frogslegs

How old is your daughter? Like you Mad Cat, if my daughter goes to a party I leave her there and come back to collect her later. As for husbands, well isn't it traditional that husbands stay on the settee watching sport on Sundays? I took my daughter canoeing today and my husband was adamant that he wanted to come too and therefore the three of us went for a coffee at a Holiday Inn loundge. Within 5mn from being there, he was snoring (really) in front of his latte. WHY DO I BOTHER?

Went to see the Head this morning who said she could understand my 'distress' but could not do anything. The police has not turned up and I am generally completely fed up. I am considering my options and one of them (don't laugh) is to move abroad. I have had enough with being constantly harassed, my children victimised and this was the last straw for me. I am not british but I have been living here for a long time and just feel utter dispair at what we are facing. I am told my son is not normal and has issues with social skills and yet contrarily to many normal children he knows right from wrong, is always polite, respects other people's property, does not lie or hurts anyone. Is it me or have things gone completely mad around us?

Having had two C sections I am familiar with recovery process which is fairly close I am told with hysterectomy. My concerns are about all the rest, i.e having to take hormone replacement, skin aging, libido, bla bla bla being an old lady at 44 !

I really hate all this. There should be no white brit or non white brit but Caucasian! I am not british but my husband is, my children have double nationality so they have to tick two boxes. RIDICULOUS!!!

I had thermal ablation done nearly two years ago because of disabling periods(every month it looked like someone had been murdered in the bathroom). Easy surgery done under general anaesthetic. In hospital early afternoon and home by 7pm and no major pain... BUT I can't say that my problems have been solved and now I have to consider the BIG one and I am postponing that as long as I can put up with things. Also re children I was told that you can still get pregnant after thermal ablation but your body cannot sustain pregnancy therefore miscarriages. So it is not a contraceptive. It seems to work wonders for some people, I hope you are one of them. Good luck! Mel

I have told the Head and I am meeting with her tomorrow. I have a witness but he is 10. Ideally I would like the two girls in question to come and clean the mess but whether that is an option, I don't know...

I am really sorry this is happening. Try to be calm and practical. I know it is difficult but I would try to leave the door open for a while. I have suffered from depression and felt that there was no way other than go away because I could not hear myself think! I did not go anywhere because of the children and that I have to be the strong one at home, but I had two very difficult years. Your husband is not thinking straight and obviously feels under a lot of pressure. I know you do too but not everyone copes the same and I am sure men cope less well with stress because they don't have so many friends. In the meantime you need to take care of yourself. Lots of <'> <'> <'> <'>

Thanks Bid, Late can't get to sleep because too troubled. Mel

Well I have come back today after two lovely weeks spent on a Greek island.... to find that my front door was covered in eggs. I have reported it to the Police who has given me a crime number. This has been done by two girls who are aged 11 and have had a vague disagreement with my son at school. I could have cried....My son was devastated too to be the cause of such vandalism. I don't know how many incidents we have had in a similar vein. I know that we will cure this problem and that another one will emerge. I despair that children think they can do that to somebody else's house. We are constantly targeted because my son is odd/different whatever you want to call it.. Over the past three days he has gone quieter and quieter. When I had a chat with him this morning he said that he really really did not want to go back to school and have to put up with the same children again and again. I am not sure what I should do really.... TONIGHT IS REALLY BLUES NIGHT

Your psychologist seems to have a very simplistic view of things. My son certainly cares for his appearance (he likes nice clothes, he likes to smell nice) and he has a sense of humour. You wonder sometimes where people get their certificates from. Our GP has the letters PSYCH behind his name and he has been abysmal with my son. Good luck. I think the key to all this is to persevere. <'> <'> Mel

COOOOOLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your worries are understandable and also you have just been through something that has kept you completely focused for so long so maybe you feel a little empty now that you have in some ways reached your goal: finding a suitable educational setting for your child. Maybe you need to look after yourself a little because I think parents forget themselves completely in situations like these. You need to get back to being a full person again and develop a life for yourself.

My NT girl went to a party today. There were about 9 girls there and for some reasons things degenerated quickly and my daughter found herself isolated and bullied by the others. If you had seen the look on her face when I came to collect her RELIEF. Then she has cried herself to sleep with stress. She is a perfectly normal, social girl, so it can happen to anyone.

We have had problems before when he was younger, at that point he self-harmed. Now I can't say I see this and this is the first year we have exam problems. This is new. He was officially diagnosed at Easter and an IEP is being prepared for him and as I said he is being put on school action. He is getting a mentor in the playground because that has been a big problem. We discussed relaxation sessions which is probably the right way to go. I have asked for him to get extra time to complete the exams but to be honest I don't think this is the real problem here. Before getting calling LEA, etc, I would like to try gentle approach, and would appreciate tips.

