This isn’t for parents of skware peg teens, this is for parents of all teens. Conversations over the last few weeks have made me realise the need for this – we’ve been through it and out the other side with one of our boys, and this would have made our lives a little easier, I think, so I am sharing my wisdom. Please share with parents of teens & pre-teens!

1. All teenagers lie, or, looking at it, they don’t always tell the truth.
2. They don’t necessarily see it as lying, but instead their opinion of their reality.
3. If they do know it’s lying, they probably don’t think of it as wrong, after all, they’re just sparing themselves from being told off, or saving you from knowing the truth!
4. There is a fine line between secrets and privacy, and as a parent you need to make sure they have privacy but not secrets.
5. They know much more about sex than you think they do – and they think about it a lot more too!
6. Same goes for alcohol
7. And drugs
8. Talk to them about sex, porn, consent, saying no, saying yes, alcohol, drugs & anything else you can think of BEFORE it might become an issue.  We had a conversation when both boys were about 12. They thought it was revolting, we felt a little embarrassed but we had the conversation anyway.
9. There should be no taboo subjects.  If they want to ask you about ANYTHING to do with their body, other people’s bodies, kissing, sex, what this means or that means, answer it. Don’t tell them they don’t need to know. If they have asked you, they do need to know.
10. Don’t judge. Their brains are going through re-wiring. They need to take risks, do stupid things, form their own opinions. Question, challenge and give your opinion, but do not judge.
11. See no. 10 for friends & possible girl/boyfriends. They need to make mistakes and learn from them.
12. Listen to the small stuff. It might seem stupid and trivial that he was holding hands with her today, or that s/he couldn’t sit with them at lunch, but to them it’s the big stuff, and if you don’t listen to it now, don’t expect them to talk to you in a year or two when it really is the big stuff.
13. Tell them that you will love them unconditionally whatever they may do. Tell them they can tell you anything. Let them know that if their teenage brain leads them into a dodgy situation, you may be shocked, you may be cross, you may over-react, but you will still love them and you will help them sort out the mess they find themselves in.
14. Put down your phone and talk to them. Watch the films they like. Play the games they like (or at least have an idea of what Fortnight, Pokemon, COD et al are all about). Listen to the music they like, be that Taylor Swift, sweary rap or whatever. Get to know them, and what’s going on in their life.
15. There will be hard times. There will be times when you feel like you have lost them forever. You will weep for the baby you had as you look at this almost adult in front of you who you really don’t know (and possibly don’t like). You will get through them.
16. You will listen to people telling you that you will get through the hard times and you won’t believe them, and then 5 years later you find yourself writing a blog telling other people the same thing, because you really will! Hold onto this thought as it will guide you through the storm
17. They will hate you and even though you love them with all your heart, at times you will hate them too – mostly because you do love them with all your heart.
18. They will smell – either of sweat, body spray or deodorant. I’m not sure which is worse, and sometimes it will be a combination of all three.
19. Tell them that you will always be there for them, even at midnight in the winter when they have had too much to drink and have missed their lift home. Go and pick them up, even if you have music they hate playing very loudly all the way home, and then get up early the next morning and make lots and lots of noise. Pick them up and make sure they are safe.
20. Enjoy the highs, be brave through the lows, and one day you will realise the storm has passed, and you have this amazing adult standing next to you who still makes your heart swell with pride and joy!

Another rollercoaster month of exam prep, exams, business start up, 1 am meltdowns (followed by projectile vomiting), exam results and letters from camhs……

The school our youngest attends & our eldest used to attend has twice yearly exam/assessment weeks (call them what you will, the kids see them as exams). Personally, I think this is a great idea – I went to a primary & then secondary school were twice yearly exams were the norm, and exams have never phased me.  We put no pressure on them at all about results – our eldest failed many exams, and the world still turned, and he is now running two businesses (more on that later), so although I think taking exams is a good idea, I also think they show how much you understand, but also how much you can remember on the day and regurgitate onto a piece of paper. Our youngest, however, puts an inordinate amount of pressure on himself to do well in the subjects he’s good at, so the week and the weekend before exam week we were trying to keep him calm, but still encouraging him to revise.  The night before exam week, he went to bed OK, not overly happy, but ok. I woke up just before 1 am as his sighing woke me up.  I went into his room and he was sat on the edge of his bed fighting back tears as the head ache had started.  I did everything I could to calm him down, but once the head ache is there, it’s normally down hill to the vomiting and then sleep, and it was.  It was 1.75 hours of shutdown/meltdown and then he projectile vomited all over the bathroom floor while I mad crazy promises to stop him sitting the French exam with everyone else, and then he finally settled around 3 am and slept, while I laid on his floor worrying about middle of the night promises I wasn’t sure I could keep.

