Not really sure what I’m asking here so just going to describe my daughter and her situation but hoped someone might have some advice.
My dd(16) has been struggling with timekeeping for a number of years. She has anxiety and it’s obvious that her lateness is a result of overthinking and procrastination.
She is often arriving to school up to 2 hours late, sometimes later and as a result her attendance is around 46%. She was always very fussy about things being a certain way and done in a particular order but over the years it has gotten a lot worse.
She spends a long time in the toilet before going out as she feels she can’t go anywhere until she is sure she doesn’t need the toilet any more, she measures out her socks as she doesn’t believe they are correctly paired, she repeatedly asks for reassurance over everything, she takes forever on her homework so ends up going to bed very late and cannot seem to multitask or deviate from something she is doing no matter what time it is.
The school have been very understanding and when I explained that she sets her alarm for 5.30 to give herself enough time and still can’t make it in on time they stopped giving her detentions for lateness and instead have tried their best to accommodate to her needs and try to make school less stressful (ie: time-out pass, extra time for exams, regular chats with her teachers, etc). None of this has made any difference, in fact now there are no consequences she doesn’t pay any attention to her timekeeping at all.
Her expected grades have dropped from 7’s and 8’s to 3’s 4’s and 5’s. I don’t make a huge fuss over this as I don’t want her to feel any worse than she does about it. I think she feels quite disappointed in herself as it is.
Returning to school after Lockdown was where a lot of this started and made worse in year 9 when she was bullied by a group of girls that she tried to befriend.
She doesn’t have any close friendships but has a group of girls she spends break and lunch with. They bought her some lovely gifts for her birthday last week so I know she is appreciated by them although she insists they are not real friends for some reason.
She never meets anyone outside of school so other than going to school she spends a lot of time at home which I think does bother her but she won’t do anything about it.
We pay for her to do a class at the weekend but she is very often late to that, missing half the class each week. We are struggling financially at the moment as I am studying and dh is not getting as much work as he used to. I’m considering cancelling her class as it feels like money wasted and is extremely expensive for what she gets out of it. This is her only connection to life outside of school but it has got to the point where it’s just not making much sense.
Overall, she is very smart, she takes a lot of care in her appearance, likes to dress nicely, is polite, funny and generally seems quite content at home if a little bored at times. She started playing piano at school about 18 months ago and as the lessons are during school time, she very rarely misses them. This has been a bit of a lifeline as it has given her something to focus on and be proud of and her progress has been incredible. She wanted to go to a music college but pulled out of auditioning at the last minute as she didn’t feel she could handle the stress.
The school nurse recently referred her to be assessed for autism which we are in the process of doing but I’m not sure how a diagnosis is going to change her situation.
She will need to get the bus to college in September but has never even been to the local shop by foot on her own and I’m not sure if she will ever make it in at all. Is there something more I should be doing to try to prepare her for exams and college?