I have been told that my son who is a clever clog has not done as well as he should have done in his year 5 SATS. He basically panicked and told me he could not read the problems anymore... I had a chat with SENCO yesterday as we needed to set up his IEP and he is now on School Action but she was not sure how to help him to overcome this punctual stress. Have you experienced similar issues and how did you deal with them? I must say that this is becoming a big issue as he nearly failed his music exam and had to be taken out of the pool with basically a panic attack when he took part to a competition recently. I was wondering about counselling, hypnotherapy? What are your experiences?

Hi Pearl! I'll think of you next week as I am off to Greece! So this is what I am up to at the moment ! Mel

As said in a previous post, we did briefly considered home education when my son was 7 which was when things were at their worst. I backed off because I could not image being with my son (who I love dearly) 100% of the time. We really needed some time apart for me to be able to cope. Plus my view was that homeschooling would be keeping him away from other children and I was hoping that he would learn some degree of social skills. I wanted him to be independent and him being at home would I think have limited this. In some ways I think it would have reinforced the message that he was different and not acceptable to be mixed with other children. We also considered for him to go to a village school with less children and I visited a couple but I was not certain that it would be right for him and felt that we would be transferring his problems rather than 'overcome' them. We chose to work closely with the school and put a programme in place to support him with friendship circles, relaxation, movement gym. It is not perfect but now that he is older things are on the whole easier to manage. He has three or four friends, all SEN and that's enough. He is doing very well at school, but socialisation is still difficult with bullying going on occasionnally. He is in year 5 and is a bit anxious about going to secondary (and so am I) but he comes across as confident and happy. He accepts himself as different and is working on his social skills. He actually likes people and is really curious about them, he just does not know how to interact with them. In hindsight, I do believe that he has benefitted from staying at school and he has learnt about people good and bad and coping mechanism. He is not always a victim!

Sorry to hear you are in pain. <'> <'> <'>

Ouch...... <'> <'> <'>

I took my daughter sandal shopping today and she is size 5 adults. She is 7 and has grown 3 sizes in a year. At this rate she will be able to cross the Channel on foot soon! What have I done to have children with such big feet!!! Well, no need to say that we could not find children sandals in size 5. I ended up with one pair in the whole shop that remotely suitable, they are blue and seriously horrid and they cost £50.00, yes 50. I have never spent that sort of money on a pair of shoes for myself. Came out of shop and the two of us felt so low that we headed straight for cafe and had cakes and milkshake.

BD may not be fussy but WE ARE!!!!! I have been peri thingy for 3 known years and I am 43. Main want is to eat, cry, eat, cry , eat all the time... My husband has the protection gear on stand by at all times as some days he says 'hello' and I just roar.... And as for the rest of the discussion, tonight was going to be the night......, nice meal out, back home, lovely glass of wine, cool music....children having a sleepover ......11:00 the phone rings and my daughter is sick with systitis :tearful:so !!!!!

Thanks I'll look that up!

Oh dear.... <'> <'> <'>

Is your daughter miserable at school all the time or only because she has not been invited to the party? If it is all the time then you need to reassess what is going on. How about having a talk with Head? We were in that position, thinking home education, a different school...we were so fed up with all the on-going school issues and when instead of moaning all the time at home (this is not being judgmental, this is really what was going on) we made an appointment with Head and discussed calmly and factually our son's situation things got better and we put a plan together. This has included the counselling that we were talking about, friendship circles, being given small responsabilities... I remember blaming the whole world for what was going on, about how unfair situation was but really, really, one cannot change the world, the parents, well they are nasty and as Connieruff says 'competitive, bitchy....' so it is your attitude/outlook and your child's attitude/outlook which needs to change. I don't want to sound preachy or condescending, patronising.....but what happened to me meant that I ended up suffering from severe depression for a couple of years as not only my child was ostracised but so was I and it is only when I accepted that for my son 'inclusion' was not possible and that we had to do things differently that things got better. He no longer hates school, he is comfortable and all the self-harming has disappeared. Had we changed school when things were really bad, I suspect that his behaviour problems would have simply transferred to the new school. The fact of looking at him and to try to help him calm down made him less anxious about being with other children and things got gradually better.

Same here, age 10 size 9 feet and cannot do shoe laces. What a nightmare. Ok for trainers because they come with velcro but school shoes!!! He is not fussed about the style which is just as well because it has been limited to the same style for a good couple of years now and because he is fairly active shoes don't last five minutes!