Parents raising square pegs in round holes
Unless you have had a child with special needs you can never understand just how exhausting it is. The more "subtle" it is the harder it can be. If your child has a physical disability or is obviously autistic then there is a certain level of support and understanding from those around you. (I'm not at all taking away from the demands of having a child with disabilities, this is totally exhausting in itself and has the added strain of usually being a lifelong commitment)
If you have a child who is perceived by others as normal or naughty then all you get is a judgement about your bad parenting and lots of completely useless advice like, "You should be stricter" or "They're testing the boundaries." This is all very well and good for a child that understands the boundaries and accepts the "punishment" for crossing those boundaries but if you have a child with an oppositional disorder or Aspergers then this becomes an entirely different kettle of fish.
There is nothing wrong with the child, there is everything wrong with the system!
My second son's dyslexia went undiagnosed for far too many years, despite me telling the school that I was sure there was something wrong. The other problem, which we only discovered later, was that he has Asperger's traits with regard to socialisation. I would constantly be called in regarding his "bad behaviour" but when I spoke to him I'd invariably discover that the other child involved had done something wrong that had gone unnoticed and unpunished and so my son felt the need to take matters into his own hands. It took years for us to help him understand that he had to control his reaction and speak to an adult. Of course, this isn't helped by adults not listening to him and not helping him. Again, the problem lies with the adults that surround him not understanding how his personality works and trying to force him into conforming to the personality type that fits his surroundings.
It was actually the SEN (Special Educational Needs) teacher at secondary school, who was working with him on his dyslexia who pointed out that I should have him assessed for Aspergers. We went through the whole process of speaking to counsellors and such but the one they eventually sent to the house was so cold and uncaring it made me feel uncomfortable, let alone my teenage son. Dealing with things like self-harm and depression is probably in the top 5 list of the scariest things you can go through as a parent.
At this stage I didn't really consider home ed to be a viable option but eventually we were forced to go that route when I had to go and pick him up at school one day and he had had a total breakdown and was sitting rocking on a chair, not something a parent wants to be faced with. I took him out of school that day and it was the best thing we ever did.
He has come on leaps and bounds having had a good period of deschooling and autonomous learning and college. We still have our ups and downs but he is definitely a completely different person. He made me realise that the picture above is so true but sadly the public schooling system is dependent on the money they receive for SEN and are reluctant to advise you to try home ed or other educational options. Having not one but 2 children with Aspergers I can say with a fair amount of confidence that mainstream schooling does not work for them. They see things in black and white, there is no grey area, which is where compromise and body language live and they have to be in control of their environment. If you try and force them to conform you will end up down the road of self-harming and eventually suicide I would imagine as these children feel so trapped that this is their only way to control the pain and frustration they feel. The are NOT looking for attention!
I found this cartoon on Facebook and sadly can't find who to credit for it but it was so apt I just couldn't resist including it in this article.
This was definitely my daughter and it started right from year 1 I think, she was never really settled at school. I would often have reports from the teachers about her complaining about having a tummy ache and have her cry and cling to me when I dropped her off in the morning. The teachers would say that she settled quite quickly and she'd grow out of it but it only got worse as she got older.
I took her to the dr to have her tested for possible allergies to different foods to see if that was causing the problem but they couldn't identify anything physically wrong with her.
In year 2 the problem escalated when they changed the teacher halfway through the year. She became more clingy and anxious. We had meetings with the principal and the teacher as some of the parents were commenting that the new teacher seemed a bit strict and this was coupled with an Ofsted inspection, never a good time for teachers I can imagine.
She kept saying that Kaydee was really well behaved and doing really well at her schooling, it became a standing joke when we received her reports saying to the teachers, who is this and what do you do with Kaydee during the day?
