What a strange week it’s been. It certainly has been a roller coaster, with the highs of an award at Speech Day for our youngest, (plus an award recognising the commitment my husband has with his voluntary coaching he does week in, week out at school) and then the (?selfish) lows of Saturday night.

Saturday was the annual fund raising ball at school, where teachers and parents all let their hair down and have fun. We almost missed out on tickets, but managed to get 4, and I asked our youngest if he would be OK staying at my parents over night so that I could have a proper grown up night out (our eldest usually babysits, but he was coming too!). I wouldn’t drink, because I don’t tend to, and so would be there to have breakfast with him and then we could have a normal Sunday. Back in February he agreed, so I assumed it was all sorted, and started planning our Big Night Out.

Earlier last week, I checked that he was still OK with the arrangements. His face dropped, and it was clear he wasn’t. He was OK going, but didn’t want to stay over. I asked him to reconsider as it was a big deal, and I really wanted to stay out late. I thought it was all resolved, until Saturday afternoon when we chatted about packing his bag and I mentioned staying over. Tears, a shutdown and a change of plan was needed.

So, the new plan was that we went out (we did) and he would stay at my parents (which he did), but we would be home by midnight to pick him up. In return, he would keep it together, not meltdown or shutdown, and we would be able to stay out til then. All OK, compromise made, time to get ready and go.

I had an amazing time. The food was nice, good company, funny speeches, but it all went on a bit, so by the time we had to think about getting ready to leave, it was only just getting started. No dancing, no mixing, no real socialising, and on the way home, I got so cross and so upset. I wanted one night of not watching the clock or checking my phone. I wanted to leave when my feet hurt from dancing, or when everyone else was going. I didn’t want to be the first to leave. I wanted to be carefree, and instead I was conscious of the time. I want to be in some of the funny photos that are on social media, I wanted to do dodgy mum-dancing, make memories and laugh at the jokes we all shared. Instead, we left early, and were home soon after midnight.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I really let my hair down and threw caution to the wind. I can’t remember not worrying or phone checking. I can’t remember being completely spontaneous; I can’t remember being completely selfish and putting me at the centre of plans. That makes me sad.

On the flip side, though, I can discuss Einstein with one son, and the general election with the other. I can indulge in thoughts and conversations on time travel, music, and the benefits (or not) or spirulina and coconut flour.

I really so have an amazingly blessed life. There is so little for me to complain about, and I know that compared to many special needs parents, we have it so easy.  But sometimes it all gets a bit much, and it seems really hard. Sometimes it feels very controlled, and it feels that I sometimes forget who I am while I try to help my wonderful boys.

This isn’t asking for pity, by the way, far from it. I really do have an amazing life, and we are planning for exciting changes in the future. I honestly wouldn’t change anything as it all works, and, for the huge majority of the time, it is truly wonderful.

So, I am now going to crank the radio up, and do some very dodgy mum dancing round the kitchen – and I don’t care who knows!

 

Before I start this properly, this isn’t a ‘poor me’ post. I am not looking for sympathy, I’m just being very, very honest about the lows of parenting, and how some days can be lower than others.

As you know from my previous post, this week was about exams and CAMHS, and so was bound to be stressful for our youngest. What I failed to acknowledge was how stressful it was going to be for me. At the moment, while the rational part of my brain sees two amazing humans who have no desire to be round pegs, and embrace their skware-peginess (???) the irrational part of my brain is currently seeing that we have two children who have barriers to accessing education that has necessitated help from CAMHS. When I was pregnant with both of them, and I was making plans for their future, spending time at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services department of a hospital didn’t feature at all.  As I talked about in a previous blog (skwarepegrowndhole.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/17/), there is an huge amount of guilt at times when you are an SEN parent, and all those feelings are very close to the surface at the moment.

