My grandson isolates himself

[nightingale]

My My 12 year old grandson who has asd and school phobia has not been able to attend school for 1 year and has now shut himself away in his bedroom rarely coming out not even for meals. His doctor says its a child protection issue what can I do to help him; I feel so helpless and hate to see him with draw from life this way??

[JeanneA]

Hi you really should be receiving some help from a pyschiatrist or paediatrician, does your grandson have either of these professionals involved? It sounds like he needs some sort of medication. My son 16 is ASD and I went through a period of time when he didn't want to go to school, he looked very depressed which your grandson sounds like. You must get him some help asap, my son has been on prozac now since May and this has helped lift his depression, he now goes to school, to his clubs and to respite. You must insist on help from the professionals otherwise things will not improve and it is not fair on your grandson.

[nightingale]

Hi you really should be receiving some help from a pyschiatrist or paediatrician, does your grandson have either of these professionals involved? It sounds like he needs some sort of medication. My son 16 is ASD and I went through a period of time when he didn't want to go to school, he looked very depressed which your grandson sounds like. You must get him some help asap, my son has been on prozac now since May and this has helped lift his depression, he now goes to school, to his clubs and to respite. You must insist on help from the professionals otherwise things will not improve and it is not fair on your grandson.

[nightingale]

Yes he is supposed to be getting help he see's a consultant pyschiatrist and has been on prozac since may.

We are fighting to get him into a specialist school but La dont wont to spend any money so are going to appeal but in the meantime he just wannts to stay alone. He wont even engage with home tutors who come twice a week

[jlogan1]

hi i have dd of 14 who has just been diagnosed 2 weeks ago with aspergers,she hasnt been to school for 2 1/2 years and very rarely goes out and if she does it is only to go walking through neighbouring fields,she spends the majority of her time in her room and even changes her sleep pattern to be awake at night when no one will bother her(she has brother of 13 and sister of 10)and will then come out of her room,we havent seen psycologist for over a year because dd wont go out,but one thing we were told was to lower out expectations for dd and at the end of the day if she is happy that is what matters,this was very hard at the time but over the last year i have accepted this and it has made my life a lot easier,she now sees a school tutor for 1 hour a week( this has only been sorted this term,previuosly to that she hasnt realy had any education for 2 years)but it helps that she gets on with teacher,so although it is hard i think sometimes it is better to not fight them,if they want to be alone and it makes them happy perhaps try to accept it,always hoping that things will turn around and change.a year ago my dd wouldnt see anyone now she does see teacher,so although it is small it is progress,and something that she can deal with.i know this may not solve any problems but just to let you know it helped me and dd,still a long way to go.

regards julia

[nightingale]

Thank you so much for your replies It so good to know that we are not alone with this problem.

All the so called professionals always make me feel as if its my fault and that I should be constantly fighting him but as you will all know this does not work it creates even more problems.

[jlogan1]

hi glad you dont feel so alone,at the end of the day i found fighting didnt help i spent my dd first year that she should have been at secondary school fighting trying to get her to go ,and yes she did for 45 minutes 3 times a week but looking back she was more stressed and i was spending 24hours a day fighting,now ive let go, ok her eduaction has suffered but shes clever and if she wants to will get her self sorted later in life,but she is so much happier and that makes me happier,although saying that her being at home 24/7 is very hard,especialy when she is awake at night and that means she can wake me anything up to 8 times a night just to come and rattle in my ear about her favourite music or film!!!but whilst we were trying to get her to school we went through self harm( only once but that was enough)and now we dont get that and there is no way she is depressed.hope things work out ,most people will probably say i'm wrong but her happiness is a big factor and if that means staying in her room ,not going out and not socialising well thats it for now

regards julia

[Mandapanda]

Hi nightingale

 

Sounds like your grandson lives with you? Also sounds like he's lucky to have you.

 

My son is now 14 and after deteriorating badly at secondary school and having severe anxiety, depression, and school phobia, and being genuinely suicidal at times, we eventually had no choice but to deregister him. It has taken some time, but removing that pressure from him has changed all our lives for the better. This is because the whole school situation was what he could not cope with in life. He has lost many of his anxieties although rarely leaves the house - he clearly has some major anxieties still, he is no longer depressed, and he learns far more and more in depth stuff than he ever would have at school. He has regained some of his confidence and self-worth, and his sense of humour. He loves teaching us things. Our situation was extremely desperate and this was our only solution.

 

Now we know that many of his problems at school may be caused by sensory issues. Being near other people especially girls is a problem. Wearing the uniform (proper shirt and tie, or even collared polo shirt), was unbearable for him. Going on the bus, breaktimes, stairs, changing rooms, were all nightmare situations for him due to touch, noise, smell, etc.

 

On the face of it he was less affected by AS than my eldest, but we now know that he was just trying really hard to fit in for many years, so his problems remained hidden until they became so unbearable he could no longer cope and broke down.

 

It is worrying when they shut themselves away like this, but 'encouraging' them to get out more may just be putting more pressure on them (from their point of view).

 

Our son wouldn't take any meds, he is very restricted in what he eats/drinks anyway. He did attend CAMHS for about a year but the person we were seeing just spent all that time talking about the problems that had happened to our family and did not move on to helping him cope with it all. When we got a change of person he saw her once, she said she wanted to speak to him alone next time so he wouldn't go again. They wouldn't come to the house to see him despite requests from the School Nurse and our local advocate. As our son has become better he now comes down and talks to us more which is wonderful.

 

All I can say is you need to try and work out whether school is the problem. We were always being asked if our son was being bullied - he wasn't but there were lots of little negative things that all accumulated to overwhelm him.

[lindy2017]

My My 12 year old grandson who has asd and school phobia has not been able to attend school for 1 year and has now shut himself away in his bedroom rarely coming out not even for meals. His doctor says its a child protection issue what can I do to help him; I feel so helpless and hate to see him with draw from life this way??

Hi, I had to take my 11 year old son out of school last april hes still not in school should be in secondary but he has a hoem tutor now she is with him now for the 1st time so fingers crossed he will like her.....wairinf for a CAMHS appoitment he is still anxious about school and has had meltdowns over this.....i know how you feel.......lindy

[trekster]

i was the opposite at school i refused to leave.

[smiley1590]

i agree with posts already made in response to how you described your grandson mood sounds like he dropped really low he frustrated and AS leaves you isolated to begin with but if he has social anxiety and depression this can make the situation ten times more hard difficult hard t overcome with equal balance of treatment and support ... he lucky you get what A.S is what the condition involves how it affects him .... i been there myself shutting the world out as you think make everything 'better' make it 'stop' as you don't to speak about it! you just hope avoiding it is the way to go to deal and cope with it deny it will help someway and make seem less real he probably finding hard to cope and deal with everyday getting confused and feel hopeless and useless

 

depression can spiral out of control rapidly fast min by min can change has he mentioned sucidal urges thoughts? has he self harmed ? sounds like make have issues accepting his A.S and how his life will be he might blame himself feel guilty and bad adding low self esteem issues added with depression anxiety can be serious difficult situation to handle i would NAS telephone helpline and ask for advice i would ask doc about meds ( anti-depressants) to lift his mood level if you wait for it naturally may become too deep to do anything and may get him N.A.S outreach workers to get him out of his bedroom has he been to the docs? has he had MH assessment i get someone to come out and check out what's going on? does he talk much about what thinking feeling or express emotions .... probably find hard due to A.S though!

 

i been there myself personanly i fight battle with depression everyday so tiring drags you down mentally hard to battle against!

 

 

does he sleep eat well? does he go out at all has social anxiety disorder been looked into?

 

XKLX