so glad he can now tell me what's wrong but wish so much it wasn't wrong

[linglette]

DS2 found out this morning it was Monday (fire alarm day). "I'm a bit scared". "No, it's Tuesday, Monday's finished", crumpling little face and lots of tears at nursery drop-off.

Still, at least (i)people know what's wrong now and (ii) he can go to teacher for a cuddle instead of hiding in the toilets flushing them to soothe himself as he did last year.

I guess it's just life for a child with sensitive hearing. He's been doing so brilliantly but this is a bit of a setback......so I'm a bit . He talks a lot about scary noises at the moment. Makes you realise what the non-verbal kids are going through

I know, I will tell them at pick up that I want some photos of him in nursery so we can write a personal story about it.

could they not let him wear some sort of ear defenders prior to the alarm going off? is the alarm tested weekly then?

Can't they take him outside before the alarm goes off? this is what dd2's nursery do (they don't test that often). Dd2's nursery take her out of the room if any noise gets too much for her (even just the children getting a bit too noisy for her).

hurray, they have got the caretaker to promise to do it Monday afternoons instead (he's only there mornings) till they say DS2 is ready.

that should help DS2 regain his confidence.

we found with noise sensitivity my son was more worried about unexpected noise rather than the noise itself perhaps if he knew it was going to go off he won't be as worried.

What excellent ideas, thank you.

Nursery manager said she'd be inclined to let him forget about it. If it was purely psychological, I'd understand what she's saying. She's thinking it's psychological because he never used to be bothered about it last year. But I'm thinking that (i) last year he didn't have a relationship of trust with her so he would just run and hide flushing the toilets if he was overwhelmed whereas this year he's reaching out to her and behaving more as a frightened NT child would and (ii) from what Amber has told us, sensitive hearing can actually be very variable.

Any other thoughts most welcome. I might see if the SALT has any thoughts.

Would the nursery let him press the button to make the bell ring? Knowing what causes the noise and how it works might help him to understand it. He will have fire alarms going off for the rest of his school life and beyond so it would help him if he could get used to it now.

good idea asteroids.

sounds like there is consensus that I should address this not let him "forget it" as nursery manager suggests.