Twix

Hello Your story sounds similar to mine. My son is now 16 nearly 17 and had a very bad year last year.The worst one. He is also like your daughter and would spend all his days up in his room. He has been diagnosed with Aspergers. I went and did this along the private route because the wait would have been to long otherwise and i needed help quickly. My son does not find it easy to socialise either but wanted to tell you what has really helped. I have just a couple of months ago applied for and got his first EHC plan. I was very thorough with the paperwork and had help from Core Assets but I got the assessment straight away and then the plan also with no problems at all. This plan has enabled him to go and do a Supported Internship. He is so enjoying this. The particular one he does is run from a college but is actually in a work place 100% of the time. He is even earning himself £30 a day tips which he is so happy about. He is now a changed boy due to this course. This course can only be accessed if you have a EHC Plan. If you want to PM me I can give you some more info. Dont know if this is an idea for your daughter but it has really worked well for my son and he making friendships on the course.

Hi I am new to the forum and wondered if anyone can give me some advice on how to help my son. My son is a few weeks away from his 16th birthday. He was diagnosed with ADD (inattentive type) at aged 6 when we where living overseas.. He was given medication to help with the concentration. He suffered reactions (black outs, headaches etc) with different medications he was given so was taken off of it and sent to a remedial school. This school was not the same as the remedial schools in the UK it was for children with learning difficulties.He stayed here until he was 13 and then attended mainstream school.Just before attending main stream school I took him to see a special neurologist and he said that he was not that sure that my son suffered from ADD and it could just be a motivation problem and he put him on an antidepressant.He then struggled at main stream school but could not go back to the other school as he could on stay in the remedial school until he was 13.All of this time the only problem he seemed to have was his concentration. At age 14 we came back to live in UK. I saw a Paediatrician who said he did have ADD and prescribed him Elvance 50mg per day. The is worked but turned my sons and I world upside down.He went from a shy child to an aggressive child suffering with mood swings very badly.He became very verbally abusive towards me his mother and on occasions started pushing me about.My son is over 6ft tall and built like a rugby player.It was only me that he treated badly, to everybody else he was fine.I kept asking the doctor if it was the Elvance and she said it wasn't as he would be treating everybody the same if it was.We saw the Psychiatrist, Systemic therapists and they just told me it was the fact that he was becoming a teenager and had raging hormones.After nearly a year on this medication my son asked the doctor if he could have a break from the medication during the school holiday.The doctor agreed and then my son could not come off it as he himself felt the aggression got even worse when he tried to stop it.We tried a few times and he eventually managed to come off it.After he had stopped the medication things just went from bad to worse.The doctor tried different ADD medications but my son said it made him feel not himself and gave him headaches.He stopped going to school.He could not cope with school and the pressure of learning and just spent all day in his room on the computer.By this time he was very aggressive towards me all day every day and would hurl abuse at me about everything.The mainstream school he now attended where not helpful at all so doctor recommended a Educational assessment which we had done privately due to the long waiting list.This showed up that he had ADD, had a reading processing age of an 8 year old.Practically no short term memory and that he had Dyspraxia and slight Dyslexia but the Education Psychologist did not think he would get a statement.I gave a copy of the report to the school Senco.There where certain things like using a laptop and being given extra time in exams etc that they gave him in the school, but the school said he did not need any help and if he needed it he should ask for it, my son hated the fact he had ADD and did not want to be different so would never ask for help.I told them this and Senco just shrugged her shoulders.Evenutally my son refused to go to school.I tried to get him to go but he would just get abusive and aggressive towards me. Last July we moved into a different county and I found a new Paediatrician for him as by now thing where much worse.When we moved my son said he would like to attend the 14-16 year old program full time at college doing an IT course.From the first day he vomited in the morning on the way to get the bus and was so anxious about it all has now stopped attending there as well. He now says he cant go as he has missed so much work and its to much for his to try and catch up.So he neither goes to school or college. Back tracking last year the paediatrician told me that he has Aspergers as well and formally diagnosed him. In the last year I have now got a son who is smoking, having sex without condoms with his girlfiend,stealing alcohol,involvement with drugs, suicidal at times, very aggressive, has no boundaries as he wont listen and is just very abusive and threatening towards me. He suffers from bad anxiety.He has meltdowns at least once a week and smashes his room, tvs, computer up.He just does what he likes and wont listen to anything I say.If I try and give him boundaries one of things he often does is he switches off my access to the internet as he is very good with IT and punishes me. My problem is that he now refuses to take any medication or see any doctors or anybody at all.He says he does not want help. I feel quite ill with all of the stress an suffer with anxiety myself..My husband works overseas and has little contact with his son so I am a single parent with all of this. I am just at a loss as to what to do.I went to see the GP last week and asked what I can do and he says its CAMHS that should help but are not funded well, short staff etc.I have an appointment for next month and have told them that he wont attend and they just tell me to try and get him to go.He wont go. Sorry for the long post but thought it best to try and explain a little of what has been happening. If anybody has any ideas of who I can get some help from or what I should do it would help me a lot as I feel I have hit a brick wall. Thank you