We are at the end of week 2 of lockdown, but as we were in isolation for the week before, this is actually the end of week three for us. It has been hard – much harder than I anticipated, and not in the ways I expected.

Our teen has sensory processing issues, so food can be major stumbling block. Smells, tastes and textures are the main issues, so there is one preferred brand of cheese, limited vegetables, and most veggie stuff is a big no, so when lockdown happened, this was my biggest worry – how would he cope with not being able to pop to the local supermarket when something ran out? Actually, this part has been a breeze! He has been so good about trying new foods, about not keeping to our regular routine and has been so flexible. He is coming up with suggestions of meals to try knowing what is in our freezer, and so far, so good.

Even schooling wasn’t too bad last week. We set up a little pod for him at the top of the stairs with a small table and light, and each day when I got back from sorting out the animals, he was sitting there getting on with his work…..but then the novelty wore off, and he felt he couldn’t do this any more. I know what he means. The Sunday before the home schooling started, I cried. I cried because I didn’t want to be in this situation. We have considered home schooling for both of the boys, but in both cases decided no. With our teen, it was his decision. School had to be school, home had to be home, so we kept him at school. Now, though, the timing is bad. He finally has a tribe, he has friends, he has a social group. He comes out of school and tells me what this person has said, or that person has said. He has been in education for almost 12 years (if you include his time in nursery) and this is the first time this has happened, and now it’s lost.

He won’t call people, doesn’t go online, and is actually happy on his own. It is far too easy for him to isolate, to shut himself off. That part of lockdown isn’t a problem, but lockdown will end one day, hopefully not too far away, and then he has to go back. He has to leave his solitary bubble and go back and be a teenager, and that will be hard. The noise, the people, the conversations……..will it all be too much? Will it set him back? Or will he just carry on from where lockdown started and go back to his social behaviour?

Although being on his own isn’t a problem, home schooling has been this week. On Sunday he said that he couldn’t do this week. Every day was the same, and he just couldn’t do it. He had Monday off, and then I spoke to our wonderful Senco on Tuesday, and he has had a very low workload this week, with the idea that he will catch up over the Easter break. That has made a little bit of a difference, but this week has been hard. We have spent the last three nights on the sofa, he is struggling to get to sleep, because, as he told me last night, ‘If tomorrow is going to be the same as today, I don’t want to wake up to that so I don’t want to go to sleep’. We are in Groundhog day, I suppose. Anyway, to solve this, today we are baking, and then having a bonfire in the garden (teen and fire is a worrying but happy combination), so I am hoping that will make today a little better. We have decided that each evening we will choose two things that we are going to do the next day, so there is the motivation to go to sleep. It definitely worked last night as he (& so me) was asleep before midnight.

The priority for me for the next couple of weeks is his mental health and well being. School work will wait, mental health and well being will not. Usually in this situation, I would take him for a long walk in the Peaks, or to Sherwood Forest, but this isn’t an option, so we will do what we can in this strange, novel situation, and we will take one day at a time, and we will find our new normal, and hope it doesn’t last too long.