I am also trying to build and develop a new business venture at the moment, trying to fit everything I do around family, revision, trips to buy suits and everything else that has been normal in our family this week. I am putting extra pressure on myself, but it’s something I really want to do. I stopped working full time 21 years ago when I went on maternity leave, and although I have worked part time for the last 20.5 years, I have chosen not to apply for promotions or new jobs as the boys were my priority. However, they are now 12 & 20, and I am only in my 40s, so feel that this is my time to push what I want to do, and drive my ideas and dreams into reality.

Now you know the backdrop to this week, I need to admit & confess what happened last night. I came home from a day teaching to a full dishwasher, a sink full of pots and pans, dry washing waiting to go on in the washing machine, and (and this sounds so silly now), our eldest had eaten the wrong frozen fish, and had had a double portion for his lunch (and hadn’t washed the baking tray he’d cooked them in). Well, I released the inner banshee and I heard myself shouting, stamping and ticking every ‘bad parenting’ box I could manage. I calmed down, both boys were summoned, and all the washing up was done.

Fast forward an hour or so, and our eldest was back in the kitchen cooking himself tea. There were bits of cheese and stuff on the cooker, and my red mist descended again. He mumbled something under his breath, and, forget the banshee, some sort of demon from hell was released. I was horrid. I lost the plot completely. We’re still barely talking 18 hours later.  I was just feeling so frustrated, that I was drowning in a sea of mess, and that neither of them listened to me. Ever.

This morning I had to take our youngest to CAMHS for counselling for anxieties, feeling a huge amount of blame – of course our 12 year old has anxieties, his mother is a screaming banshee – mixed in with the SEN parent guilt.

The morning was actually really interesting, and his/our work to do at home is to look at feelings. One of these is looking at the ‘negative trap’, where you think of your most difficult situations and write what happens, how you feel and what you think about when you are in that situation. I thought about this on the way home from school, before writing this.

Last night, when I was faced with the mess and chaos, I was thinking: why can’t anyone else see the mess? I don’t have the time, but I really don’t want to stop what I’m doing; I can’t do this anymore; something has to give, and I don’t want it to be me anymore.

What I did: erupted, shouted, stamped my feet and bellowed

What I felt (and this is the interesting one, and I’m being really honest here): sad, let down, that I was drowning, scared that I would never have time to do my thing, guilty (no idea why, but guilt was there), disappointment in myself for not getting the boys to do this kind of thing already, undervalued, and very upset.

This week I am not winning at parenting. There is no kick-ass warrior parent writing this today, but that’s the point of this rambling post. Some days we win, some days we are so freaking amazing that the whole world seems to turn to give us a thumbs up, most days we coast along, doing our best, somehow, hoping no one notices how much we are winging it, and then sometimes we lose it, and we completely f&%k it up. When this happens (and let’s be honest, this does happen) we have to apologise for our words and actions, and then we have to reflect, learn, pull ourselves together (write a blog post) and then find our sparkle again, and carry on.

To my wonderful, passionate 20 year old, I am sorry I lost it last night. It wasn’t good parenting, and I know that. Mum xx

Last week was my exam week – 11 students took English exams at various levels. I know that 4 have passed already, but the other 7 have to have theirs externally marked, so I need to wait for those results, but I feel positive. They were ready, they were capable of passing, and I did everything I could before they went in to make them believe that they could. If you go into an exam thinking you will fail, you probably will. If you go in thinking you will pass, you are much more likely to.

So tomorrow marks the start of exam week for my youngest. Stress levels are high, but we will manage the stress. He probably hasn’t spent as much time revising as he should have done, as every time the books come out, the meltdowns appear on the periphery. On the other hand, we discuss what topics he’s doing at school all the time. I know what the curriculum has been this year for all his subjects apart from Spanish (I don’t speak Spanish, so that’s more or less down to him). I have helped him research the Norman Conquest, we have read maps together, we have discussed forces and energy, made atomical models and have dissected plants to look at stapels and stamens.  We have looked at Roman lives, watched documentaries on Pompeii (and have watched the Doctor Who episode The Fires of Pompeii many times with the excuse that it’s research and revision). We have also debated what or who ‘God’ is, and how much of a marketing tool The Bible was to early Christians (his ideas, not mine). We try to go that little bit extra with home work and research, and I make sure he understands everything as we go along, so all revision is for is fine tuning, checking spelling (as much as we can) and getting last minute details and facts logged.

