So today i was accused of CHILD ABUSE

[jenk1]

warning this is very long and very ranting.

DD who has mild CP has been for the last few days wearing knickers to nursery and going on the potty.
she has wet on average 3 pairs of trousers a day in nursery, despite me telling them that she has a loss of sensation AND a letter from her paediatrician confirming this they said she was "doing well".
over the weekend she has become distressed and refused to wear knickers and has asked for her "pappies" as she calls them.

we were advised by the paed to stop the potty training if she becomes distressed.
yesterday i picked her up and she had knickers on and promptly took them off at home and asked for a nappy.

Today DH took her to nursery and advised the headteacher that the training has stopped as she has become distressed.

she said:

"well you are putting us in a difficult position, if a child wants to wear knickers and we force her to wear a nappy that is child abuse"

DH phoned me and told me and i said
WHAT and put the phone down on him.

i phoned nursery straightaway and asked for the headteacher
she came on the phone,sighed and said yes jen?

so i said (i was very angry)
"i believe you are under the impression that me and DH are child abusers"?

she started spluttering, i said
"The only people who are guilty of child abuse are in YOUR NURSERY, who insist on putting a distressed child in knickers, who doesnt want to be in them and ignoring medical evidence from her paediatrician, and from us as her parents, are you under the impression that we are fabricating her symptoms"?

she said she meant the nursery would be guilty of child abuse and i said "yes and you are saying we are making you do it arent you"?

queue 10 minutes of me ranting and raving and her admitting that dd is indeed a complex child and that she hasnt encountered a child like dd before, to which i said are you saying you dont have the facilities/staff to accomodate dd,s SN?
well it stops right now.
she said she wouldnt put knickers on dd unless she asks for them and apologised.

tonight when i picked dd up she had a nappy on and the headteacher said
"Oh today she didnt want her knickers on and just wanted a nappy do we didnt push her, we,ll take it one day at a time"

i said
"yes we will indeed".

she then mentioned the LEA,s refusal to asess and asked was i appealing and i said "no i dont think so" (LIE)

its because she doesnt meet the criteria for severe or complex SN.

GOD GIVE ME STRENGTH.

rant over.

Sorry Jenk thats crap. Its so annoying that hey dont listen you are her parent fgs. Do they think they are a higher being and know so much more about your dds needs? G;lad you put them in their place!

DD (3) is at special needs nursery and they insist on putting her on the potty for 2 minutes every day despite us asking them not too. She has full body quadraplegia, no sensation for most of her body, cannot talk and certainly has no idea what goes on in her nappy. She gets distressed every bloody time.
At mainstream they don't cos they can see how physically disabled she is so it doesn't cross their minds.
GUess I'm a child abuser too. They really are up their own bums sometimes.

needmorecoffee-that is terrible.
can you write a letter or do what we did, we asked dd,s paediatrician to write confirming that dd has hemiparesis and incontinence problems, which he did.

im so for you and your dd.

Jenk1 - I got virtually accused of child abuse too when I asked the special needs nursery to spray a tiny bit of water on the back of my DS's hair if he was ever aggressive (it was an aversive technique we were using at home, at my suggestion, and was proving very very effective). I was so worried that they were going to report me or something that I phoned my brother, who is actually a barrister dealing with REAL CHILD ABUSE cases in court every day. He just laughed, and said the school clearly know nothing at all if they think this is abuse, they want to come and sit in his court for just an hour and stop bandying terrible phrases around to frighten mothers when they are actually trying to help their child.In other words, the school are talking through their aXXXX! You sound like you put them straight though so good on you!!

Do you think the problem is that staff are too worried about getting acused of abuse themselves they cannot see the reality! When my son was in MS (LD poor continence) I had to go in to collect him if he had an accident. On one occasion I was an hour away and he was left in wet, soiled clothes till I arrived! To me that was negligent but the staff said they could not help him as he was over 5 and it could be considered abusive!!!

I think you are right Magso, and I think the staff are scared of being accused themselves, because we all read the ludicrous stories of cases of teachers wrongly accused in the papers. But the actual real law I don't think is as much of an ass as people fear - though I may be wrong!

aquarius - interesting about the water spray! I read somewhere that cold water is used as aversion therapy to get LD kids with control but poor social awareness to toilet train ( by washing wet undies in cold water after accidents!) Never tried it with my son as he likes playing in water whatever the temperature!

Yes Magso, it worked for my DS because although he loves swimming and bathtime, for some reason he hates getting his hair wet! For the absolute worst aggression we would take him up and wash his hair. My in-laws gave me grief because they thought I was making washing his hair even more of a phobia, but I told my DH to tell them to fxxx off, as I'd prefer a few problems getting his hair washed in later life to a criminal conviction for GBH!!

Re the water thing. My MIL told me that she used to splash her kids faces with cold water if they were having a screaming tantrum and it would shut them up. Her mother used this technique too. I did used to use it on my eldest when he was a toddler(ASD plus other stuff) who could scream for England for some hours. It sort of worked but I do remember we both landed up very wet once!!! I also used it for my second son when small and I have to say I only had to do it once and then just say 'Stop crying or I shall get the flannel' and he stopped (blimey!). I think it is the shock of the cold water it makes them stop and just gives you long enough to jump in with some reasoning or else makes them forget about what they were paddying about. It certainly didn't have a detrimental effect (they both swim like fish and love bathtime) but I don't think I did it a lot as they had to be near the bathroom or downstairs cloakroom when having their paddy for me to be near enough a tap to do the water thing. I never thought about having a spray though. The child abuse comment made by a nursery is not really acceptable and I think I would have been having a maximum force ten rant as well. Everyone knows whether a child has SEN or not forcing potty training doesn't work. My SEN son was trained far more quickly than his brother (no SEN). Perhaps they have target setting on how many they get out of nappies or something daft.