Primary School Auties 11: 2023 is here

[openupmyeagereyes]

Thread 11.

This is a thread for the parents & carers of children with additional needs. Most of us have autistic/ADHD children in primary school, but anybody is welcome to join us to chat x

Links to previous threads below.

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
Thread 6
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/4166833-Primary-school-auties-spring-2021-and-beyond-thread-6?pg=1
Thread 7
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/4303826-Primary-school-auties-summer-and-the-new-academic-year-thread-7
Thread 8
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/4422100-Primary-school-auties-step-into-Christmas-and-the-New-Year-thread-8
Thread 9
www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_needs/4502988-Primary-school-auties-thread-9-spring-summer-2022
Thread 10
www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_needs/4592899-primary-school-auties-10-summer-and-beyond-2022?page=1

They said he would need more understanding before he had CBT. I actually bought a book designed for children with anxiety and the techniques are out of Ds understanding,

Things like think of happy place and take yourself there momentarily. Imagine such and such, he wouldn’t grasp that.

I bought some other books, for more younger children, from Amazon and didn’t have much luck with those.

You're definitely not too soft. Punishment often doesn't work because the behaviour is usually beyond their control, they are trying to communicate and they often can't associate the punishment with the reason they got it. Don't let your mum make you doubt yourself, you do an amazing job under very challenging circumstances!

It's the thing I find most difficult with ds too and i definitely haven't cracked it. Wish I could give you a magic wand. The only thing I can say is when my ds goes through a behaviour regression like this it is usually before he makes a developmental leap. Doesn't make it any easier to deal with though.

Ds is similar that when you tell him off he says things like. you hate me, you want me to leave this family, you think I'm stupid etc. It's what they think you really mean when you do it.

Sorry missed your post open. Yes to Al your suggestions.

That is so difficult about the medical treatment danni.

Thanks all x

danni did school call about the manhandling incident?

@danni0509 sounds like your DS is so anxious and maybe disassociated that his behaviour is all over the place, like his nervous system is on constant high alert. Hopefully the week break will help and getting used to the meds.
There should be a restraint policy in place and safe handling techniques should be used. It's terrible that he has bruises. That's going to make his anxiety there worse too as he'll be anxious about them, so it's a negative cycle isn't it. I would definitely want a discussion about the level of restraint used and copy in your LA keyworker.

Open no call, but I got an email at tea time saying sorry she couldn’t call she had an appointment, she then listed all what ds had done wrong today!

Apparently he’d been targeting a particular child, and her, he told her he hates her and he wishes she wasn’t his teacher, and that sort of thing, he’d been fixated on getting her in the face a lot so she had to keep her distance from him in the classroom, they got his previous teacher to take him to the taxi this afternoon. And he has agreed to collect ds from the taxi and take him at home time to the taxi for a bit to try and break the cycle of him playing his own class teachers up.

His previous teacher has told the taxi at the end of the day that he possibly thinks a new member of staff in ds class is mismanaging ds behaviour (I didn’t know they had a new member of staff) she has been counting at ds for bad behaviour and counting at him is one of his worst triggers (!) he’s going to work with the class in trying to get him back on track. So I hope so. I asked ds who the new teacher was and he said x i threw a potato at her head yesterday!

Ds got out of the taxi, after I had removed him physically from the boot kicking and screaming obscenities at me (my neighbours honestly hate us) we got him inside eventually and he had a 40 minute meltdown inside, he’s kicked and screamed and hurled anything he could get his hands on directly at my head. He’s lost his voice from screaming. He was punching himself in the head clawing chunks from his skin, he’s covered all over in marks and he was hitting his head on the floor, he goes possessed.

He’s calmed down now thank god, and is playing on hot wheels before I sort him for bed.

His bruises on his back have come out today and they are proper finger print marks!

Although they don’t look like adult fingers, more child fingers, so god knows. Also he has grazes up his back, and bruises up his arms, they look like finger marks too!

hard to know if it’s from yesterday on the car park or from school in general, he’s generally quite a bruised child anyway and it’s not unusual for him to have grazes and marks up his back, I’m not going to accuse them but I am going to mention that, because if it’s happened how I was told, the marks wouldn’t suprise me.