I don’t mind what marks he gets, but he will. When he had a mini-meltdown that was almost a tantrum last week, I told him I was happy for him not to revise, but asked would he be happy with grades lower than he got last time. He shook his head and did some revision. I really mean that – Ds, Cs or As don’t matter. At 12, in year 7, all that matters is that he learns how to handle the stress of exams, and finds a way to cope. I am one of those strange people who would rather do exams than coursework. I perform well under pressure, and as long as I am prepared (and no obscure questions come up), I generally do well. I am sure this comes from doing school tests twice a year from being 7 (and that was at a large state school).

Thursday is also the first CAMHS counselling session – and that’s causing me more stress than the exams.  I have no idea what will be covered, what will be discussed or how he will react to it. I do know it will be around 10 sessions, 3-4 weeks apart, and I know that there will be homework. I know that, at least at the beginning, I will need to be in the room with him. Maybe it will help me too. Not long til I find out.

Right now, as I type, we are watching yet another episode of our latest box set marathon. Two series down, two to go. In between episodes, we are dog walking, having outdoor time and revising. I firmly believe that mental health is more important than grades. However, when the two are interlinked, and, to a certain extent, good grades are important for his mental health, it is a fine line we walk to ensure that both are attainable.

A year ago this week, my then 11 year old was about to go through one of the hardest weeks of his school life. Even though he has dyslexia and anxieties, he had to sit the KS2 SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) English papers, and the maths SATs tests. He was as prepared as he was going to be, and there was no pressure at all from home. We know from the experiences of his big brother that exam results aren’t everything, and even not so good results can actually lead to better than good situations. So, off he went with a heavy heart, and my day (and my week) was spent trawling social media for hints of how good or bad the tests had been.

Social media was full of horror stories of how the top students had ended up in tears as the test was so hard, that the reading age of the comprehension was higher than expected, and that there were ambiguous grammar questions that could have more than one answer. My heart dropped each day, and each day I waited at the school gates with a smile, a hug and something sweet to each (for each of us).

His results were, actually, really good, above benchmark in everything apart from spelling. In a strange way, I think his SEN and barriers helped; he went into the exams with no expectations except that this was going to be the week from hell. He thought they were going to be hard, and they were. He thought that there would be words he had no hope of spelling, and there were. He thought that the reading was going to be ridiculous, and it was. Therefore he was not shocked or stunned when he opened the paper. He just knuckled down and got on with it, got through it, and did very well.

Facebook memories, and posts by friends, informed me this morning that it was SATs week again. I don’t know how much the tests have changed since last year, and I don’t know if the science SATs have been introduced, as we are now Y7 parents, and I teach year 12+.

Facebook and social media posts, and walking through the corridors at work this morning also informed me that this week is Mental Health Awareness week.

If it hasn’t clicked, let me make the ironic connection obvious.

SATs and Mental Health Awareness are the same week.

At a time when mental health is decreasing in school age children, and when there is an increase in primary school children who are being treated for depression, anxiety and other mental health issues, when agencies such as CAMHS is incredibly overstretched and underfunded, we need to take a moment and take stock of what we are doing to the younger members of society.

We make them go to school 5 days a week, 37(ish) weeks a year. From 5 they have some form of testing. At 7, where if they were in Finland they would still be learning through play (see yesterday’s post for more info),  they have government tests. At 11 they have tests that many adults (and many teachers if they are honest) would struggle to pass, and then they go off to secondary school where they now face a new grading system in line with the new GCSEs, and as the schools are under more pressure to hit the benchmarks, so are the children.

