Feeling bad for a little boy at Ds1's school

[Saker]

Ds1 is my NT child, he goes to a mainstream school. Every morning when I drop him off I see a child in Reception who has special needs going in. As soon as the bell goes, I can hear him saying "I don't want to, I don't want to" and his mum and dad are trying to persuade him he does really. Well this morning he got really upset and the teacher on duty couldn't persuade him to go in at all and he was just clinging to the rails howling. I felt so sorry for his mum and dad having to watch him. Nobody could get him to move and eventually his mum had to go and lead him in, though probably to go through it all again inside.

I know it's stupid and I've got enough on my plate worrying about Ds2 without worrying about other people's kids. And for all I know he might be fine all day at school. But whilst Ds1's school is great for Ds1 it is a very high achieving school and I'm not sure how well it would support a child with SN (one of the reasons I wouldn't have sent Ds2 there). It's silly but it's really upset me - ironically more than Ds2 who went off in the taxi protesting that he doesn't "much like school" because I do know that he will have a happy day when he gets there.

Thanks for humouring me with reading this. I don't really know why I am posting it except for therapeutic reasons .

I have an ASD son of 4 and an NT son of 16 months. There is a boy with SN in DS2's nursery class and I always feel bad that he isn't allowed to stay as long as my son - he can only have the legal 2.5 hours a day. My ASD son can only have 2.5 hours as well but somehow I still feel bad that my NT son gets more help and attention than the SN boy.

This brought bad memories for me too. Ds was fine when he first started school - no ability to think ahead so no fear! But a few weeks later I had to drag him to school, crying and protesting the whole time. And then listen to awful nightmares ('stupid boy' a term he never heard at home) which told me a lot! It felt awful and frankly abusive since I felt school was not acting in his best interest!
I feel for that child and for the parents!

Sorry didn't mean to bring back bad memories for other people also.

Saker dont worry about me - (its time I let go of the guilt for not doing better than my best!)- but I can understand why it upset you! You must feel like you need to do something - but what?

Tclanger the worst part was the accuracy of the intonation (Ds has speech delay)- so I could recognise who was shouting at him and it was not just the children! Why is the speech in night terrors clearer than when awake?

I don't think there is a lot I can do since I don't know the parents or the child, and I don't even know if he is getting on alright the rest of the time or not. I know in Ds2's case he doesn't like leaving me but he seems to have a happy enough time when he has made the transition.

Someone else asked me for some information for the family of a boy with SN at school who I suspect was this child as they said his parents needed some extra help at home. I suggested social services (direct payments etc), homestart/surestart, and also gave a folder of information that was given to me about accessing services. Any other suggestions anyone here has I could pass on via this third party.

Tclanger- yes the night terrors have stopped for our ds (now 8 and changed schools) too. He used to have an extraordinary abilty to mimic birds and animals long before speech came. I would know he was awake because I could hear 2 pidgeons cooing! The frog was quite something! It used to upset me that his mimicry was so good (his 'chatter' sounded quite convincing!) but he could not communicate! I had not thought of this or the sleeptalk as echolia. It has just occured to me ds cannot copy speech sounds accuratly (vowels/ consenants)but he has always got the musicality of speech right! One has to celebrate small wonders!
Sorry I am digressing.
Saker I dont know what type of SN but mencap sometimes run or know of playschemes.

Ds has learnt to whistle too - sadly that has no musicality - yet!

From what I can see he seemed a bit happier going in on Monday. However Ds1 was off sick yesterday so I wasn't there, and I didn't see the little boy this morning. Thanks for asking.

Yes - he went in quite calmly again today. It may just be that he doesn't cope well with the point of leaving - Ds2 is a bit like that. I hope he is okay there in general.

(Mind having said that Ds2 doesn't like leaving me, he went skipping off very happily this morning - because of the NUT strike some of the classes at his school are not running so there was only him in the taxi. It was a car rather than the big van thing they normally have and he was all smiles and hellos for the taxi driver and escort. A bit of novelty value works wonders...)