joybed

Stella for what it is worth i think you are doing the right thing but also appreciate how hard it must be. Not sure i could be that brave. It is so hard when their behaviour affects the whole family. Drugs are a terrible thing and make people do the worst things. the amount of patients I have looked after who are desperate to keep thier babies but just can,t get off drugs long enough to allow this to to happen. Hope you get through to him soon and that OJ is OK. Sending you lots of <'>

Well done thats great.

None of my kids like hand dryers in public toilets and i have to warn them about sounds such as the vacuum cleaner and hairdryer etc. The worst thing for Piers in public toilets is the smell but i am a bit like that too. He will walk into a toilet and say no too smelly and really start having a major tantrum until we leave. Marcus just won,t use public toilets or toilets at school full stop and only uses one toilet in the house. I find it strange how they can cope with certain sounds though. We live next to an airport the runway is only 1/2 mile from our house so at times it is noisy the first week Marcus was very anxious but now hardly notices them, the airport opened when the little ones were babies so they have never had a problem with it. We also have a train line behind us as well and didn,t realise it was there until shortly before we moved in. Marcus didn,t sleep for 2 weeks worrying about the trains going past as it used to make his wardrobe rattle, so we weighted down his wardrobe and gradually he got used to them too.

The school Marcus went to and the twins are now at is a small village church school and i think was actually an advantage as all the teachers knew every single child and their strengths and weaknesses. They were also very keen on citizenship and helping and accepting others so this worked very positively for us. The teachers still ask about Marcus now and he has been left 17 months and they knew Piers and Lydia from being tiny it just feels like a big happy family most of the time. the bad side is they know of my tendency to be late and disoorganised and this can be embarrasing. Also I don,t think it prepared Marcus well for comprehensive as it is so much bigger and different but wouldn,t change his KS1 and 2 experience for anything.

I really sympathise as well have a 12 year old DS with ASD who has the most terrific tantrums but never has them for his Nanna who thinks it all my husbands fault as he is too strict. I also have a 4 Yo who is awaiting assessment and he is a little monkey for me and also for his dad but maily me. Tonight Dh came home from work and i mentioned a couple of things he had done and was told he was an angel this morning. So frustrating as DH says i don,t discilpine him enough and that is why he is how he is. His problems are also down to Marcus as apparently Piers copies him. We shall see I started asking DH to do more with Piers to see how he copes.

Hi all further to my post could DS2 have ADHD I have finally plucked up the courage to ask my GP for a CDC assessment. DH still very happy to bury his head in the sand, actually used those words to me but i know Piers needs help. After speaking to my friend (health visitor) my neighboour who is a teacher at a secial needs school and the home school liaison officer who came about Marcus i decided it was better to seek help and get him a diagnosis/ support as necessary. My GP although did refer was unhelpful in saying he looked fine to him developmentally if not a little hyperactive, we were in the room 5 minutes, if that, so how could he tell. The trouble is I feel really ###### today partly because DH doesn,t know I have asked for a referral and partly because I am scared of the outcome although I know this can only be positive whatever their findings. Found it really hard to concentrate at work today and back there tomorrow not looking forward to it, so sick of putting a smile/ brave face on. I also posted concerns about my daughter but she has now really settled into school and with the help of medication has stopped soiling. She now speaks to everyone and is really enthusiatic about homework, school etc she also can,t wait for the 4 parties they have coming up. So my concerns regarding her have been largely put to rest it was just shyness. Thankyou all for your support sure i will need more in the future.

Marcus is just like this and used to have to be dragged to school on fire practice day. His school were very good about it and realised he genuinely couldn,t cope with the noise so they used to discuss with him what to do in the event of an alarm and then leave the building prior to it going off in the correct evacuation manner and wait on the field a long way away. This stopped the panic. The school bell was also a problem for a little while but it was one where you pulled a rope so they let him do it for a while and it got him used to it. Funnily enough he can tolerate the alarm at secondary school as he says it is not as loud and a different pitch which he doesn,t mind it. We also had a bad time when we couldn,t go to the supermarket as the alarm went off and we had to leave, the twins were tiny babies and as i couldn,t easily carry both of them and hang on to Marcus i had to unload the trolley and dump all the shopping in another then go back and retireve it. Marcus was very worried about leaving the shopping in case it all got burned and was less concerned by us getting hurt. I had to leave the shop with 3 week old twins and an 8 YO having a major panic attack and stangely enough noone offered to help.

