April

The Easter holidays were really nice. I love Easter - it's my favourite holiday, and, after some v. bad behaviour by Jade hurting Shannon, and a firm laying-down-of-the-law and re-stating boundaries with whole family present, the next 2 weeks were delightful and they played together such a lot, more nicely than they have done for months!

I was anxious about the return to school, but in fact it's gone fairly well on the whole. She did express reluctance to get up on the first morning, despite being given the chance the day before to discuss any feelings she may have which she had declined to take up, but I insisted that she get out of bed and come downstairs for me to talk to her about it, as I felt that lying in bed would only make the bad feeling continue. I am sure it helped that she got out of bed, and she just needed a cuddle and a reminder that it was only because she'd been away for a couple of weeks and had forgotten that she does often have quite a nice time there and she agreed to get ready.

Writing this 2 weeks later I can't really remember the details of what happened. I know she spent most of the 1st day with the TA in her office rather than in the classroom. She was reluctant to participate at first, but got going after a while and gradually settled in. They usually start with games (snakes & ladders, tiddlywinks or dominoes being current favourites) and lots of joking/silliness to help her settle down. And of course I have to stay there!

Iirc that week was mostly spent in the same way. In the TA's office during the morning, parent present too, in classroom in afternoons when TA is busy teaching. I remember she did have swimming on the first Friday morning back, and took her swimming things but didn't want to join in the lesson despite it being taught by her TA. There was a moment of upset at the end when the TA, having failed to encourage her to join in during the entire lesson, approached her at the end and I think Jade was scared she was going to make her do something she didn't want to do, and pushed her away a little, and then burst into tears! In fact TA was only coming over to say that she only had 2 people in the next session if Jade wanted to stay, or she could choose to get dressed and go back to school with rest of class. She chose to go back to school.

The second week started with a challenge, and then went rather well. On the Monday morning I was meeting with a couple of people who had come to the school to see me to start doing a CAF (Common Assessment Framework - means we get some money to use to buy in any professional/therapist we want). So I had a 9am meeting with them, and 9am on a Monday morning is not Jade's best time! She hadn't settled in, but there simply was no option except for me to leave her and go to this meeting, so in the end despite trying to get her settled in for as long as poss in the end I had to peel her hands off me and TA stood between her and me as I walked away while she wailed :-( That was horrible. I almost cried while walking down the corridor, but a little while into the meeting I saw TA and Jade walking round the playground looking quite relaxed and happy. Got the story later that she had stopped crying almost immediately I left, had taken about 10 minutes to go from staring stiffly out of the window while TA played games on her own with funny running commentary, to gradually being drawn into the game, and then playing, relaxed, chatty, happy. After a few games she agreed to go for the walk round the playground and then go into class, and all went well! When I saw her after breaktime she was happy, bouncy, cheerful. I went home while she went into maths, and had lunch, and then I was back in school for the afternoon session when she does not have her TA.

On the Tuesday I had to be with her all day because the TA was teaching all day. She had been reluctant to be in the classroom before Easter, but there was no choice today and she got on just fine. She says she doesn't like it because the work is too hard, but it isn't. She is quite capable of doing everything but she dreams a lot, misses instructions, and then of course can't ask what she's supposed to be doing! When I am sitting near her I am often nudging her and telling her to pay attention and listen to what's going on.

On the Wednesday as usual it was Bill's day to be at school with Jade while I worked. She's never so dependent on him being close by as she is me, so she sent him home during the morning! I haven't been sent home for months! He went back after lunch as agreed, but was not really needed and was sent home again, as the TA teaches Jade's class on a Wednesday afternoon and Jade was quite happy to be there without Dad. Apparently she participated in this class more than she has done before, putting her hand up to answer questions though not speaking them out loud across the class. She did speak in a low normal voice, though, when the TA came near her.