Suffering from anxiety myself I should have recognised the symptoms in Kaydee but just allowed the "professionals" to tell me what was best for her. We were both getting more and more stressed as she would have a breakdown most mornings. The headmistress suggested I let her go to breakfast club to give her a more "fun" start to the day. The problem that she was experiencing was that the teacher and her style was something new and she really struggles adapting to new situations so forcing another new situation on her was certainly not the answer! Non uniform day was another stresser. All the way to school she'd be panicking,
"What if no one else is dressed up?" So I'd say,
"Do you want to go in your uniform and take your normal clothes in a bag?"
And she'd say, "No, everyone will laugh at me if I'm the only one in uniform!"
The problem is that there is no rationalising with anxiety. Again, this is something I should have known because when I have panic attacks I can tell myself I'm being silly but it doesn't stop the panic. A good explanation from one of the blog posts below is to explain to your child that the anxiety part of your brain is like a smoke detector. It will go off for a piece of burnt toast, it doesn't know the difference between the smoke from a fire or the smoke from the burning toast, it just wants you to get out of there! The rational part of your brain knows there is no danger.
Another good pointer I had from a parent i going through 5 sensory steps to help them shift their focus so their adrenaline can come down.
Name 5 things you can see
Name 4 things you can hear
Name 3 things you can touch
Name 2 things you can smell
Name 1 thing you can taste
Top tips from the presentation:
Keep bubbles in your bag so that when your child is feeling anxious you can get them out and let them focus on blowing big bubbles to slow down their breathing
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Tense hands by making a fist, then relax for 5 seconds
Tense arms by making a muscle, relax
Tense shoulders by raising them and shrugging, relax - tell them they're a tortoise pulling their head into the shell
Tense Face by frowning, pressing lips together, relax
Tense chest by taking deep breath, relax
Tense stomach by sucking stomach in, relax
There are also more relaxation techniques you can use at home, listen to soothing music or a rainstorm soundtrack
talk them through concentrating on relaxing each muscle from their head to their toes, making your voice gentle and relaxing.
For my oldest son understanding that he always needed to answer his phone when I call was easy, you always answer the phone when I call and always tell me where you are, then I don't panic! With my 3rd son this involved him actually remembering to charge his phone, take it with him and take it off silent after school! But with enough emotional breakdowns, it finally sank in how important it was for me. He has inattentive attention deficit disorder, which is basically him on his own planet! His brain struggles to make continuous connections to follow instructions and writing on a blank piece of paper is litereally that, a blank! Luckily this is something he will slowly outgrow as his brain learns to make the connections but is very frustrating as a parent giving him instructions and school who need him to write down what he knows.
Home ed isn't always an option for various reasons. If you decide to carry on with the mainstream schooling system then make sure you stand up for your child and their needs, don't rely on the teachers or even the professionals to correctly diagnose your child's needs, they only see them in one setting and don't have the emotional connection you do.
A word of warning about getting a statement of special needs (This isn't dyslexia and the more "common" learning difficulties it's more for the more serious things like autism). Once you have this it will be nearly impossible to take them out of the mainstream schooling system so, before you do, make sure you have given home ed serious thought and ruled it out as an option for you. You could even give it a try, there's nothing wrong with taking your child out of school for a few months to give it a try, speak to your school about flexi-schooling.
Make sure the school doesn't intimidate you. Your child doesn't have to be subjected to the usual punishments that other children are so don't just support a detention, a lot of children with autism, Aspergers, etc will react very negatively towards this negative form of correction so make sure the school understands your position on this. My youngest son was given a detention for not writing enough when I had been working with the SEN coordinator since before he started with the school, telling them he had concentration issues and if they needed a piece of writing done to send it home for me to help him with it. The fact that the English teacher then wanted to give him a detention for this just proved to me that the school wasn't committed to supporting him and GCSE's were going to be a total waste of time. I took him out and he will now be starting a GCSE college course where I can work closely with the teachers to make sure he gets the marks he deserves.
The important thing to remember is that you're not alone! The best thing about the internet and social media is that it's so much easier to get the information you need and chat to like minded people.