We have pretty much the same problems with Marcus and he is 12. He can,t stand histort because it upsets him to think of all the bad things that have happened in the past and he can,t understand why people are nasty to each other. He too has problems with lunch and prefers ti sit quietly on his own school do thios for a while but then forget and try to integrate him again which never works. Marcus is always saying he is doomed to having an unhappy life and no matter how many positives we point out he always focuses on the negatives. Suppose this is just the way he is (funnily enough DH is also like this).

Hi Enid <'> our children always give us something to worry about don,t they. At least it is only for one day. Hope he settles down again.

Hi Loulou so gald you are getting a placement you need but agree that they are bullying you. They really know how to take the shine of a victory don,t they. Hope you are well.

Home school liason were great. She listened to me and said that she agrees it is no use saying to Marcus you have to listen or else and that he is just saying to the teacher what she wants to hear. She suggested giving a reward system where if he works/ trys hard at school he gets a small token to put in jar (a penny) and he needs to collect a certain amount of tokens in order to get his pocket money, not enough tokens no pocket money. Not sure whether this will work as his grandparents literally throw money at him anything he wants he seems to get so not sure how much impact the loss of �3 will have but it is worth a go. She said she feels we are running out of strategies to try and if this fails our options are limited. I asked her what options there were then and she said limited as provision for HFA is poor in this area, we really need an asperger school but they are all out of area. i said i had found a school I liked the sound of but it was �8500 a term and she said she didn,t think that was a lot of money and that if mainstream was failing we would have a good case. She said she would target the bullying as a priority so we will see what happens, not holding my breath as we have been promised things before and they havn,t happened. Marcus says the PE teacher is having a think about how to accomodate him so hopefully some of it has been taken on board.

We have used childminders in the past before school and they both let us down very quickly saying they couldn,t cope with Marcus behaviour. After the second one felt she couldn,t cope we decided it would be easier for me to change my job so i would be around to do the school run. This was before the twins were born. After they arrived it was very difficult to get all three of them up and and out and i was axhausted while i was doing the night feeds as well but there was no one to help who would be consistantly be there for Marcus so i battled on. It is still an ongoing battle as even though Marcus gets the school bus it is still a battle to make sure he is out of the house on time and now i have the other 2 to take to school and Piers fights every step of the way. So sorry i havn,t been much use but justed wanted to say i am thinking of you as I know what it is like.

We went to school didn,t quite go according to plan as i eneded up having to take the twins with me and Piers played up on the way their so all my planning had gone out of the window. When we entered the room his tutor said don,t worry its not all bad he is doing well in some subjects. She then pointed out how well he was doing in maths and IT and that their were just a few problem areas. PE was the worst so i pointed out to her that he has dyspraxia and hypermobility which makes PE difficult for him if not uncomfortable at times. She said that she was not aware of this (even though i have pointed this out before) and said she would make a point of informing the PE teachers. i also explained that team games were always going to be difficult for him due to his ASD and she said she was aware of this but he couldn,t be excused alltogether as this wouldn,t be fair on the other kids, she said they would find something fun to do which didn,t involve team games good luck to them. Next was history the teacher feels Marcus uses his LSA as an excuse to get out of doing work and distracts her so he achieves nothing. I explained to her that he doesn,t understand the point of history and finds it upsetting to hear about bad things that happen to people in history. She jsut told him he had to try harder and had to do it no arguments. I explained to her that we had this discussion many times (you know the one that goes we all have to do things we don,t like) and that it had achieved nothing he hated history and that was that. He said he would work harder and she was happy (but nothing has changed). Pretty much the same said for science. With regard to the bullying they are informing the midday supervisor to watch over him and are finding him a quiter place to sit at lunch so one thing sorted. I complained about a couple of children who are making his life difficult and they were the next in her office so she was going to speak to them about it. I have come away feeling a mixture of frustration and annoyance at myself. Frustration because although she was sympathetic and kind but firm with Marcus nothing has changed and he is still left floundering in lessons he finds difficult. The annoyance is because i was going to ask my father in law to pick up the twins from school but his phone has broke and i couldn,t get in touch with him and had to take them. Piers wasn,t happy because he was all set to do drama and I picked him up instead so he fought with his sister throughout the meeting and hit me when i tried to tell him off. My mind wasn,t really on the meeting and i forgot to say all sorts of things I had planned to. We still have the meeting from home school liaison tomorrow so hopefully i will be better prepared for that but just feel like a failure again I always go to pieces in these kind of things.

