It's been really stressful lately with my daughter refusing to attend her new school.

Friday gone there was a MAST meeting with all the professionals and school personnel that are involved and myself. They are prepared to work with her at a slow pace but they want her in school support - I can understand that but this is how they should have handled it all from the very beginning. It's like this is the start now, the only difference is my daughter regressed so much more than necessary due to their insensitivity to her needs at the beginning of term.

The reason I am mad with them is because I told them d needed slow, step by step reintegration in the first place but they didn't listen, threw her in at the deep end and expected her to just fit in with a normal time table with the other students in her year group. Just one day was so overwhelming for her and she regressed to using her sleep and food to control her health so she didn't have to go to school.

Home schooling isn't an option where we live and there is no access to a short stay school like Red Balloon so this is our only route. Getting her out of bed this morning was hard, she was so grumpy and mad at me, eventually she got into uniform then collapsed on the sofa with her blazer over her head. Finally I got her in the car, we drove to school in silence. When I stopped the car she said she was going to vomit so I gave her a bag, of course she didn't vomit. Then a teacher came out to greet her, she curled forward, froze and went mute. She finally agreed to enter the building if I went in too.

I left at 10.30am and was back to get her at 12.00. Small steps but progress nonetheless, I just hope she can build on this tomorrow and through this week. It is so consuming and exhausting, I sometimes wonder if I will ever get some kind of semblance to 'normal' back

Clarity, I don't know what to say except I feel for you and know where you are coming from. If only schools have more understanding and compassion instead of just thinking that they know best for our children. I have been through this with my daughter. The school staff and my daughters psychologist met (including myself and my daughter) and made a plan to introduce her back to the classroom step by step. Unfortunately they focused more on trying to catch her up with school work and the steps never progressed past getting her to work with a teacher aide in the library. I won't go into all the details but it all came to a head one day. The trauma my daughter experienced made it an easy decision to home school. Not that it is easy for me, but she had been calmer and starting to face other fears she has of her own accord. I still hold out hope that next year she will go to a new school, but that remains to be seen. Make sure the school ring you if there is any problems or she gets too distressed. Teachers may be educational experts but they are not mental health experts.

Hi Clarity,

I do feel for you. It is so hard watching our kids suffer. But she made it in - that is a big step for her. If she can keep up the momentum just to get back again...then again....she might keep facing it. Hard for you!!
You mention being 'normal' - but you have probably already accepted that things aren't normal and might not ever be. Seems we have to do this and in accepting where our kids are at - it does help us to give them the support.
LIke me - you are finding the help comes in from the wrong end and the wrong direction....I guess they really have no idea what works. But we desperately need someone to give us guidance! In the end - we are the experts.

Good luck this week. Small steps all good. And it is good to hear that your daughter still has friends and that you organise this. What else can we do!
My son also had friends that went to other schools and that seems to have made him withdraw. He has not been able to find friends like that again.

And hi Melanie...
how is the home schooling going? It is early days yet - but hopefully you are still feeling that relief. It might just build up the confidence your daughter needs to get her back into a school next year.
Take care,
Linda xx

Clarity,

That is fantastic that your daughter made it into school. Well done! And I wish you good luck for the rest of the week.

Sharon

Thanks Melanie and Linda for your words of support. I find the biggest stress is dealing with school personnel and pressure from education authority that projects through them. Add to the stress the sorrow I feel for my daughter and where she is at in her life right now and sometimes I wonder how we will ever get through this nightmare. As a single parent with an unsupportive co-parent and no family near us, it makes it all the harder.

Thanks Sharon, it was all very short lived. She went in yesterday for and hour and a half but it took a lot of effort to get her in there.

Today she won't budge, lots of tears and disillusionment with her current educators. At the same time she is deeply depressed about not having friends or anyone she can talk to who really get's what she has been through. She has out of school friends but because they are getting on with their own lives and educations she feels left behind. It's a vicious cycle - she is part of her own pain but she cannot break it.

Now to go and deal with the school, fun not!

Just updating on my daughter's progress. After a really difficult couple of weeks where she attended learning support twice for no more than 1 and a half hours, she went in yesterday at 12pm and stayed until almost 3. There were other students working in there too and she said it didn't make her too anxious. One more week until half term and she seems prepared to make efforts to build up her in school time and be ready to join in with new projects which start after the half term. She may even have some girls her own age come visit her in learning support for lunch in the near future.

I wish I had the options of a homeschool group or a short stay school but those are both out of the question in our location. I find myself in a difficult spot because while I am understanding and accepting of her SR, there is no other choice but to keep encouraging her to work with what we have got - which is the stepping stone of a learning support centre in the school building until she is ready to fully integrate.

Some close family friends came for dinner last night (she and my friend's daughter have been friends since nursery school) and d was so engaged and social with all of us, lots of laughs around the table. It was lovely to see her like this again. My friend knows a lovely girl at the school and is kindly organising a sleepover for the three girls during half term. A new friend she can build trust in is just what she needs to help build her confidence and would support her with reintegration too.

What she went through with bullying in the past was horrible and with all the media coverage with news from around the world of children and adolescents who have committed suicide because of bullying and relational aggression from their peers, I have to keep reminding myself that no matter how challenging this journey is, we are in fact amongst the lucky ones who survived it and have the choice to keep on healing.

Bullying can be deadly at worst and at a very poor best, the psychological damage it inflicts can leave scars long after school days are over. Education and social systems need to wake up to this insidious abuse and be far more pro-active in it's prevention by educating more, setting firmer limits and consequences with aggressors and providing good care of vulnerable targets. When our nightmare is over I intend to deliver as many wake up calls as I can.

We will get through this

To protect the identity of someone, I have deleted a post from this thread. This might put other comments out of context.

Your daughter has done so well and yes you will get through it i promise.

Just keep taking small but solid steps to build on and that is all you can do.

Does your daughter ever read the posts on here ? My son did and i found it did help him and he has actually posted a couple of times himself.

Keep smiling and stay strong xx

Thanks for the encouragement Sarah.

Today is another day and it's a sleepy one! I'm going to leave her sleep until 10 and then try again to get her up and in to school. It's an activity day today where normal timetable is cancelled so she would be in learning support alone. I don't know if knowledge of this will cause her anxiety or not.

My daughter hasn't read here yet but I will let her know about the forum and ask her to browse around. I think she would love to be in touch with other teens who have been through similar experiences too, though most of the anti-bullying forums are US based and the UK ones tend to have very little traffic.

In the future I hope there will be a lot more support out there for SR's and bullied children.