In my opinion, more testing does not make a better education system. More homework does not make a better education system. More pressure does not make a better education system. Making teachers work more and more hours ticking boxes and preparing for more tests, does not make a better education system.

All these do is increase the stress in our schools, and increase mental health issues in children, young adults and teachers (who are leaving the profession at an alarming rate).

A further irony within this subject, is that I have booked my students onto tests this week – 4 took them this morning, another 3 will take tests tomorrow, and 4 on Wednesday. The difference is that I haven’t put pressure on them, and I have waited until they were ready before I booked the test. And I have said to all of them that if they don’t pass, in the big scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter.

My priority this week is going to be mental health – my children’s, my students and my own. Mental health is far, far more important than grades, and that’s what I’m going to focus on.

 

School has been back for 2 weeks now, and things are, more or less, settling down. The pre-term anxieties were high, but not as bad as Christmas, and although I have had to face pouts and sighs most mornings, he’s gone in ok, and come home almost happy!  The only real difference is that there has been very little formal homework set, so far, as there are school tests in a week so most of the homework has been revision (which has consisted of chatting about 1 topic within 1 subject most, but not all, evenings – not enough so far). This has meant that school has been about school, and home has been about home. This has meant there is a clear divide between the two, which has reduced the stress and anxieties.

So, where do we go from here, and what do we do once the tests are done, marked and homework is back on the agenda? And how can I/we put things in place now so that the increase of homework over the next 4 years doesn’t result in an increase in stress for us all?

When our eldest was writing his uni assignments, one was on comparative education, and he compared the UK system to the Finnish system.  Proof-reading his assignment for him was so interesting, and led me to read some of his research too.  In Finland, they don’t start formal lessons until the children are 7. There is funded childcare available for younger children, and most children are at school from 5, but between 5 & 7 they learn through play, rather than being made to sit and learn spellings and maths and things that most 6 year olds will learn through conversation and play anyway (and probably better through play).

The schools run from 7 through to 16, so there is no change of school at 11 where they have to change peer groups and make new friends just as they are on the cusp of pupating through their teenage years before emerging as adult butterflies (and I really believe that this happens, metaphorically, that’s a subject for another blog). They have the same teachers and familiarity throughout, and although there are skware pegs in Finnish education, the lessons are student orientated, and if a student can’t learn a certain way, the teacher will change the way they teach or ask colleagues for advice to ensure that the children do learn. Most importantly, as far as this blog is concerned, they are set very little homework, and have very few in school tests.  Homework tends to be project based, or similar, and there is a culture in Finland that the parents will help, either by reading or being with the child while they complete the work.

All this must be working as Finland are consistently in the top 10 countries in the world for education and attainment, and 93% of students leave formal education with the equivalent of a level 3 qualification (A-level or BTEC National).

I don’t often set homework as the students don’t want to do it (and I really don’t want to mark 20 pieces of apathetic, can’t be bothered work either, if I’m completely honest). The homework I do set is things like ‘Read anything and everything, from instructions to menus to newspapers to novels. Fill your heads with words, and criticise what you read.’  That has meaning, it’s easy to do, and it really does help with the subjects I teach!

I’m still not sure what I need to do – any suggestions are welcome – but I think I may trust my instinct, maybe stamp my feet a little, and see if we can have the final term more or less homework free.  I will post updates, watch this space…..

We are 2/3 of the way through the Easter break. As requested, we haven’t done that much as he needed down time and doing nothing time. We have pottered, gardened, cooked, baked, planted lavender, seen a couple of friends, spent time outside, spent time inside and seen family. He has had more than enough screen time, but not too much screen time. We’ve tried to get a balance.