It has to be said, school were fantastic, and he didn’t have to sit his exam with everyone else, but the week was stressful for us all.  Trouble is, he takes after me, and the results can be as stressful as the exams.  Overall, his marks are fantastic. We had to share his disappointment at being one mark off one grade higher than his target (one mark off, oh no, you must be so fed up!), and share his elation at grades higher than even he had imagined!

However, these high grades ‘despite’ his dyslexia, anxieties & ASD traits make my battle for recognition of his daily trials and tribulations even harder. He has told me this week that ‘I work twice as hard as some of them, but I don’t think the teachers realise that. I am working hard to do the work, to ignore the background noise, to concentrate, to not have meltdowns, to not rush to the nurse’s room. I work hard all the time just to be there, and they don’t realise’. I think he’s right.

The NHS is strapped for cash, I understand and accept that, but there have been serious cuts to mental health provision.  I assume this is part of the reason why CAMHS has said they can’t take us back at the moment. The letter floored me, and sent me into a severe negative spiral – so much so that our eldest phone my husband to say he was really worried about me and thought I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  I wasn’t, but I was definitely circling.  We have a plan, though. We have seen the GP who has referred us to children’s outpatients, so we wait again, but we have also found a psychologist who will do private assessments following NHS guidelines, if we can’ get the help we need on the NHS. I do get that if there are limited funds you need to prioritise, but part of the reason he isn’t high risk is because we work so hard to make sure he doesn’t get that bad (and I know this weekend is going to be a tough weekend). We’ve said that he’s like a swan gliding along, seemingly graceful and effortless, but beneath the surface his legs are peddling like mad to make sure he keeps going in the right direction.

Back to riding the rollercoaster, though, and our eldest has proved my wrong by setting up two businesses, one coaching kids and one selling gym clothing (both of which are to fill gaps in the market. If you’re interested you can look here or here). They’re not making much money, yet, but he’s found his niche. 5 years after GCSEs, explosive meltdowns and finally getting an ADHD diagnosis, he has found something that he enjoys, and should make a decent living from. Although the ADHD ‘itch’ might kick in in a couple of years and he will look for something else to do, but I am so proud of his courage in following his dreams and finding something to make his soul sing!

 

 

 

This isn’t a poor me blog – far from it.  I have made choices that were right for my children and for us, and given my time again, I would make the same decisions (more or less, anyway). It’s a blog to explain how it is for us, and how it might be for you too.

It occurred to me a few weeks ago, that I hadn’t had any time in the house, on my own, since our eldest was born almost 22 years ago. In that time I have been with at least one of the them, but never on my own until the beginning of March; 21.5 years with someone in the house with me.  In addition, we have been married for 23 years this year and our last night away, just the two of us, without the kids was 15 years ago, the year before our youngest was born.  I’ve been away without any of them once to a conference for work.  My OH has been away lots & lots but most of that (over 99%) has been for work too.  That’s because we can’t both be away – or at least, I can’t be away.  If I went away when they were younger I would come home to meltdowns and stress (on that one occasion I came back to anger and disappointment from our eldest, who didn’t talk to me for 2 days), so I chose not to go away.

Me being unable to stay away on my own, or being unable to stay somewhere strange with our youngest meant I was unable to go to girls’ nights, and it seems that after you turn something down a few times, people forget to invite you, so you sit at home watching social media posts of people having fun.  I wasn’t jealous at all, I didn’t even feel bothered about not going. I was very bothered, however, about not being invited anymore.  Being a parent of children with additional needs had made me become invisible.

