sisters meeting went well, I also hope ds toileting sorts its self out, isn’t it awful when they go backwards with it. Makes you wonder why you bother with all the hard work.

Well done to all the dc going to school this week

Mrs dubeke I’m sorry about your local authority, it’s unfair on the children as they want them to fail miserably in a mainstream school firstly and only then do they look at other options, please be careful with your savings though. As light said phone ipsea. It’s free advice and isn’t going to wipe away your money x

Dh came home from work last night (he’s been at his new job 4 weeks, he’s getting on really well) said they are cutting 6 people off his shift. What you betting thats dh out of work again for the second time this year! 😡 why take somebody on to let them go a few weeks later? Really pisses me off!

Ds had a bad day at school yesterday, crying and unsettled and tried to bite his specialist teacher (she came back from being awol) but seems to have gone again today, I give up! They just take the piss. She’s supposed to have him 6 hours a day not now and again, it’s ridiculous and there is no wonder he isn’t taking to her.

I’ve been gardening this morning. I’ve spent a few days prepping my bald grass well raking it and removing the weeds and I’ve seeded it today, watered it and hopefully that will sort that.

Got ds a new trampoline, that needs to go up but will have to wait for dh day off on a day ds is at school before we tackle it.

Ds spends all spring / summer in the garden so trying to sort it all over the next couple of months.

Also I’ve heard of the cygnet course but not personally done it but like light we did the early bird plus, which was nothing I didn’t already know.

It was run by the senior EP from our LA she used to do the course on a Thursday and phone us on a Monday for a recap so I used to get some unrelated questions in to her!

Light sorry dd is having some anxiety. I imagine you’re right and that it’s back to school related even though she’s also looking forward to it. One thing ds said before he went in the first day was that he didn’t know if it would look the same inside or not. I told him it would, and his teacher said he commented on this when he went into the classroom (except for the Christmas decorations). Perhaps the teacher could send her a social story and some photos?

We didn’t do early bird as our LA does its own version. Like others, some of it was useful but much was quite basic if you’ve already done a decent amount of reading.

Our first week of school went better than I expected. He’s mostly doing activities of his own choosing while he settles back in but reading and doing some learning that he doesn’t see as such. So nice that he’s able to play with children again though, as an only he doesn’t get that at home.

danni sorry ds had a bad day. Not surprising when things are changing daily.

liv how did yesterday go?

Danni I am jealous that your boy likes spending so much time outdoors. DS only likes playing in the garden if the paddling pool is out.

dimples me too. Ds used to spend hours in the garden, now we have to turf him out. He has been out more since the weather improved, going on his trampoline again, but nothing like he used to.

Plus in the future there is the worry of him climbing over the fences. Even though we supposedly own both our fences we have all the support struts on our side so he can already climb up on them. We will need a solution not too far in the future.

DS likes to be outdoors too @danni0509
I've been tidying up outside and got his mud kitchen bits out again and he has chalks (but not paint after several high impact sprayings of the rendered back wall...) and a slide. He loves digging though so I try to redirect to one hole to avoid holes all over the lawn!!
@openupmyeagereyes sounds tough with the fences. How about some type of climbing wall? I've been looking but it's hard to find anything decent at a reasonable price.
Ds' mud kitchen it one of the most used things we ever got him to be fair, id recommended one!
We even had dinner outside earlier, it was so.lovely, and feels like spring is on the way!

MrsDuBeke I mean ds deliberately trying to escape so a climbing wall wouldn’t help with that. We have a mud kitchen too though it doesn’t get used much any more, I will try and make it appealing again this year. Our most used items are the swings (though he likes to be pushed) and the trampoline. I need a new paddling pool this year too.

@openupmyeagereyes ah yep, I see your point now. Plants and trees against the fence could help but that's not a short term solution!

Is ds feeling better dimples?

How is dd now light? I must say even my NT child is a bit anxious about going back to school so there may be something in it.

How frustrating Mrsdubeke. But great about the Cygnet course.

Your poor ds danni. I hope they can move him soon so you don't have to deal with his awful school anymore!!!

So brilliant that ds had a good first week back open! Hope it continues into next week too!

Ds had a good two days back at school and was thrilled with his new transformer. So we are going to try the same again next week. We've had a bit of an annoying weekend, he's refusing to leave the house and spending quite a lot of time throwing things out our windows. I locked them all this morning, which sparked off a major meltdown. Hoping this is just a blip!

Oh liv, what a pain. Hopefully short lived. Any idea why? Stress or just cause and effect?

Do you have blinds liv? When ds went through the phase of chucking things at my windows (he deliberately tried to smash them but thankfully hasn’t done that for a while!) i pulled the wooden blinds down and closed the curtains to cushion them iyswim.

Ds went to bed at 9 last night woke up after just over 2 hours at 11.30 and stayed awake until 5.30 this morning then went back to sleep until 8am. it’s about the 3rd time in the last 10 days he’s done this, really stressing me out.

We don’t have to worry about ds scaling the fence thankfully! He would love to escape but he’s rubbish at climbing so I’d catch him before he got up. He climbs on his bedroom windowsill and falls off it every single time!

Not sure open, I think he was just annoyed with me for stopping him doing something 'fun'. I'm also grumpy today which never helps. He's now got transformers on the TV so he's happy.

All the curtains were closed danni. I think he mainly enjoys making me go outside to get things! Very annoying but hopefully just a phase!