But now the dark clouds are circling. There is only a week left of the holiday. There is only another week before he has to put up with people, noise, lessons, cricket (no rugby this term, which is a big cause of anxiety) and food he doesn’t really like. There are 5 whole weeks til half term (a rather short term in teaching terms, which I am very grateful for), but the thought of 5 weeks of school before a week off is rather overwhelming to an anxious 12 year old.

We had a chat in bed last night (ours, not his) when the dark clouds were far too close for sleep. I asked him if, on the whole, there were more OK days than not OK days at school. He answered yes. Were there more good or OK bits in most days than not OK bits? Again, yes. So, I ventured, that means that if school was like test marks, it would pass. It would actually do OK, probably over 75% OK? He agreed. But, the thing is, it could be 95% OK and the 5% of not OK would bring him down. That’s the problem with anxieties, worries or dark moments. You can have so much good time, you can have hours of smiles or laughter but your over-riding memory can be of the moments of darkness and anxiety. Some times the dark clouds reach through the laughter and grab you just when you feel you should be happy. There is no logic, or sense of rhythm with anxieties. Obviously there are triggers, but there are also unexpected moments of fear and of drowning. Just because it was OK yesterday doesn’t guarantee it’ll be OK today – but just because you couldn’t face a coffee with friends yesterday doesn’t mean you won’t be able to face it today.

As a parent of an anxious child, that unpredictability makes helping them cope (and helping us cope) much harder. If he had an allergy, we would avoid said allergen. If he had a phobia of something, even something unusual such as water or grass, we could work round that and avoid the trigger. But anxieties haven’t read the rule book. They don’t follow a pattern. They don’t make any sense whether you are the parent or partner of someone who is anxious, or if you are the anxious person.

So, today we got out of the house and went for a walk. We were outside, there were people (but not too many), and we climbed and explored and looked. We had a (quick) drink in the cafe and a (quick) look round the gift shop before heading home, and it was a nice, safe morning out. At the moment the dark clouds are only in the distance and I would say we had hazy sunshine overhead at the moment, which is great.

I have no doubt the darker clouds will gather close to bed time, when the busyness quietens and the anxious thoughts have a chance to be heard again, but we will have more conversations (probably in our bed again), and we will do what we do every time. We will listen, we will acknowledge and we will do our best to shine a light in the dark, and allow sunnier dreams to banish the clouds for a little while.

Four years ago we were in the grips of GCSE angst, and it wasn’t a good time. Various factors were having an influence on our eldest, and the pressure of GCSEs made it all so much worse. They were dark days, and ones I would not want to go back to. However, we came out the other side wiser, stronger and a tighter family unit. We weathered the storm, and were possibly better for going through it.

I now have several friends whose children are in Y11 or Y13, and some have children in both (to those of you who are 35+, that’s fifth form and upper sixth in old money).  The stress and pressure these adolescents are under is immense. The schools want them to do well so they can go on to bigger and better things, and I’m sure they also want them to do well as the GCSE and A-level results will, in time, be published and will make or break the school in these days of league tables and special measures.

GCSE results will be the marker for A-levels, BTECs, apprenticeships and training programmes. In an ideal world, every student will get the ‘magic 5’ at C or above, including maths and English, and then they can go on to whatever course they want to. Obviously, some do, some don’t.

A-level & BTEC results will be the marker for universities, higher apprenticeships, training and employment. Competition for more popular courses means AAA isn’t an uncommon requirement for universities – and I’m sure it wasn’t like that in the (very) early ’90s when I was applying.

This means that at the moment in bedrooms, studies, libraries and at kitchen tables all over the country, young adults who should be full of energy, enthusiasm and joie de vivre will be staring at text books, making notes, highlighting important points and planning their planning. Those on BTECs may trying to get the much needed distinction in their final assignment (or assignments), and they will also be staring at text books and notes with a computer in front of them, desperately trying to stay off social media (and probably failing!).

They will be feeling that their whole future will be won or lost on results day.  Their whole life will be decided on a Thursday in August. Nothing else matters apart from those letters or numbers assigned to them. Everything has led to this moment. Everything after depends on this moment. It really is do or die.

