Strategies.....

Lots of talking to people today about anxiety, impulsivity, impact on sibling and responsibilities. Always very interesting that as parents we work tirelessly to manage situations, safe guard our children and do the best we can, yet we are still expected to do more. And we will always do more, we will do whatever it takes. However  it all seems so heavily weighted against us at times and when the anxiety is born out of a source that you have no control over, it is often in vain.

To manage meltdowns when coming out of school we have been advised to collect the children separately, use staged intervention, I.e insist on calm before leaving school, reaffirm before getting in the car and again before driving off. Stop the car if anxiety starts to escalate and wait for calm and so on till we get home. We then isolate Boy Wonder and use a controlled method of anxiety reduction with him.

We completely understand the logic of these strategies and can understand how they could work if the child has any control of their emotions. Boy Wonder holds his anxiety in during the school day and then due to the build up he loses control so quickly at the end of the day. The staged technique may work on occasional days where his anxiety is not so high but how can it possibly work when a child is not in control of their emotions and is in meltdown?

We have agreed to try some elements of this. Where possible we will try the staged approach to leaving school, however we will not be waiting outside of the car until he is calm as he is highly likely to bolt and run into the road. We are going to alter the seating in the car to put more space between the children and we are going to develop a method to positively reduce anxiety in the home. ( a project for the weekend) . Watch this space!

So that was the bulk of the conversations today, except that the Psychiatrist has confirmed that she has spoken with the EducationalPsychologist and stated that in her opinion, Boy Wonder does need support in school to reduce his anxiety. She has said this numerous times in her reports but has now also rang him up to reiterate her opinion!  Oh and as we are hitting a brick wall with Occupational Therapy, Boy Wonder is being referred to a Hearing Consultant who specialises in hypersensitive hearing.

So things are happening on the medical side of things but as for the educational side, it is all looking a bit woeful.  We have a meeting next week that is likely to have a poor attendance due to the date and time not being distributed but nether the less we will attend and do our bit.

Today Boy Wonder has been very excited as he was going to his friend's house after school to have tea and watch a movie. He seemed to have a great time and wants to go again!!

He is still up watching the Iplayer, unable to settle and I am sat in bed writing the blog, eating chocolate trifle . Well it is nearly the weekend!