I thought the way they safely restrain isn’t meant to leave bruises though!!

danni he’s completely dysregulated and in a right state. Awful for him and you. Does school have an OT room?

I’m sorry this is so hard right now.

Really pisses me off that (potentially) a new member of staff has set all his progress back, I can’t believe she has been counting at him. That stopped last year (his school count down from 5) as it made him much worse, they abandoned that with him as it was really stressing him out and setting him off, so they don’t use this particular strategy with ds, although do use it with other children.

So she has started at the school and been counting at ds, and god only knows what else to piss him off.

Im not saying it’s ok ds has been behaving this way, but staff need to be thoroughly aware of what they are doing before they do it.

The staff turnover at his school is shocking (which doesn’t suprise me, and I think is fairly standard in all special schools) but how do the staff really get in tune with the children if they swap and change so often.

They do to be fair open. They have a sensory room, sensory gym and a sensory garden. They have a zip wire and a climbing wall outside too.

He uses these a lot.

Take photos of the bruises.

Using strategies that upset him seems like new staff member hasn't been briefed on your DS at all. Counting at my DS would set him off too. Each child should have an individual plan that should be shared with all staff. The way his teacher is communicating with you is not constructive at all is it. Thanks goodness for the input of the old teacher! I would flip it and reply to her email saying you were very disappointed not to receive a phone call considering the upset state of your DS and schools handling of him triggering a meltdown. I would ask them why they think his behaviour is deteriorating, mention the new staff member, and ask for strategies that they are going to put in place to support him to stay regulated in school. My DS has choice time regularly, for example, and ot breaks. Accept no excuses re: they don't have the staff for that. That is their problem, not your DS'. Don't let them blame you or DS. He is not able to regulate himself so they have to help him.
That attitude would drive me mad too!

In fairness to his school. He does use the sensory gym and sensory room a lot, when he’s stressed or acting up a member of staff takes him to those or outside, he goes on the zip wire, and on the big field to regulate, he likes to collect items so they give him a bucket and they get him to find things. They have the classroom door open onto the the playground ( each class has an individual adjoining playground to the classroom door) so whenever anyone wants to go out, if able to, they let them to cool off.

I don’t think the staff do to badly usually, given the circumstances (barring the new member but I’ll let her off bcos she’s new)

They do have a one page plan, I think they call it, it’s basically something in the classroom that tells who ever is in the classroom, what triggers are for each individual, what works / what doesn’t for that student. And how best to manage.

So I’m not sure what has happened with the new Ta. Maybe she’s not aware, but she should be, especially working with these kids. A potatoe at her head will be the least of her worries if she keeps pissing him off, I’ll send him to her house with his suitcase 🤣

Ds main teacher (the one who communicates with us daily, does annual review and parents evening etc) has changed 3 times since September. It’s really not good enough for kids who are so sensitive to changes.

Oh no Danni, I’m just catching up. I was hoping you would say yesterday was better?

im amazed that his first teacher actually said this recent one was mismanaging DS, in my experience both at this and the last school they all stick together like glue. If the child’s changed that’s nothing to do with them. Whether it’s right or not it’s quite unprofessional of one staff member to tell the taxi driver (!!) that the problems are due to a colleague mishandling a child isn’t it? Mad! I hope the week off breaks the cycle and whatever training / rejigging they need to do in school works.

Funnily there’s not much staff change in DSs and I wondered how it works for your DC in SSs… do they tend to stay in the same class with the same teacher year after year? Or like in MS does the teacher change? Do the pupils change (which obviously wouldn’t happen in MS)? I need to ask. His current teacher is quite good but I do want him to ‘move on’ as he would ordinarily do.