I have just ordered a copy of the explosivechild as Marcus has violent tantrums but these tend to be more verbal which really upset my quiet sensitive daughter. the real reason i bought it though was for Piers who is a very violent little boy at times and gets so frustrated. The book was recommended on the PDA site that i have just joined as Piers fits the criteria for this very well. Will let you know what i think to the book.

Hi all after my previous posts about Marcus being very stressed out at school (self harming, suicide threats etc) but school refusing to acknowledge theire is a problem they have suddenly changed their mind. I have repeatedly phoned school saying he is not coping with school, refusing to work both at school and his homework and the SENCO has always said he is coping at school and they have no problems. She even said he was trying to get my attention as he didn,t get enough of my time. We recieved his school report last week (they issue them 3 times a year so they can make changes if necessary) and as i expected it was terrible saying his attitude to learning was not good he could achieve more etc. They have invited me to school to talk about it and I suppose see what else i can do to persuade him to learn. I am so mad because i knew it would come to this and thay have refused to take me seriously. Also they appear to think i sit on my backside and do nothing to encourage him to work, this is an ongoing discussion in our house and we are getting nowhere . M has to come with me and i have so much to say I pity his poor tutor. I have also been told by a friend of mine that M is being bullied, he has told me this and i have attempted to inform the school but it is much worse than M made out so much so that my friends son had to protect Marcus as the dinner ladies were too scared of these kids to do anything about it and he was extremely upset by the entire incident. I also have the home school liaison coming out tomorrow, I really hope we can get this sorted as provision in our area is very poor and thay seem to think mainstream is the only way but this is not working for my son. Will keep you informed.

I have just read the info on PDA posted on the resources board and this describes Piers to the letter i think. We have just been to speech therapy where he was quite well behaved until the end when he tried to do a runner and i had to bring him back but he came without a fight. Since reading the info last night I have decided to try to be less confrontational strict but in a letting him think it is his idea kind of a way. I have also asked the school nurse fro a referral to CDC as I think he needs help, I will deal with DH later. Anyone else got a PDA child it almost sounds harder to deal with than ASD. Can my life get anymore interesting.

Peaches i really feel for you it is so obviously such a difficult decision. All you can do is your best and try not to beat yourself about it, I know this is easier said than done. Sending you lots of <'> .

Thanks again for your reply. I have considered allergies as he really was very ill when he had milk as a baby or even anything with the tiniest amount of milk in it. His behaviour has been eratic this week and they have all had more sweets than usual thanks to halloween but i don,t think his behaviour is any worse than normal but his sleep has been a lot worse. I am feeling very upset this morning as just had a major argument with Dh about Piers. Lydia woke in the night announcing she wasn,t sleepy so i had just got her to sleep when Piers had a nightmare and semi woke up so consequently I am tired and grouchy this morning. Awoke to get them up for school, Marcus already up and moaning about having to go to school, Lydia awake usual happy self, Piers waking up independently (always a bonus doesn,t like being woken puts him in a a foul mood). Piers came to our room and complained nappy uncomfortable he started to take it off dnd put back on PJs I asked him to get dressed for school instead, he started his usual tantrum too tired too cold can,t dress himself etc etc, all with much thrashing about kicking as usual. I told him calmly that he either got dressed or he lost his star for today (behavioural chart gets dressed without a fuss= gets a star, 10 stars = a magazine). He continued to tantrum so lost his star. DH comes into the room angry with Piers anounces he is sick of his behaviour, he doesn,t like him because he is so naughty said he is obviously not capable of being well behaved and announced that if he doesn,t get dressed he won,t be having any breakfast. Cue even bigger tantrum. I took DH to one side and suggested he was dealing with this in the wrong way that perhaps a more cajoling approach would work better with Piers and trying to understand the reasons behind his behaviour. i also pointed out that i had already punished him by the removal of a star and said that i didn,t like to use food as a punishment and it was important that he ate breakfast before school. Dh reply was that the kids had no hope with me as a mother, i let them get away with murder and don,t back him up on anything. He said that the star chart isn,t working and the only way was to be firm with them. I again said that i wouldn,t send him to school without breakfast and he said, "Do what you want but i am holding you personally responsible for all his problems and I am not supporting you anymore when they misbehave". He than proceeded to have a go at Marcus because he had noticed his school jumper cuffs were chewed and told him the only thing he is getting for christmas are school jumpers and T-shirts. So another child having a major tantrum. He then left for work leaving me to pick up the pieces. i am so fed up of his negativity and we have discussed this time and again. I am fed up of telling him that if you tell a child they are naughty, stupid, ugly, fat or whatever they will believe it and act accordingly (I know, i was brought up in this way so know the damage it does) but he just looks at me like i am talking rubbish and says the kids don,t have enough discipline and he has to be strict because i am not. The thing is i am strict when need be but i want to be the kind of mother who my children can come to when they have problems. Anyway enough of that, sorry for this but needed to talk to someone and don,t want my friends family to hate my husband IYSWIM. Will ring GP I think and speak about allergy testing and at least let them know my concerns then i will prpare myself myself for the argument that follows there will probably be one tonight anyway.

