Normal is whatever happens every day.  What happens in my house may be very different to what happens in your house, and that’s fine.  We have our normal, and you have yours.

However, when you live with square pegs, or when you are a square peg, little things happen, behaviours start, and you adjust accordingly.  Little quirks, oddities and things that happen every day get absorbed into day to day life, and you end up rarely going out and getting home after 10pm.  Or you realise that since your child was born you have only been away for one night – not one night at a time, but just one night.  You watch their face when you’re somewhere new for signs of stress.  You carry Calpol and a bottle of essential oil just in case the stresses start.  You miss concerts and sports matches on a regular basis because although you’re there, you are too busy avoiding meltdowns or using distraction techniques to know the score or what’s happening.  You regularly have to think of the material and colour when choosing clothes – for you and for them.  All this becomes your normal, until, one day, you realise that this is a long way from most other people’s normal, and you begin to think and slowly put the pieces of a jigsaw together.

Is it ‘normal’ (and how I hate that word, even though this post seems to be full of it) for a 10 year old to hate sleepovers, both at a friend’s and when a friend stays here? Should a ten year old retch at strong smells, and new tastes? Should a ten year old like to finger eat rather than use a knife and fork, even though they are quite capable of using said knife and fork? Poor sleep patterns? Yes.  Lots of imaginative play when little? Not really, not like our older child. Imaginative conversations? If you mean deep discussions about which Marvel and DC characters have the potential to be real, then yes.  But this is a science based conversation rather than imagination.  For example, you could be an inventor like Tony Stark (Marvel) or Batman (DC – the differentiation between the two is important), and who knows what Gamma rays could do to a person, if they survived (Bruce Banner, Marvel) and there are still undiscovered tribes in the Amazon, so Wonder Woman (DC) is possible, though unlikely…….and so the conversation went on. Only today I realised that I can’t remember them ever having a full on temper tantrum.  I can remember hysterical tears once or twice, but a full blown toddler tantrum? No, I don’t think there was one.

So, now we have a CAMHS mental health worker.  We have already filled out a form for ASD (autism spectrum disorder), and school also have 3 copies.  Our next appointment will be when the forms are all back and analysed.  If they show ASD traits, then we are referred for a formal diagnosis.  If not, then I presume there will be more forms and more traits, syndromes and disorders to be screened for.

However, whatever the findings are, there is nothing ‘wrong’ with my child.  Yes, he is a Square Peg, but Square Pegs change the world – think Einstein, Newton, Jobs, Darwin, Turin and so many others.  I really hope that this journey helps him control his anxieties, and on a selfish note, I hope we get to have a bit of a ‘normal’ social life, but more than anything, I hope nothing changes within him.  I want his amazing brain to keep coming up with extraordinary ideas, I want to keep sharing his boxless view of the world and I want the amazing essence of his ‘normal’ to stay and to shine as brightly as it can, free from the shackles of his anxiety.

I feel as though I should be in confessional booth with what I’m about to type.

I am a mum to two children, who both have specific learning difficulties (dyslexia). One also has ADHD and has had anger management issues in the past, and the other has an appointment with CAMHS in a few weeks to see if the anxieties that seem to rule his life are (just) anxieties, or a symptom of autistic spectrum disorder, ADHD or something else.  I feel that you need to read those sentences in a whisper, because, surely, I must have done something wrong in pregnancy or in the way I have brought them up to have two children with moderate but significant needs.

Although, in actual fact, we have brought them up.  My husband and I are a team, and the ‘we’ also extends to close family and friends who have all been a part of the children’s lives, but I have worked part time hours since having our eldest, so I am the ‘primary carer’.  They are my life, my vocation, my career, my everything. I carried them for nine months, I grew them and gave birth to them.  I fed them for 6 months.  I made decisions about when to vaccinate.  I held them when they were ill (and they both had serious conditions when they were younger), nursed them better, cuddled them when they stank of sick. I made the choices over schools. I decided where to go on play dates, what toys to buy for Christmas and birthdays. I initiated the tests for dyslexia, for ADHD and now for whatever CAMHS brings this time.  If something was done wrong, it was done by me.

So, there you have it.  I feel guilty.  I am wracked with what ifs, why didn’t Is, why did Is and should I/could Is?

I didn’t enjoy being pregnant with either.  Is that why they have issues, because I didn’t enjoy all the time they were growing inside me? Should I have tried harder to feel the bloom?