A month ago, our youngest went on a rugby tour, and our oldest and my husband went as coaches.  He managed two nights away from home without a major meltdown, and I managed two nights at home without them (with lots of marking, old episodes of Greys Anatomy and strong coffee). However, my husband was on meltdown watch, and he agrees that it can feel isolating.  They had lots of fun, had the run of the bunk house when everyone was off watching a rugby match, but in the evenings, they spent time just the two of them as being in a crowd was a bit too much, and they weren’t with everyone else, and they were conscious that they weren’t with everyone else.

We don’t go out very much because it’s just easier to have a takeaway and a glass of wine at home.  We don’t book nights away because it’s easier not to have to manage melt downs or spend out time making sure we have phone signal.

It’s not all about our youngest either – we have missed 40th birthday parties, come back early from nights out and cancelled meeting ups because life got in the way of plans. This is what happens when you parent skware pegs – you lead a skware peg life.

The positive, flip side is that this works for us.  We haven’t missed, because we have done other things instead.  We are a happy, close family unit, and our sometimes isolated life works, because we all want it to work.  We don’t need pity, or advice, or suggestions of how to do things differently, because this works.  What we do need is a little bit of understanding, and I am sure there are plenty of parents out there who need the same.  If we keep turning down your offers of nights out, keep asking us.  We need to be invited, even if we can’t say yes.  If you’re planning a really big night out, remember us, and invite us.  It’s not just our children who can feel left out (see here), we can too.   And if you know another family who parent Skware Pegs – invite them too!

He’s never been particularly social, our youngest.  I used to encourage (?push?) him to have play dates & friends round for tea when he was younger, and on several occasions I found him hiding from said friends in the bath.  He didn’t mind parties when he was in infants as they were normally at soft play areas, and he could just run around. As they got older, though, and the parties became a little more organised, I used to find invitations screwed up in his blazer, at the bottom of his bag, or they would just disappear.  I thought he wasn’t being invited, when actually he didn’t want to go.

He still isn’t keen on people coming to our house, or on going to other people’s houses. He likes mixing with friends when he wants to, but he likes his own company more.  He has increased his social circle at secondary school but it is still hard for him to let people in, and he has a core 4 or 5 friends who he is happy with.  Because he won’t go to sleep overs, and because he won’t have sleepovers here, I was beginning to worry that he is missing out on opportunities to get more friends and do more ‘normal’ stuff. He doesn’t play online games, so he misses out on interactions there as most of his peers’ parents complain that their kids are never off their XBox/PlayStation or whatever.

Until now, none of this has bothered him, but this evening I have had a glimpse of the frustration that he is having at the moment.  He is on the outside looking in at everyone being social and doing stuff together and I think he wants to want to get a bit closer. There have been a couple of get togethers recently that either he wasn’t invited to, or didn’t ask to go to, and the few words we’ve had on the way home makes me think that he is feeling left out a bit.  I don’t blame his peers for not inviting him at all – there are only so many times people will ask you to go before they almost forget to invite you. I’ve been there, turning down invite after invite because of babysitting issues and then you don’t get invited anymore and other people’s social lives go on without you, but I’m not sure how to help him go from the outside to the inside.

It’s days like these that really highlight how hard it must be for him – so close to being mainstream and ‘normal’, and yet so very far away.

After three weeks off, the holidays have (almost) ended, and for us, school is back tomorrow. This means the pre-return blues started 3 days ago, with a conversation that went something like:

Him: Sigh

Me: What’s the matter?

H: It’s Friday

M: I know

H: No, Mum, it’s that Friday.

M: Yes, I know. I knew what you were talking about.

H: But it’s come so quickly. It’s here already

M: I know, but this is the last term til the long summer holiday

H: Sigh

And that’s pretty much how our weekend has gone, with us trying to pry him from his screen and YouTube videos he loses himself in. I’m not going to have a big discussion about the pros and cons of YouTube and screen time here, but we monitor what he watches, and because of his dyslexia, he can’t lose himself in a book like I did when I was his age. Some of the videos are utter rubbish, some are very informative and educational, pretty much like the books I used to (& still) read.  He feels calm & relaxed when he’s on his own in his bubble, but if he stays there too long, it’s hard for him to rejoin the real world. If we drag him away from the screen and go outside, we need to take him out for long enough that he feels energised and happier, but not quite so long he feels stressed and over-socialed.

