Strength

If there was a pill or an injection that you could take as a mother to help you cope with all the struggles and fights that you have to take on for your kids trust me I would for once be pushing in the queue to get mine before they ran out.

The last two weeks for me has meant constant emails to oldest daughters school due to her being bullied for which they yet again don’t seem capable of doing anything about. Then monday we had a CAF meeting where it became apparent that to try to get youngest help in the high school is going to be another battle because they seem incapable of giving dates so that meetings can take place to help with the transition.

This only leaves you wondering if you have made the right decision although there really isn’t another alternative because the school is the feeder school so they brainwash children into wanting to go there. This means for us with a child with Autism they refuse to go anywhere else.

I know nothing will be sorted out before christmas but you would at least like to know that the ball is rolling and that they are going to do all they can for your child.

As for my eldest well still the bullying continues add this to the fact that the head of year who is also one of her teachers always seems to be excluding her from things, really to not have her exercise book once is a mistake as its nearly every lesson what does that make it, oh and who do I have to report the bullying to yes you have guessed it her head of year.

Add this to the news yesterday that I got told that youngest daughter may need to have her jaw broken and reset in the right permission along with two teeth out or she could have braces and two teeth out, the first brace will force her jaw in the right place and after that has worked then she will need to have another brace which will force her teeth round. Would anyone care to explain this to a child with autism who has to have the same clothes and the right fitting who it took 10 years to wear her glasses and still that’s not all the time.

So the present I want most this year is strength to take on all the battles that are due to be coming my way.

 

All Change

Two Weeks ago a letter appeared on the doormat its one of those letters you just dread come.

It’s the one that says ‘your daughter needs to go to high school and you need to choose one for her’.

I mean lets just be honest this is not going to be easy mainly because non of the options are going to be suitable for her because she hasn’t got that all important statement. The piece of paper that means that schools need to do things to help your child, this is different from the piece of paper that says the school could do something if they want to but really no one is bothered whether or not they do.

So we went to a high school open evening in the hopes that it would exceed the expectations, (i would like to point out that her sister goes there, but there’s always a hope). The fun started youngest had an internal meltdown, we had to avoid all the other groups because they were to big and crowded for her. We had to go and bother her sister for her to cling on. (this is unusual in itself but i think it was just too much for her). Asked by a H.E. teacher if she would like to see how they make hedgehog bread, youngest said ‘No’, woman replied yes you would and the reply came back ‘No i wouldn’t’. As you can tell it wasn’t quite going as planned and then the head of science was rude to us, something that i am really not impressed with.

It’s not going to be easy but we have until the 29th October to choose a education establishment for youngest where we will yet again struggle to get help for her autism,dyslexia and hemiplegia and thats just the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks where Thanks is due

Yesterday’s school run was amazing, out of school came this child who looked like youngest daughter, sounded like youngest daughter and was wearing youngest daughter’s coat, but could it really be her because there was this thing on her face. I think they call it a smile. Yes that did really say a smile. It was so lovely to see especially after the last couple of weeks.

I drove this smiling,happy, cheerful child home and another strange thing  happened she said she had a good day at school. I don’t know when the last time was that I heard that, I think she may have been in Nursery. (she’s now in middle school).

The reason behind this huge smile was that the Head of English had taken her out of class sat her down and listened to her, without interrupting to find out why one of the main anxieties that she has is English. This was amazing, a teacher who was actually interested in what youngest had to say and was willing to do anything she could to help youngest to re-engage with her English teacher.

I am also happy to report that after speaking to this teacher on the phone. Which was after her chat with youngest she reported that youngest had reiterated what she had said to me were her worries about the subject,teacher, etc, and not left anything out. It was just a miracle. I am so proud. The teacher also told youngest that if there were any other problems that she was not sure of she was to talk to her it didn’t matter how silly or little it was.

An action plan was put into place where youngest will be informed as to the topics that are going to be covered the following week, she won’t be expected to stand up and read in class unless she feels comfortable enough and her english book was gone through with youngest and all the positive comments pointed out to her.

This further reinforces my view that it is not rocket science the small things can make such a difference to our lives.

So this morning I took an unprecedented step and I sent the headteacher another email but this time it was one to say that I wanted the Head of English to be thanked on our behalf as she has made youngest happy about going to school this morning.

This only reiterates that all youngest needs is for someone to listen to her and to understand her concerns and to see if together they can work them out.

So this blog is dedicated to the Head of English, Thank you for making the last 24 hours a happy one for my youngest and here’s hoping that many can follow your example.

 

support

There are many things that a parent with Autism needs. Understanding of what things are like and support in many ways are just two of the things i need.
there have been many occasions when dealing with professionals regarding my youngest that i wonder where the common sense is not to mention the support that is required. The thing i hate the most is the way that they always seem to be covering themselves when ever things go wrong or they haven’t done anything. Now this really annoys me why not turn round and put your hands up and say i’m sorry this did happen and it wasn’t suppose to.
An example should you really need one has happened where my daughters fringe seems to be the criminal two weeks ago a support assistant, who is not assigned to my daughter, everyday mentioned the fringe and how she was going to cut it off because it was getting in her eyes. After four days of this youngest ended up being upset so much that she had a bad nights sleep anyway she wanted to wait and see if she mentioned it again before i informed the school. the following week youngest felt that she like her fringe because she was nice about it. then yesterday this woman mentioned the scissors coming out again. As i don’t have autism i can see that this woman did not mean anything by it but it had upset my daughter and the way her autism is anything that happens in school needs to be dealt with in school so i sent them an email last night. I have come to writing emails because they did have a tendancy to deny all knowledge of events when i phoned them up. Anyway in my email i wrote about the event that sparked this event and yesterdays event and i missed out last weeks event, i also wrote that i was aware that no harm was meant but unfortunatly this was not how youngest felt. This morning i received my reply she has said that it was only mentioned twice one last week and yesterday and it was out of concern for youngest. What has annoyed me is that the email that i received is very defensive which was unwarrented, this leads me to wonder why!
I don’t seem to be able to get the support from the school in what i am trying to do and emails that the one i received this morning only reiterates this.
I am now at a loss as to what to do, i am tired of banging my head against a brick wall. Does anyone out there have any suggestions because i’m exhausted with it all?