When they were quite young, I went back to work part time.  Our eldest was left with family and our youngest at a nursery.  I went to uni when our eldest was 2, and he had to go to day nursery that he didn’t enjoy – is that why he has anger issues now?  Our youngest was in nursery 2 days a week from being just 9 months old – is that why he gets so anxious now?

Should I have eaten more/less oily fish when I was pregnant? Did I accidently eat blue cheese? Did I have a glass of wine? Did I, should I, could I…….the list of questions is endless.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change my boys for anything.  I wouldn’t take the dyslexia away, as it makes their minds think like there is no box.  I wouldn’t take the ADHD away as it makes our eldest very practical and ‘doing’.  He likes to fiddle, to take things to bits and put them back together.  He is incredible musical and artistic, and we have yet to find a sport he cannot do. I wouldn’t even take the anxieties that seem to take over our family most evenings at 9.30 pm as they make our youngest an incredibly empathetic, caring individual, with a brain that just cannot slow down, even at bed time when all the thoughts from the day fuzz up his relaxation and take over. A brain that asks questions such as ‘Do you think infinity is a number or a time reference?’, and gets frustrated that they haven’t found a cure for cancer. ‘Why haven’t they? Why can’t they all just work together and sort it out?’.

So I wouldn’t change them, I wouldn’t do anything differently if I had my time again, but that doesn’t stop the guilt, or the worry or the what if’s. It doesn’t stop me replaying stuff I have done in the past and wonder what difference that’s made.  It doesn’t stop me lying in bed at 3am wondering what I can do now to help them now.

Baby books tell you nothing about things like this, about how to deal with the day to day problems and issues kids like mine face.  I know that compared to many parents my problems are tiny, but they are there, and they keep me awake, keep me worrying and keep me feeling guilty that I may have done something to contribute to all this.

However, we will continue to embrace and celebrate everything that they are, and keep chanting our mantra:

Why be ordinary when you can be extraordinary?

When does a child’s individuality become a problem, and when does that problem need a label? We expect children to fit a preconceived mould; we expect them to read at this level by the time they are 7, and to be able to do maths to that level by the time they are 11 (and I know that the levels are changing, but there will still be benchmarks).  We expect them to sit still for an hour or so at a time, and so produce lovely hand written pieces of work with minimal mistakes.  We expect them to be at school away from their family for at least 250 days a year, and to behave, and play nicely and to mix with all different kinds of children and teachers from all different walks of life.

If I was expected, as an adult, to sit in a room with 30 other people, on an uncomfortable chair and write about things I had no interest in, and not talk when the person in charge was talking, and then do maths, or geography or science or PSHE and have to conform and only have toilet breaks when I was told, and only go outside at allocated times, and if it was raining/icy/snowy I would have to sit inside and watch old Disney videos, I would quit and walk away.  I am an outdoor, doing person.  I am not a sit still office person, and so my jobs since leaving school have reflected this.  I think if I had to go back to school now I would be waiting at the head teacher’s office more than I would be in the classroom.

My children are not sit still types.  They are outdoor exploring, or indoors wrecking the sofa to build a den children.  They find having to do an hours’ writing a chore; my eldest is revising for exams at the moment, and making him sit for an hour to revise or complete coursework is tough on me and him.  When we leave school, we can choose jobs or careers that suit our personalities. Although parents have a degree of choice in the school they send their children to, the education system is still, more or less, sitting and learning.  Dynamic, inspiring teachers do make an amazing difference, but there are still tests and exams to be taken and a curriculum to be followed.

So, do my vibrant individuals have a problem? And does that problem need a label? No and yes, would be my answer.  No they don’t have a problem or a disease.  Being ‘diagnosed’ with a learning barrier automatically makes it sound that there’s something wrong with them.  My children have amazing brains that don’t just think outside the box, they think like there is no box! They can see and feel things that I never notice.  They come up with ideas (and counter-arguments) that just blow me away.  They are incredible empathetic.  They have conversations and understandings that are well beyond their years. They are two of the most intelligent people I know, and yet if you give them a pen and ask them to write their ideas down, everything seems to fall apart and crumble.

My vibrant individuals do not have a problem.  Instead they have a huge advantage when it comes to thinking, reasoning and understanding.  It is education that has a problem trying to get the best out of them.  It is our problem, not theirs.