Glad you got it sorted out. I still find it hard to believe that other people treat other humans like this but I am getting more cynical by the day. This would be unaccepatble in mainstream school but an ASD unit they should know better. I also can,t believe they leave him to get on with things while they have a cuo of tea. On the wards where I work we are not allowed to have a cup of tea in the office as the manager thinks it looks unprofessional we are allowed a drink during our 15 minute break and drinks of water but often have no time to get water. I frequently leave work with headaches and feeling shaky as I have not had a drink or eaten for 9 hours. We also have to look busy all the time if we are sitting we are asked if there is something that needs doing or a patient that needs help, if by some slim chance it is quiet we are set cleaning tasks. I wouldn,t mind this so much if the patients were not well cared for but on the whole they are and the majority are happy with there care. Most of my colleagues are in midwifery because they want to help women get the birth experience they deserve and the knowledge to care for there baby. Sounds like they are lazy and just want an easy life to me although we are not happy with our working conditions either. Hope things get better soon.

Marcus licked railings when he was little and bus windows but grew out of this. he hasn,t grown out of chewing though and actually eats his clothes. So far in 2 weeks he has chewed holes in 6 t-shirts and eaten the complete cuff of one school jumper and is almost through a second. He also chews hand controllers to the Wii and his playstation and more worryingly has been known to bite through electric cables (he hasn,t done this one for a while though touch wood). He eats pencils like they are chocolate and one of the children in his class bought him a rubber thing to put on his pencil so he could chew that instead but he ate it. It is a very expensive problem for us.

Marcus is like this as well. He really hates History at school and when talking to the SPED team it was suggested that maybe this subject could be dropped temporarily and more IT instead. On Sunday he asked me if I had sorted anything about history as he didn,t want to do it the following day, I said that it wasn,t my decision to drop a subject from his timetable and it would have to be discussed when we have his review. He repeatedly asked me the same question all night and started again the next morning while i was getting ready for work I asked him how he thought I could have sorted anything out on a Sunday night and his reply was so am i still doing history today he then had a long moan. He has started again tonight as it is History tomorrow. The trouble is you cant even tell him to stop because he follows you and if I hide he finds me. .

