4 Days in school….. then at home with mum

The day after my last post  was such a turning point. j woke up in an almost depressed state, that is the only way to describe it. He was lethargic, his eye contact was gone, he was hardly talking and when he did he was stumbling over his words  as he did 2 years a It was hard to believe I was looking at my own 4 year old son. We have him lots of cuddles and tried to talk to him but he was not very responsive. Then I went to hang some washing out and came back to find my boy projectile vomiting all over the floor with his dad trying to reassure him. It had come from nowhere- he had no other signs of illness, we had all eaten the same food and he didn’t even have a cold where the mucus ( too much info, I apologise) can make a child sick. Then I thought of how I had been as a child…. when I was in a highly stressed state ( exams, stage performance etc) I used to vomit. It was even a family joke that I didn’t perform as well if i hadn’t been sick!  So, considering his anger  and aggressions the day before, the low mood I am convinced this was a physical manifestation of my son’s stress at school.

In the 4 days he has been there he has :- not been sleeping well, had 2 nightmares, become unresponsive, aggressive, chewing everything ( a major sign of my son’s stress)…. even coming out of school his fingers have been in his mouth ( this is despite telling school this is a major sign of his stress)… he has come out of school 2 out of the 4 days with no jumper on because…. just as i predicted… he is spending alot of time splashing in the water… another way of him trying to calm himself. On top of that i think my son is utterly bored with the ‘ work’ presented to him. his teacher said ” he did really well with his numbers today”- a little more digging and found she was impressed because he counted to 10. 10 ? 10??? my son counts to over  1000 for fun. He is still being given level 1+ reading books he had back in February. But  when he comes home, he goes to the library or reads his own books that are aimed at aged 5,6 and 7 + children. So he hasn’t even got the challenge of learning to distract him from his stress.

So that was it, I made the decision he wasn’t going in on Monday morning. I didn’t tell them the whole story, just said he had been sick and left it at that. ( believe me , I wanted to say more but I didn’t want them closing rank and start hastily writing reports for support that should have been there or suddenly tweaking their SEN policy…. believe me I have a similar thing happen before) I then got in touch with J’s educational psychologist. Thanks goodness , she is on our wavelength and totally understands why j does not present challenging behaviour at school but understands it is obviously stressing him out. . She immediately rang school and got straight back to me. An emergency meeting has been out in place. School are not happy as it is only 3 days notice. So, we will go in on Thursday and see what happens. But at the moment, they could offer me the world for J and put a cherry on the top and to be honest i wouldn’t be impressed. I needed them to do it months ago, I needed them to listen to me months ago and they just weren’t there. And I am meant to be impressed that they may be willing to do so when their school’s reputation may be at stake? My son is worth more than that.  I am honestly thinking it may be better to start in a new school , where he goes in with a diagnosis, where I and the ed psych speak to the SENCO and his teacher long before he starts and everything is in place before my boy even sets foot through the door. Yes, it will be difficult for j to change schools. But no more difficult than being at a school with no support, no friends and no teachers willing to even look up what ‘ Asperger’s  actually is how it may affect my son.

Anyway, at the moment J is not legally required to be in school. So until I have proof there is support in place that will help reduce my son’s stress thoughout the school day, so he isn’t making himself physically ill with attending…. he will be staying at home, where he is safe, supported and loved and will probably learn more too:)