Do they need a label? If you asked me this a few years ago I would have screamed ‘No!’, but now I think they do need a label so that people can understand.  But alongside labels, they need people to understand what those labels mean.  Dyslexia does not mean stupid, it means amazing minds that articulate verbally rather than on paper.  ADHD does not mean naughty, it means they need to be doing and touching and seeing rather than using all their energy and concentration to sit still.  ASD does not mean odd or eccentric, it means enhanced perceptions.  ODD does not mean everything you say will be challenged, it means explain the whys behind the rules.  Learn to compromise with each other.

I think we need to adjust the education system to take into account the amazing variation that is in our society.  Tolerance, understanding and acceptance of who we all are needs to happen from age 3.

Einstein would have ‘failed’ his KS1 SATS – and his is one of the most amazing brains that there has ever been.

At what point does helping a children with any kind of barrier make it worse than not helping at all? A 10 year old I know has dyslexia.  Verbally, he’s near the top of the class, but as soon as he picks up a pen it all falls to pieces.  His reading isn’t too bad, but writing and spelling are a horrendous task that even with an enormous amount of effort, bring very little success when compared with his peers.

Soon the whole school is taking part in a sponsored spell to raise money for a local charity. The thought of having to spell unknown words, and his presumed low score bringing in less money than his peers caused sleepless nights and tears.

His parents were in a dilemma. Should they ask school to excuse him from the task? This would stop the worry over the spellings, but it would make him different to his peers and would he be able to raise any money?

Should he be given an alternative list of words? Again, this would make him different and may reinforce his perception of his barriers to learning.

His parents chose a third way – getting him to participate in the sponsored spell with the same words as his peers.  All sponsors would be a fixed amount rather than per word, so the pressure to have to do well to raise money was lifted.  They also spoke to him about how many he thought he would spell right.  He said about a ¼. They gave him a target of spelling ½ correctly and the other half phonetically, more if he could but whatever he managed they would be proud of him for giving it a go and facing his fears.

Did they do the right thing? Is it right for schools to have sponsored spells and other tests that may highlight differences, but may also give students the chance to succeed and shine?

Barriers to learning can make students feel different.  Do we need to stop them feeling different, or to make them embrace the unique, amazing person they are? Should we be celebrating the differences rather than making them feel they have to conform to reaching level 4, for example, at age 11 (and yes, I know the new primary curriculum has got rid of the levels!!)?

Please leave any comments or questions and I will do my best to answer and respond.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the education system (NOT teachers, lecturers or TAs, we all do the very best we can with what we have). The majority of AP kids that I teach have ADHD, dyslexia and other barriers to learning. They have been completely let down by the system, and by the time we get them at 14 or 15 they see themselves as failures and unable to learn. Many of them then go down a route of self destruction (drugs, thieving, drinking) and they can’t see the way back.

Hi!

I have worked in further education (as a qualified teacher) for the last 14 years. I also have 2 boys who have SENs (Special Educational Needs) and although are both above average intelligence, with the Ed Psych report to prove it, they both find formal education very hard, mentally, physically (they can’t sit still for very long) and emotionally.

I have come to the conclusion that the education system only caters for the round pegs to fit in their round holes.  This is not a dig at teachers, TAs or any of the wonderful people who work in education.  We all do what we can with the time and resources we have.

I believe that the educational reforms just make it harder and harder for the square pegs to fit.  For the past two years, I have taught alternative provision 14-16 year olds. These are the kids who have been permanently excluded for many different reasons.  They may have SENs, troubled home lives, anger management issues, or may just be ‘difficult’. Each one I have spoken to me told a different variation of the same story.  They hated school. They hated the way school made them feel. They felt like outsiders or failures. By the time we got them at Y9, 10 or 11 they were disillusioned and fed up with the whole system.  They felt they were on the scrap heap of life, they were failures.  We did have some successes, some that we managed to switch the light bulb back on, but others slipped through our fingers.

Skware Peg Rownd Hole is not just for children with SENs, not just for their parents, but is for anyone who feels a bit different, like they’re not quite the person society expects them to be.

We are all unique.  We are all amazing.  We all have the ability to sparkle and shine.

I hope these blogs will make you think, make you smile, make you realise there is no such thing as normal.

I hope you will comment, make suggestions, give me ideas for new posts.

If you have read a good book or article, please share it with me – I have plenty of books on my bookshelves I am planning to review over the next few months, and am happy to add to the list.  If you would like to write a guest blog, please get in touch.

My idea for this is that we will build a supportive community where we can forget fitting into the round holes, and all embrace our individuality and who we are, and who we are truly meant to be.

Enjoy!!