Hi Darky and thankyou for your reply. I have read this a few times over the past couple of times trying to think what Piers is like and if he is as impulsive as you say your daughter is and the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no. He will occasionally sit and watch TV for a short time but always the same things and always argues with his sister to get his own way. I find it very difficult to be fair as thay are both very determined little people and i try to get them to take turns but sometimes forget whose turn it is and they will always tell me it is theirs even if it isn,t. On the occasions he does watch TV it is usually while flipping upside down or jumping up and doing a few sportacus (from Lazy Town) moves. He is also always prodding or kicking whoever is near him this drives his brother (ASD) to distraction. Piers is impulsive and appears to have no sense of danger, he sees the kettle boil and likes the light in it so runs and grabs it, he smells the chips cooking and grabs the deep fat fryer and he does grab hot drinks despite repeated warnings about how dangerous this is. Once at the caravan he ran up behind me lifted the just boiled kettle and poured it down my back he didn,t understand he had done wrong. He has been in A+E twice for drinking tea tree oil and then lavender oil and the staff commented on how hyperactive he was. As a baby he was big for a twin and was born with some degree of jaw recession this made feeding him difficult and it would take forever, he wouldnt wait for a feed and if left to cry would get himself in a such a state he would then not take his feed. He was colicky lactose intolerant and suffered from really bad diarrhoea. His worst quality is his inability to do as he is asked it is almost as if he deliberatley does the opposite and he will argue black is white. He is cheeky and often rude. We went to a family christening the other day and he was demanding I put gel in his hair which I did, as i was getting him in the car i touched his hair and said Oh dear we don,t want to flatten your hair do we, He totally flipped called me a stupid girl, demanded I respike his hair and proceeded to kick, pinch and hit me. He threw himself on the floor and i struggled to get him into the car seat. He was in a strop most of the way their and then in the church he fought with his siblings, threw money in the aisle, rolled around the floor, shouted to his cousin and then attacked Marcus at this moment we left. I told him he couldn,t go to the party afterwards if he didn,t behave and did delay going but it made little difference. When he didn,t have to be so well behaved afterwards he was happy still running around doing headstands and rolling everywhere but happy. He too is always hungry but always for biscuits, crisps sweets etc i do limit these for all the children but he does help himself but so does Lydia Marcus still doesn,t help himself. If we do go shopping it is a nightmare as he runs off all the time and grabs things of the shelf demands toys and has a tantrum if he can,t have them. He also has been known to get lost by wandering of and doesn,t learn from his mistakes. He has never slept well but this has got worse this last week last night i was up every hour on the hour, he knocks at the door rubbing his eyes and clutching his favourite teddy, he looks cute but I could cry and i am exhausted. I then had to get up at 06.00 to go to work. He doesn,t play properly and does like to break things , cutting up paper is his favourite passtime, if you give him crayons he just scribbles. However Lydia also loves to cut paper and until she went to school also only scribbled. He has a poor attention span when getting him to do school work (learning letters etc) and often refuses even if it is turned into a game. He does however notice of you are sad or angry so I am almost sure it isn,t an ASD. I spoke to his teacher again yesterday and she said she felt he had settled into school well. She said the first few weeks were a shaky start and in her words "she didn,t know where it was going to lead" but she then said he was almost like the other children. However they had a problem yesterday where he became very angry and frustrated with an LSA and argued with her for a considerable lenght of time. Teacher said this was out of character for him and i pointed out that no he was now showing his true colours. DH is adament he doesn,t want a referral this school year he wants to give him the chance to outgrow it but to be honest i am struggling to cope and feel like i am about to crack up. Had a horrible evening tonight trying to get them settled while he was off at his car meeting .

Update from this. Following posting this i asked DH if he had any concerns about Piers and his behaviour and he said he thought he was really naughty but nothing to worry about. I mentioned that i thought he met some of the criteria for ADHD and he was very upset infact we had a row about it (his exact words were we already have one difficult child don,t give me another), I said that whether we liked it or not if their was a problem not knowing wasn,t going to make it go away. He refused to talk anymore so didn,t push it. The following day I asked him to get Piers ready for bed while I did Lydia he was having a real fight getting him to cooperate and in the end Piers headbutted him and ran away laughing. I looked over at DH and he looked at me as if to say I know you are right but I don,t want to talk so i never mentioned it. We have just been away for a few days to Wales and after a day DH said that he knew that he was right but didn,t feel he could cope with going through the finality of diagnosis I pointed out that this could only be a positive thing but he asked me to give it a year to see if he settled down at all. The following day after lots of tantrums and Piers basically doing the opposite of whatever anyone told him Dh suggested we go to the GP when we got back but now after talking to his friend (who says he was just like Piers as a child and not to worry he will grow out of it) he now wants to wait again. I am now almost convinced their is something not right but don,t want to upset DH by going through the process when he is ready but I also feel Piers deserves help and support if necessary. My neighbour is the school nurse and she asked me if I had any worries about them before she did their routine check, I said no as she asked while we were out trick or treating and also because I am not really sure i want to have this conversation with a neighbour i don,t know well but know better than an anonymous school nurse IYSWIM.

Hi and welcome.

Marcus did love Knex but has lost interest now. He is really into computers at the moment.