Last night was horrendous, he just couldn’t stop his mind whirring, even we we tried to use all the techniques he had learnt in CBT. Today, so far, is going better than I thought.  We have made fudge, I’ve dragged him to the local farm shop & then supermarket to choose lunch & dinner (harder to shrug your shoulders and say ‘I don’t know’ when there’s food in front of you), and he’s walking the dog with me later.  Right now, I can hear him in his room, he’s in his bubble and he’s fine – the problems come when he has to leave that bubble.

In an ideal world, he’s told me he’d like me to home educate him in the summer when there’s no rugby at school, and send him to school for the other two terms – in reality, I think what he’d really like is just to be schooled for two terms!  Joking aside, home schooling is a genuine option for us.  I’ve thought about it long and hard for both of the boys, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s maybe where we end up, but he loves sport (well, rugby!), and he isn’t very good at dealing with people.  If he leaves school and doesn’t have to learn how to deal with people now, what happens when he goes to work?

A more important factor in our decision is that he doesn’t want to be home schooled – school is at school, and home is at home, and the two should be separate.  Which means I need to pack the sports kit, find the missing sock, check he has done the homework that was set (although as a parent and a teacher, I believe holidays should be holidays, so we don’t do any extra), and make sure he is as calm and as settled as possible before he goes to bed tonight.  Then I need everything crossed that we get there OK tomorrow, and the day is much better than he is currently catastrophising it might be.

At our youngest’s request we were back the GP yesterday to see if we could have another ASD assessment. He made a list of the things that he feels warrants a referral back to CAMHS, and we did the same. Sometimes the things you live with every day become so normal you don’t realise how abnormal they are until you write them down. It was quite emotional and upsetting to write such a comprehensive list of how his ‘quirks’ affect our day to day lives, and yet compared to so many, we have very few problems.

Don’t get me wrong, as I have typed so many times before, we are blessed with two amazing children and they make our lives so much more fulfilling and fun than anyone could imagine, but they do have additional needs, and as our youngest ventures further into puberty, he is becoming more and more aware of his differences, and this, in turn, adds to his difficulties interacting with some of his peers and coping with the wider world. When we had a deep heart to heart a few weeks ago (when he asked me if I had already booked a GP appointment, but I hadn’t) he told me he wanted a diagnosis so he could tell people he had high functioning autism (HFA) and therefore a superior brain.  I love the fact that that’s the way he sees it, but don’t think the ones who pick on him will necessarily like that comment……

So, we saw the GP, we gave her our lists, I did most of the talking and she agreed that we need to be referred back to CAMHS, without any of the battling or arguing our case I was expecting.  This is exactly what we were wanting, but a part of me wanted her to tell me I was being an over-protective parent & if I did x, y & z he would suddenly become a social animal with no anxieties……that made yesterday a tough day.  For any parent, some days are amazing, most are ok and some are tough, often for no reason.  Some days we think are going to be horrendous are actually easy and fun, and others we think are going to be a breeze aren’t. Yesterday was just tough – no particular reason except we’re back in the CAMHS system, again, and I’m tired at the thought of going through it all, again.

However, a good night’s sleep makes all the difference, and today has been much better – he’s been at a friend’s for most of the day (although is now ready for home), and our amazing older youngling is having a weekend away in Austria. Flashback 5 years and I couldn’t have imagined this, a travelling, confident young adult. He still has wobbles, but he’s a skware peg in a rownd hole world, so the world will continue to make him wobble. As parents of skware pegs, we need to give them confident, solid foundations so that when the world wobbles them they keep standing, and if they fall, they brush themselves down and pick themselves back up.  If that means going back to CAMHS and getting the help they need with the foundations, then I’m ready, let’s go!

 

I think you can pretty much tell how our lives are going by how much I blog – when things are ticking along I don’t tend to feel the need to write furiously as things are coasting. When things are going amazingly well, or when things feel like we’re wading through treacle, I write (although I may try to start writing a weekly blog…..that’s my plan, but that’s been my plan since I started this 3+ years ago).

