Experiences of Residential schools for children with ASD and challenging behaviour please

[nancyclancy123]

I have a 10 year old daughter with ASD and challenging behaviour, also learning disability. She’s currently at an SEN school (not residential).
She has some very challenging behaviours which we are struggling to manage and she’s being seen by a paediatrician/clinical psychologist etc.

To cut a very long story short, my mh has taken a turn for the worst and today my dh and I briefly discussed residential schools. I’m not sure if it’s something we will do, but things have to change.

Just looking to hear from others who have children in residential schools and how it’s worked out for your child, you and your family.

Hi.

Your post is similar to my thinking at the moment. And a road we may eventually have to go down in the future

Mine is getting older / bigger (he’s nearly 8) and he’s so difficult to manage. I worry about the future every single day and how much worse he could get.

I don’t have any direct experience with residential, ds is at a residential school but he’s a day pupil (who won’t have him for a full school day, so I think residential would be out of the question for now as I don’t think he’s currently in the correct school and I’m thinking a possibility of a school move coming onto the horizon, but that’s a fight for another day)

I do know a family whose child goes Monday - Friday (not ds school, a different one) and he goes home weekends, I don’t know if he goes during the holidays I’ve never asked. She has a younger child and it has allowed her to spend the week with her daughter.

What types of challenging behaviour is your dd displaying?

Sorry things are tough. x

Thank you for your reply and sorry to hear you are going through similar.

The main issue we have with dd is that she’s so controlling over everything and whatever we put in place she fights. She does go for short periods of being really manageable but it goes round in cycles and when she’s struggling it can go on for months at a time. Triggers are usually unknown.

Her demands are becoming harder to deal with and seem to be getting more extreme, always aimed at me too. She’s on an anti anxiety med but it’s such a small dosage I don’t think it’s benefiting her anymore, so I’m going to see if her paediatrician might up it.

It’s difficult because in some ways she’s making lots of good progress but this behaviour is getting us all down and hinders her so much. If we allow her to do her own thing she escalates and if we try and help she fights us, so we’re in a no win situation.

Also puberty has started . I feel like we’re giving up on her but also wondering if we can give her what she needs?

What secondary provision is there locally that is suitable?

Ds has recently started at a residential school simply because there was no school locally that could meet his needs (ASD plus academic). What do the school say - at 10 is she Y5 or Y6?

Dd sounds quite similar - she's had lots of speech and language therapy over the last year, and melatonin to get her to (mostly) sleep at night, so hoping a good mainstream school will work.

Oh sounds so familiar! Its bloody miserable all around.

Ds is awfully controlling, he even tells us to stop breathing (he can’t tolerate the noise) 🙈

Tells us where to sit, tells me I can’t use the downstairs toilet / must go upstairs. Kicks off when I wear certain pyjamas..

You’re constantly walking on egg shells aren’t you at the next kick off?!

Sounds familiar with the progress too, ds has made great progress in some areas. Also to the unknown triggers, his specialist school and EP can’t work it out either.

You won’t be unfamiliar to pda I assume? We’ve tried those sorts of strategies but they just don’t help us unfortunately.

danni your post did actually make me giggle because my dd is EXACTLY the same. It’s so bloody hard isn’t it? She moans about the dog licking water out of his bowl, my older sons sitting on the sofa, doesn’t like us watching the news because she doesn’t like the lady newsreader, argues over doors being open/shut.
If we ignore, she gets worse and if we try to help she argues.

PDA has been mentioned several times by her paediatrician and EP and although we’ve tried being careful with how we phrase things, she’s so wise to it all. If we try to reason with her and keep calm, she just keeps pushing, as if she’s trying to get us to lose it.

She has ear defenders that she refuses to wear and even has an eye mask so she doesn’t have to look at us.
But when she’s in a good place, she’ll still try to control us but is able to laugh it off and joke??

ShakeaHettyFeather her current school goes to 19 years. She’s about to go into year 6, fortunately her new teacher is the main ASD person and is very switched on to PDA so that’s a positive. Her school is SEN and is 18 miles away, other SEN schools around here are more behavioural but the children are academically able.
School are good with her and do listen. Her behaviour is generally better at school but it just depends on these behaviour cycles.

Her speech and understanding is good, she’s currently being seen by an external speech and language therapist who is happy with her progress. She started at mainstreamwith a full time 1:1 and did the first two years but she definitely needs a specialist provision.

If we did go down the residential school route, it would be miles away, there’s nothing in our area.

So similar!! not often I read posts and think that’s like my ds. (I always think he’s a genuine one off!)

Ds is wise to rephrasing too. He knows whichever way you’re presenting it, it still means the same thing 😂 he’s got moderate learning disability (on top of asd & adhd) but sometimes I think he’s too smart. He’s years behind with most things but then clocks immediately if you’re trying to pull the wool over his eyes.

I understand about the ignoring it, it makes not one dot of difference here, he literally argues with himself. He won’t give in.

Ds school is also 18 miles away 🤣

You made me laugh when you said the news / female reporter. Ds won’t eat from McDonald’s / kfc if a male serves us the food. He won’t have a Pooh if anyone else is in the house (only I’m allowed) this is utterly ridiculous (and often I think this has to stop as it’s almost enabling the behaviour) but if dh is home and ds needs a Pooh then dh will either go out to his car for a few minutes or ‘pretend’ to open / close the door as if he’s gone out then ds will go to the toilet. It’s either that or ds gets impacted again and that took months of laxatives to sort.

Do you think sometimes is this really my life?

Lol, thanks for letting me offload onto your thread!

I don't have first hand experience of residential, but have you had social care assessments - a carer's assessment for you and an assessment from the disabled children's team for DD? Also, look at a waking day curriculum if you decide residential isn't for you.

Do you have a residential school in mind? Since the transition AR should be next term in order to be able to finalise the EHCP by Feb 15th deadline. Other than the school do you think the EHCP meets DD's needs abscess are the assessments up to date?

The same goes for you Danni. I remember your posts about the part time timetable in MS, is it DS's new school doing the exact same thing? You can challenge it by threatening to begin Judicial Review proceedings against the LA.

The enabling of behaviour is something I’ve wondered about. Younger Ds spends so much time in his room that I hate it’s become the norm to keep the peace.

Really second above poster, get a carers assessment , they take so long but can make a difference or feel like you’re moving in a positive direction.

I count every year ds is with us as a bonus, if we get to 18 without residential placement I’ll be amazed.
But it takes months of social services and assessments to start this moving so knock on all those doors, flag the family control and life you live with at every opportunity.
Puberty has a lot to answer for but it could also mean that maybe a step here toward respite and independence could help everyone at this junction.

Thank you @10brokengreenbottles and @Lesley25 for your replies.

We do not have a residential school in mind as there aren’t any particularly local to us. But I have chatted to a couple of mums this evening and it would seem that there is a respite place not far from her current school, so I’m going to phone the disability services/social services tomorrow to get the ball rolling for an assessment of needs.

Also I will have a look into waking curriculum m, I’ve never heard of this before, so thank you