No wonder so many are stressed, panicking and suffering burn out.

You see, it really isn’t do or die. It really doesn’t matter very much. In the big scheme of things, it means absolutely nothing. How you handle what happens in August matters, how you manage between now and then kind of matters. But that little slip of paper? Nah, that doesn’t really matter at all.

I did badly in my A-levels. I had already decided I didn’t want to go straight to uni, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do instead. So I am so glad I didn’t do well. It gave me a chance to stop, to think and decide what I really wanted to do. It took me 8 years to find that out, but when I finally went to uni, I went to study, to use my brain and to learn. I did really, really well in a subject (biology) I wasn’t even allowed to take at school as they didn’t think I would get a good mark.

I know someone else who did very badly in their GCSEs, resits and AS levels. Instead of wallowing, they spent a year getting loads of life experience, and are now about to complete their first year of a BA (Hons) degree (that you’re supposed to have CCC at A level rather than 4 GCSEs, life experience and a bucket full of charm and charisma).

So, back to those GCSE and A level students. At a time when, physiologically and psychologically they should be out taking risks, using up energy, finding out who they are and what they’re about, when they should be smiling, laughing, playing and being free, society dictates that they need to sit still in exam rooms and regurgitate everything they have been taught for the last 10 years or so. They need to know facts that they may never, ever use again. They need to tick enough boxes, that in August they get the right grades to carry on ticking boxes. And they, inevitably, get stressed, anxious and worried, which will affect them all in different ways. Some will be fine, others definitely won’t. Some may travel through the darkest days you can imagine, pulling their family along with them. And, as a society, we see this as normal????

Well, it’s not. And it doesn’t matter. Things will work out how they are supposed to work out. Whatever questions are written on the exam papers, whatever marks and grades are on the results papers in August I can promise you one thing. The sun will rise, the sun will set, the earth will keep spinning and life will carry on. Sometimes AAA is the best thing that will ever happen to you, but sometimes DDE is even better.

This was actually written on Saturday night, but due to Wifi connections and forgotten passwords, I’m posting now, 2 days later. An update is that we had a great Sunday morning training with Wasps and meeting a Scottish International, and everything is back to normal (or as normal as our lives ever get!). Maybe that’s part of the problem, in a bizarre way, that everything is completely fine until it’s not. If CAMHS (or whoever) finds us on a good day, then there’s nothing to see. Anyway, the post…..

I am writing this from our hotel room in Coventry with our son while everyone else on the rugby tour is at the pub eating dinner. Right now, I don’t know whether to cry, shout or hide in the bathroom, so I decided it was much more productive and cathartic to write.

We’ve had a fab day, and he’s done really well. He went to the rugby club to pick up his tour hoody & get pre-tour photos. We stopped en route to meet up with everyone else, and then he played the match,  had post match food & went on a mini-tour of the Wasps training facility. We came back to the hotel and he was ok. We were due to have an hour of down time after training, but things ran over so it was a quick change and out of the door.

We walked to the restaurant, and he seemed fine, but quiet. We got inside the restaurant and found our table and he crumbled. His face dropped, he was fighting back tears and the stress headache appeared. I offered eating outside, going for a walk or sitting somewhere else, and that was all too little too late. The silent meltdown had begun, and he needed to get out of there.

So now I’m in a stuffy hotel room with Ant and Dec on TV and no wifi. He’s calmer, and is zoning out. The headache as decreased and he’s ok. Disaster averted.

However, following on from my last post, this isn’t good enough. This isn’t just anxieties. This has made my mind up. He might need the counselling/therapy that CAMHS has offered, but we also need a diagnosis. We need people to listen. We need an acknowledgement of what he goes through every single day. So, our journey to a second opinion starts now.