On Thursday, I went with Jade and the TA to go into assembly. She's been objecting to going to this, not sure why but seemingly because she's uncomfortable sitting on the floor for 15 minutes. So she's allowed to sit on a bench or chair with the TA, who positioned us all so that TA was in the middle between Jade and I. Jade kept looking beseechingly at me, not happy at not being right next to me, and after a couple of minutes dropped to her knees and knelt down on the floor in front of me. The TA let her sit next to me, but really ...! She really does get on very well with the TA, but there is just something about her separation anxiety and inability to let me go... When we went to the classroom, I was supposed to go and sit at the back of the classroom while the TA sat next to Jade, but Jade kept hanging on to my hand, wouldn't let go, and wanted me sitting right next to her again. The TA asked me to go out with her into the staffroom for a quick chat and we said we'd be back in a minute. The TA expressed her frustration about how completely fine, happy and relaxed Jade had been the day before, and manages quite well on Wednesdays and gets rid of her Dad quite quickly, but the following day we take a couple of steps backwards because she is so attached to me and doesn't want me to go even a few steps away. We talked it over, and remembering how it went on Monday, I suggested that I stay in the staffroom and not go back into the classroom with the TA. I was really anxious about how it would go, and paced up and down and felt myself developing a tension headache, but peeked out of the door into the classroom a couple of times and all seemed to be fine. The story later was that when the TA went back in and told Jade that I was having a cuppa in the staffroom, her face changed for a few minutes, feeling upset and bothered, but a bit of a joke and silliness from the TA soon got her smiling and then laughing, and then she was completely utterly fine. Her reward for doing well in class was to leave 20 mins early to go to the TA's office for some games, and then just a minute or two before break-time they came out and came to find me and tell me how things had gone. Jade was completely happy, giggling away with the TA, answering questions in the corridor about the games they had played, relaxed, confident - wow! She asked me to stay just until she had found her friends to play with at breaktime and I told her I would have to leave to go to work. We went outside and found her friends, and I was just helping with a bit of game organisation when the TA came out to me and said she was going to have to go as her Dad was very ill again (he has terminal cancer). After she went, I turned and said confidently to Jade (though half-expecting she might resist now that the TA wasn't going to be there), "right, I'll go to work now, and you can go to maths, and I'll see you at the end of lunchtime" and she nodded quite happily and agreed! She has a different teacher for maths, and she's always been more confident about going to that lesson because she's never had any upsets with that particular teacher. I went to work, got back and was with her for most of the afternoon lessons. She had PE in the hall for about 45 mins, and to start with she was anxiously making sure I was very close at hand, but I gradually wandered off to peruse the children's work on the walls, and then when I saw she was quite relaxed and joining in happily, I gestured to her that I was going to disappear for a cuppa, and she nodded. I stayed away about 15 minutes, went back and they were all lying on the ground with their eyes closed doing the cool-down bit, so I left them to it and went back and waited in the classroom. When she got back, she said "I thought you said you were only going for a drink and then coming back?" but she was not upset or particularly bothered, and when I explained that I had gone back but not gone in she was quite OK with that.

On the Friday morning the TA teaches swimming, this time with other classes, so again I stayed with Jade. It was really nice to see her interacting a lot more with the other children - after they had all changed for PE and were sitting on the carpet waiting for everyone else she was sitting in a little group listening to one boy's stories and chat, smiling and giggling and generally joining in! I wandered off while she had PE again, this time tennis outside, and I went in to the staffroom for a cup of tea, and stayed away for about half an hour till they came back. Then it was breaktime, followed by maths, so I disappeared again and went to work. When I got back at the end of lunchtime, I appeared at the classroom door and the teacher told me that I could go and sit in the staffroom as Jade was quite OK, and I could see that she was and she smiled happily at me. So off I went to the staffroom for the entire afternoon - that's not happened for a long long time!

So a good end to the second week. She seems to be widening the group of kids she plays with and building relationships with more girls.

After school on Friday, Gary from church came over as he has been doing on and off for a few months, and she had a good time with him too, playing games at first non-verbally, but when we played a game of Happy Families she started by only whispering in my ear when she wanted a card, but when she realised she had to ask Gary for something, she just started talking out loud and then being quite confident and relaxed about it!