Anyway, I am writing today so we much be on an up or a down – and I think in some ways it’s both (hence the title).

We’ve had huge steps forward over the last few weeks – an overnight stay at a hotel with school (might not seem much for some, but it’s massive in this family), eloquent emails to teachers explaining how he feels & why he’s stressed, and another excellent report card. However, I feel this works against us in a way (not that I’d want the grades to drop), but his high marks give the impression that his stress and anxiety don’t impact his learning.  I firmly believe that if the stressors were reduced and the anxiety managed better, his grades could be even higher……but then I feel like I’m sounding like a pushy parent, which I really hope I’m not.  For our eldest, he now has a growing PT business and has found his place. He is happy. After his battle with depression at the end of 2017, this is fabulous. He is happy, driven and focused. He has a plan. He has a place. He’s himself.

But then we’ve had conversations this weekend about him being screened/tested for ASD again – and this time the conversations have been driven by him.  He wants to be screened, he wants a diagnosis, he want a label. Let me make this very clear – this is being driven by him, not us, not school, not family or friends.  I asked why, and he said he is feeling more and more different from most people. He has his group of friends, and he’s happy and relaxed with them, but he is becoming more conscious of how different he feels, and he wants a reason for this. He wants to be able to tell people why he is how he is – he also wants to be able to tell people he has high functioning autism and so a superior brain, but I’m not sure that’s going to help him feel more integrated!!!!

He’s also now worrying about rugby trials – new coaches, new team mates, new routines – and right now he’d rather not go than try. This is because there has been a month break between sessions, so he’s had a month to overthink how different it’s going to be, and now doesn’t want to go back.  This is fine with us, and we don’t mind, except the chance to go again won’t come for another year and I really think he’ll be cross with himself if he doesn’t give it a try. But I can’t make him go. We have a few hours to discuss……

Now it’s my turn, a paragraph of self pity & wallowing, but I need to get it out there. I understand that compared to some people we have it incredibly easy. We have two amazing boys, one with ADHD who is now building his own business, and has worked out how to ‘adult’ & adult well, and I am so proud of him, but he still needs reassurance at times, help with exams and, because of his dyslexia, he also needs help with forms and the like. We have another with ASD traits, clinical anxieties and dyslexia but who is clever enough to know that he is different to many, hence his request for a return trip to the GP. He is managing all the things that normally go on in his head, and now he has the added ‘burden’ of teenage hormones and feelings. Life is tough for him at the moment – as it is for many teens. If he had a physical injury we could contact the rugby team and say he was injured.  To say he’s having a bad week with his mental health issues should have the same weight, but if he was injured he could turn up on crutches (which is what was requested, even if they’re injured they should turn up anyway & learn). His mental health issues means that it’s the turning up that’s the issue.  So we do everything we can. We talk, we listen, we juggle work so that at 13 he’s not on his own at all in the holidays. And some days it feels like we’re doing really well, and others it feels like it’s never going to end. That there is no magic wand to make life easier for my boys.

However, enough of this melodramatic waffle, it is a rollercoaster, and just as we feel we are hitting rock bottom, we climb back up again.  It’s the Easter hols, the GP visit has been booked, the sun is shining, and I am going to pry him away from his electronics and take him out into the sunshine, because, despite what teenagers claim, sunshine isn’t bad for them!!

So, we’re now on the forth week of term, and I’ve just had to send my first email to school – think that might be a bit of a record since our youngest hit double figures 3 years ago. But, on the other hand, we’re not even at the end of January, and I’ve had to send another email in.  Whether the glass is half full or half empty, the glass is in my hand, and it’s definitely not full, and that’s not great.

It’s the usual problem. Our youngest is sensitive, hard working and a stickler for the rules.  If you have to be quiet in a lesson, he expects everyone to be quiet.  Teachers deserve respect, at least until they lose it from you by being a@*%s. You are at school to learn, so you behave in lessons & you learn. However, he is 13 in a class with other 13 year olds. Some are very similar to him, others are full of hormones & are pushing boundaries, challenging teachers & making a nuisance of themselves. Neither type of 13 year old is doing anything unexpected, neither type is doing anything particularly wrong, but neither type gets on well with the other.  If our eldest was in the same class as our youngest, they would hate each other and would moan about each other all the time.

