15 year old meltdown at school

[elliejjtiny]

Ds2 is 15 and in year 11. He is on the waiting list for an autism assessment. He masks a lot, especially in school and is desperate to appear "normal". Anyway today, probably only the 2nd time this has happened in secondary school, he had a meltdown in the middle of maths. He got taken to the well being hub and got given a drink and a biscuit and then he said he wanted to go to his next lesson. The school phoned us and said we could come and pick him up but ds was insistent he was fine and wanted to stay in school. School don't know what triggered the meltdown and I don't know either. There is no way ds2 will tell us either. I struggle with ds2 because he attempted suicide when he was 12 and I'm scared he will do it again. Dh has to go away with work this weekend. Normally I can manage on my own ok, even though it's harder than with dh there but now I'm worried. I have 5 dc with disabilities and they trigger each other into meltdown, sometimes accidentally and sometimes on purpose. Oh and my washing machine is refusing to spin for some reason, just as we are about to get a heatwave and I thought I could catch up on the washing.

Well, on a positive note my 10 year old has managed to fix the washing machine. He has a moderate learning disability and can barely write but apparently he is very handy with a hammer and a torch. Ds2 is currently trying to pretend his meltdown didn't happen so I'm tempted to just go with that and not stir the hornets nest until dh comes home on Sunday.

This sounds incredibly difficult. Go your 10 year old. Leaving DS2 to decompress for now is a good idea. DS2 may not know himself what triggered the meltdown, or it may have been a build up of lots of smaller things, or if DS does know he may not be able to communicate it.

For the future could you look at a PA, particularly for weekends DH is away?

Thank you. I can't afford to get a PA unfortunately. DS2 gets no help from anyone apart from school at the moment. We went to tribunal to try and get DLA for him but we lost.

DS2 seems to be bothered that the other top set maths class (the year group are split into 2 halves, depending on their option choices and there is a top maths set in each half) are further ahead than his class. I also found out that he sits next to someone in maths who he finds annoying. I don't know if either of those things upset him or not.

Can you speak to the school about the annoying neighbour in maths? Even if it wasn’t the trigger it won’t be helping.

Have you had social care assessments? A carer’s assessment for you and assessment via the disabled children’s team for DC. I hope the weekend wasn’t a bad as you feared and school today went as well as it could.

When DS2 turns 16 apply for PIP. Some DC with ASD who don’t get DLA do get PIP.