Our Easter holidays have started (well, they are on holiday, I don’t finish ’til tomorrow afternoon) and not a moment too soon. This has felt like a long, roller-coaster term, started and finished with talk of CAMHS. We have had amazingly good weeks, fantastic academic results, an increased friendship circle and lots & lots of rugby. On the surface, things seem to be going really, really well.

Dig a little beneath the surface (or look closely at the bags under my eyes) and you will see it’s a fragile balance that often falters. We have had highs as well as lows, but there has been lots and lots of angst over various things, happenings and peers, so our trip to CAMHS at the end of the term was our light at the end of the tunnel.

By chance, and luck, we were allocated the same case worker as last time. As we were classed as new patients again, we had to fill out forms (patient and parent ones) which we did, with some rather unusual answers from him. We went in for our appointment/consultation with our case worker, and it was one of the most surreal hours of my life so far. Our son answered as only he can – direct, to the point and with an air of contempt when he thought that the question was stupid. He also took his shoe off, swivelled round on his chair (which wasn’t a swivel chair), poked fingers in holes, and by the time we had finished, he was definitely ready for home. The outcome of the meeting sounded hopeful. He would be discussed at the next case meeting to see what had to happen next, but it may include how to get a second opinion for an ASD assessment. I would have a phone call in a week to discuss the outcome of the meeting.

My phone call came, and it wasn’t what I had hoped for. No ASD re-assessment as it is only 6 months from the last one, but some of his anxieties are of a clinical level which means he can have group therapy (which seems to be a strange thing to offer a child with social anxiety), or 1-2-1 sessions, which is what we have chosen. I was so disappointed and upset that we weren’t getting the assessment that we feel he needs that I dismissed what we were being offered.  I asked about other routes to second opinions, and that afternoon I phoned our GP asking for an appointment to start the second opinion route. I was in Warrior-Mum mode, and I was out to right wrongs and get things sorted.

That night I couldn’t sleep with every scenario running through my head. I had an internal monologue that was full of every what-if, if-only and why-not I could think of. It was quite a dark place, but somewhere I think all parents of SEND children go to every once in a while.

Once I got myself out of my dark place, I decided that whether or not he is as far along the spectrum as we need him to be for a diagnosis is irrelevant right now. He has crippling anxieties that stop him doing everything he would like to do. He finds staying away from home very difficult, he worries about making new friends, he finds social situations hard. All these will be helped by his 1-2-1 sessions. I have probably slept on his floor for 1/5th of nights since December. This, too, should be helped by the 1-2-1 sessions, as will food anxiety, going to new places, new people starting at school, starting a new school year in September (this might feel a long way away to some, but there is only one term left in year 7, which means, at the moment, there is only half a term til the year 8 anxieties start).

I feel that, sometimes, parenting square pegs means that you are always ready for a battle. You expect things to go a little awry, you wait for phone calls and emails, and when you don’t get the answer or solution you want, you panic, get mad and go into battle mode. Or at least that’s what I do. I’ve battled and fought for my children for the last 20 years, since we had to ask lots of questions about hospital visits and tests.  I also battle for the people I teach, wanting them to have access to the help they are entitled to. When you reach a dead end, or a ‘No’ or a ‘That can’t be done’ you don’t accept and walk away; you challenge, you push and you prove them wrong (whoever ‘they’ may be).

This time, however, I paused and thought about the hand we had been dealt. And you know what? I think this is the best direction at the moment. Whether or not he has ASD rather than ASD traits is irrelevant right now. What matters is that he starts to control the anxieties, the panic and the stress. What matters is that we can start to live a ‘normal’ life a little more. We can go to new places without panics. We could have a summer holiday that doesn’t have week by week (or even day by day) planning that is in place before they have broken up. We could help him to smile a little more, and scowl a little less. Before I battle the ASD diagnosis battle, I need to put his current needs above everything else, and trust that this is the right decision, and right direction for us to go in right now, and maybe I can learn a little from the sessions too.