At work, we still get the clowns & the jokers, and the ones who get on with work. We get the ones who follow the rules, the ones who make the rules & the ones who don’t give a damn about the rules. We also get the ones who aren’t aware there are any rules, and don’t really do much at all. We also get bullies and gossipers and the ones who stir up trouble at every opportunity. If there are too many of one type in our place of work, we have choices; we can move department, we can choose to ignore them, we can look for another job and leave.

At school, in years 7-11, it’s a weird cocktail of hormones, opinions, forming characters and boundary pushing. I can remember how horrid it could be at my all-girls school, and I can also remember how hard it can be to teach and control these years (and I’ve only really taught years 10+, those early puberty years have avoided me, so far). Even if our youngest changed schools, he would just meet another group of similar characters. If I home schooled (which he is adamant he doesn’t want), we would avoid this, but then when he goes to college or university and then to work, he will have had limited exposure to ‘difficult’ or ‘challenging’ personalities, and will have no idea how to deal with them.

So, right now I have had a lovely email back from the form teacher, agreeing with what I said, and we will have a meeting before half term to discuss strategies. But, to be honest, I am torn.  These kids who are disruptive are no worse than our eldest probably was, and they are behaving exactly as teens & pre-teens should. Our youngest is also behaving exactly as a teen should – he’s being true to himself, and is pushing his own boundaries in his own way.  What is the solution? Is there a way to keep everyone happy as they find their way through the teenage & puberty minefield? And when is enough enough? When does the angst of other’s behaviour become something that needs action? And what if the actions of our son (getting on with his work, doing well in exams, coping with his learning barriers and being quite anti-social at times) are upsetting one of the other students and making their behaviour worse because they have undiagnosed learning barriers or SENs? Or maybe they have issues at home that are bothering them?  Or they are just finding the changes that are going on their bodies too much to deal with, and so they lash out & cause problems to distract them from the real issues.

I have no idea what the answer is, but I know that we have only just entered this teenage storm – and from experience, I think it’s time to batten down the hatches and hold on tight!!

2017 was a tough year for us, in some ways. Our youngest ended up back a CAMHS with clinical anxiety, and our eldest was diagnosed with depression. In other ways, however, we had a very lucky & good year.  Both the boys were able to talk to us about their issues, and they let us help them to get help.

Mental health issues are huge, and in some ways it’s in the media so much (often with negative headlines from some ‘notable’ newspapers, I think you know which ones I mean) that we almost switch off. We read about another celebrity with depression, another headline about ‘happy pills’ (don’t get me started on that one), more statistics about underfunding in different areas of the NHS………and it almost becomes background noise. And this is so very, very wrong.

Let’s this into perspective. Mental health in men & women is getting worse, and the funds to deal with it are getting lower. There are many possible reasons for this, and a lot of it is to do with societal pressures to tick boxes in a society that is increasingly insular and solitary.  It doesn’t necessarily affect men more than women, but it has a greater effect on men, possibly because there is more stigma attached to it, possibly because there is more societal pressure to ‘man up’, ‘big boys don’t cry’ and ‘not to be a girl’ (GRRRR!!!!!). So, here’s a very frightening statistic for you. Male suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50. Bigger than any cancer, road accidents, motor neuron disease and anything else you can think of. Too many men feel that their pain is so great they cannot carry on.

This cannot carry on.

We need to think of mental health and well-being as, well, just part of health and well-being. I am so proud of the way my children are open & honest about their mental health. They talk about it in the same way they might talk about asthma, if they had it. No stigma, no shame, no boasting, just as part of them.

If you think someone needs to talk, start a conversation. If you haven’t heard from someone for a couple of days, call or text. If you need to talk, tell someone – even message me on here if you need to, just start the ball rolling. You are not alone, you matter, you are enough, you are worthy. Please don’t suffer in silence. Please don’t become another statistic.

xx