Possible SN child and I’m clueless

[FancifulFeathers]

Evening all.

I don’t really know why I’m posting this. I guess I’m looking to offload, for someone to tell me things will be ok?!

My 6 year old DS is amazing. He’s the sweetest boy and we also suspect he’s autistic. Nothing diagnosed.

Whilst in Reception, he was not toilet trained. We had the local incontinence team involved and he cracked it before Year 1.
Other than this, school didn’t have particular concerns in Reception. He reads very well, very active with sports. Needs improvement with fine motor skills. But other than that, all good.

Very well behaved at school, respects the rules to the letter, but can quite explosive at home (not violent, just tantrums).

Year 1, and unfortunately there’s been a lot of upheaval with the teaching staff so nobody has really got to know him. I spoke to one of them this week, ahead of an upcoming parents evening, and she told me he struggles. She said quite bluntly HE WILL STRUGGLE THROUGHOUT HIS SCHOOL LIFE. She went into detail about how he might day dream, stare thru the window etc but she said herself he’s an intelligent boy so surely the struggle can be helped?! Or am I naive and that he’ll be beyond any help??

We’ll be requesting a meeting with SENCO so we can understand better what’s going on here, but I feel clueless about what i should expect from the school, what should my son expect from me? I don’t know what questions to ask, what they should be putting in place, how quickly this should be happening etc. feel completely out of my depth but for the sake of my wonderful boy, I need to be informed.

Thank you if you got this far 😊

Tantrums or meltdowns?

Have a look at the coke bottle effect. Some of the dysregulation at home is likely to be due to unmet needs at school. If school was easier for DS, home life would improve too.

What support is the school providing? Does he have an IEP (or whatever they call their SEN support plans)? Do they offer any emotional literacy support, anything like Zones of Regulation? Do they have a nurture group or run sensory circuits? What support for motor skills are they giving? Have they thought about DS’s position in the classroom? Has a referral for an autism assessment been made?

Keeping a diary will help spot DS’s triggers.

Some people find Ross Greene’s book The Explosive Child helpful.

Thank you so much for this. I will look at the coke bottle effect.

I would say they are more meltdowns and my husband says I’m the only one who can calm him, bring him out of them. They can be over anything and absolutely nothing at all, it’s exhausting trying to keep one step ahead.

that middle paragraph is most helpful ahead of our meeting at school and I just don’t know the answer to most of it. So I’ll be jotting some notes thank you.

weve previously completed a questionnaire which he scored highly but I would imagine those answers have changed now.

I just feel utterly clueless. I guess I’ll know more after the meeting but I also don’t want it to be a wasted opportunity

Meltdowns are never over nothing.
.They are caused by the child reaching the point of total overwhelm.

The cause may seem trivial to you, the cause may be the last in a long line of things he has tried to suppress, but there is always a cause.

My apologies if I seemed to be trivialising it, believe me that was not my intention and when you’re in the thick of one, far from trivial.
what I’m trying to say is his meltdowns could be over something so insignificant to the next person. I always try my hardest to be one step ahead of how he’ll react to things but it’s exhausting

I know, I was a clueless mother once, lots of that pre internet, so little to no info or help.
31 years later, I've learned a bit about my own DD.

Other people trivialise all sorts of plainly (to someone who knows) autistic behaviour, often teachers, family members and medical professionals, which comes as a shock because you almost expect them to be supportive.

Try the SN Children board on MN's Special Needs section, there's a lot of knowledge there about current issues. I do forget sometimes that my experiences are a bit out of date

If he is day dreaming and staring out the window it's quite possible that (like mine) yours can't filter out distractions. The answer is for him always to be sat right in front of the teacher as much as possible. He may also appear to be day dreaming but actually taking in what he needs to or even just bored because it's too easy for him.

He will be masking at school and letting it out at home I expect - alternatively the routine at school might make it much easier for him to hold it together. I would say the more routine you can put into his life and the more predictable you can make it then the easier it will be for him and the less meltdowns he will have.

I would avoid too much happening after school, let him have a chilled out time to decompress. We always had snack and a story, then DS played for a bit and then watched tv for half hour till dinner.

Plenty of warning between transitions was also important for us - 'in 10 minutes we've got to go shopping so you need to finish off what you are doing', then - 'in two minutes you'll need to put your shoes on so make sure you've finished what you're doing'.

Weekends are difficult as everything is different. Have a routine for the weekend if you can. Lots of preparation for any out of the ordinary activities. Remember being tired/hungry/upset about something may affect him far more than the average child. So then a melt down seems to be over something trivial but it will be the straw that broke the camels back.

It's tiring to always stay one step ahead but it does get easier the more you know what affects them. There'll always be times where you get it wrong or forget something you should have done though!

Oh also we were told by the paediatrician who assessed him that he was going to really, really struggle with secondary school and he was going to need a lot putting in place for him. Well he just got mostly 9's in his GCSE's and is doing great. He needs a space to decompress at break and lunchtime but apart from that he has coped amazingly. So I wouldn't worry too much about what the teacher said, however it's really not idea for him to have such an unsettled experience at school - I think he's doing amazingly well to have held it together through all that.