For us it’s finally happened… DS has been kicked off the bus! Well, I’ll rephrase, ‘alternative transport arrangements are being arranged.’ The screaming does seem to be dying a death… but not on the bus. This is one example I feel of how since he moved to a sen school he’s just living up to it 😡. Obviously he’s been on plenty of buses with us, he’s been on bus trips with his old school, he’s been on a 5 hour packed plane last summer and so on and so forth with no issues other than getting bored/ fidgety. Oh but put him in a sen school where he’s on a bus with kids all with Sen and he’s recreating a scene from Psycho and finding it fun. So how can that be explained? I really do hope that my concern that his behaviour won’t get worse the longer he is in a sen school is wrong cos I’m not seeing much evidence so far! Quite the contrary. It may just be coincidence of course. But it’s a big one!

I think the issue is exacerbated by the fact his peers are so mixed, it’s not a HF school like I think some are we discuss on here. I’m still not sure it’s where he should be but when I say that to DH he reminds me, rightly, that there’s no where else. That’s a fairly poor justification for where we educate our kids though isn’t it.

They all do stick together carrie I’ve always said schools are so currupt. That’s been my experience the whole time ds has been in school (even nursery)

His previous teacher told the taxi as she was talking to him once ds was strapped in, I think she said something a long the lines of, what a shame when he had been getting on so well, so he didn’t tell me, maybe he views the taxi as a professional, even though they then tell me everything! 🤣

He should of learnt from the last one though, as she told me things and I would email him about it last year.

Oh carrie the things they used to tell the taxi last year were unbelievable. I used to write it on here! I had to ask for the staff to pass the message to me in the end! And not discuss things with the taxi unless it was necessary for the journey.

They use to discuss his medication with the taxi, they once told the taxi it was cruel to crush adhd medication up and put it in ds’ drink without his knowledge, all sorts. I gave them fuck for this.

They used to discuss with the taxi about ds hours and asking the taxi if she could do reduced hours for him without talking to me about a planned reduction in hours. I could show you some emails I sent to them with regards to all of this! 🤣🤣

The taxi used to come back and tell me everything. This one does too! Although there’s not too much to report these days. (Obvs ds has been a lot more manageable over the last 6 months though)

DS has had the same teacher for two years but the pupils changed as some got older, which was tough for him,but they don't 'move on' in the same way as Ms because its totally different. The classes are ability grouped rather than strictly by age. Perhaps @carriebradshawwithlessshoes you could see DS' behaviour as him exploring how yo finally be himself and not having to mask all the time. I'm not saying the screaming is ideal, but I really don't think kids copy behaviours at sen schools any more than they would do at ms schools. DS actually gets annoyed now when others break the rules. At ms, he would have been bullied I'm sure as he's so trusting and naive, he just believes that everyone is his friend and doesn't have a clue how nasty some NT kids can be. So there are positives and negatives, however you look at it. I'm starting to wonder how classes will change again in September, dreading it tbh!

@MoominMamasTribe ds copies a million times more than at MS. He’s really bad for it. He copies all sorts he sees there, I suppose it depends on the individual’s personality.

It’s in ds ehcp, that he copies all of the voices, mannerisms, traits of the other kids in his class. (He never copies any of their good behaviours though, funnily)

@danni0509 hmm yep, I suppose some of the behaviours at sen schools are quite extreme because that's partly why the kids can't cope in ms. It's so tricky. Like DS has taken against this boy because he called him a cheater, so DS now calls him a liar, and won't be in a group with him at all. So tricky.

Ds copies too but it’s not like there weren’t negative behaviours for him to copy in ms. In year 1 a child in his class taught them all the f-word, one of the boys would act out and try and kick the teacher etc. and that’s just a couple of things. It’s all a balance isn’t it.

carrie have you looked at any of the local private schools?

I told ds teacher at his annual review when we were discussing it that I wanted the child benefit for the other kids as they are practically living in my home free of charge. 😂 I have to regularly say to ds, have they sent the wrong child home? Where’s ds? I want ds back home now please!

I’ve never met any of the children, I’ve never seen them in real life, other than pictures on the evidence of learning app, but I know their names, what their disabilities are, what their traits are, because ds does them all at home.

I think I said before but he changes his surname to whoever he is fixated on at that time. He’s been several surnames so far!