One of these days...

...I will blog frequently enough to keep some sort of flow going. It's hard to catch up on almost two months' worth of news!

What I really want to do is write a whole huge post, or series of posts, about Jade's selective mutism and how things have developed from the beginning. She went back to school in January just coming home one afternoon per week and being in all the rest of the time, without any specific support in class except 2 sessions with her TA per week. In February she went completely full-time. All has been going well until Friday! I'm hoping this will turn out to be a brief hiccup in her otherwise amazing progress! More of that later, maybe.

Right now we're off to see Lily, the pony, and that's something else I haven't blogged about. In the meantime, enjoy the photo!

Time flies!

Whoa! I'm not too good at keeping up with this blog, and it's a shame because a lot has continued to go on.

Around the middle of November, Jade's TA had to unexpectedly go to hospital for a check-up after an unfortunate encounter with a bicycle while outside. She had been leaving Jade for brief periods prior to this, but only 5-10 minutes at a time. She asked Jade if she felt she would be OK in the classroom while she went off to hospital, and Jade nodded. And she was absolutely fine (and so was the TA after some minor treatment). So that prompted a further progression of the TA leaving her more frequently and for longer, and only 2 weeks later (approx. end November) Jade was in the classroom all morning without her TA or any special support at all! She has been reading in front of her class teacher, but doesn't have any 'free' speech yet with her. Since then she has tried one or two afternoons in school as well, also without support, and has been fine, though she is quite sure she doesn't want to do two in a row. She feels it's too tiring.

We are still stunned at the rapidity of her progress over this term. She still insists on being accompanied to Brownies and her Junior Church group, and of course won't speak to anyone else yet, but she does play with and speak to her friends in the playground. Today she is staying for the Christmas Party in the afternoon. At first she said she didn't want to go because she didn't want to have to join in any games or dancing, but when I promised her I would speak to her teacher and that she didn't have to do anything like that if she didn't want to, she agreed to go.

Shannon has been a shepherd in the nativity play, and performed with great confidence and energy in her class assembly in late November. I can imagine her going on the stage!

We have sadly given Snoopy the bunny back to the rescue centre as we were tired of being bitten and scratched, and have got another Netherland Dwarf doe for Jade instead. Both bunnies have now been spayed and have had a lovely new playhouse home and run just this past week. They are in bunny heaven!

Half-term

This was our first 'proper' half-term, with children having been in school. It was rather lovely to have a rest from the early mornings and getting ready! And to spend some time doing things together.

So, very much in brief, on Monday afternoon we went to Stratford-on-Avon to see 'Fantastic Mr Fox' at the cinema, which was OK but not great. We had hoped to get on a tourist bus afterwards but while looking for change for the car-park before the film Jade had spotted a museum of wizardology and witchcraft so insisted we went in there, seeing as she is still Harry Potter mad, currently being in the middle of the Half-Blood Prince. It was quite an entertaining little place, including the chance to be 'sorted' by the Sorting Hat. Jade was most surprised to be put in Hufflepuff along with me, whereas Shannon was in Gryffindor. Some of it I thought a bit too grisly and scary but fortunately it wasn't really light enough to read the information boards and I steered them past some of the scarier bits. After that, we didn't have time for Shakespeare-ish stuff or tour buses but I have promised to go back and do that sometime.

On Tuesday we had a dental check-up appointment for all 3 of us in Oxford, so we went there for the afternoon. The park-and-ride was full so had trouble parking, but in the end went to the Natural History Museum and Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. It was heaving with half-term kids, but that also meant there were lots of activities and actors pretending to be historic explorers which was quite fun. I def. like the Pitt Rivers best though. And the dentist was fine - nothing needed doing for any of us - except that Shannon got upset by being told not to play on the little stool and had a bit of a melt-down and then refused to open her mouth for the dentist to see. Got a bit stressful there but in the end he just quickly counted her teeth and that was it.

On Wednesday I was at work (packing the office up as we are moving elsewhere within town) but Jade and Shannon were taken by Bill to an HE-friend's Halloween Birthday Party. They enjoyed it but DH said they just both remained attached to him the whole time. Apparently Shannon did tell a story, though not a spooky one as it was supposed to be!

On Thursday both girls came to work with me for a couple of hours, followed by a relaxing afternoon at home.

On Friday things got rather stressful trying to do all the shopping and preparation for Shannon's birthday party the following day. Shopping for all the bits and pieces took way longer than I'd thought it would, so I then didn't have enough time to do as much 'stash-and-dash' clearing up as I wanted to. Things got a bit shouty and stressed. I always intend to start preparing much earlier for parties, like at least a week in advance, but in the end I just seem to have way too much to do to be able to do that and it all gets left to the last minute.

Anyway, Shannon had a lovely birthday party on Saturday. She had invited 7 friends, plus Jade and L from next door were here as helpers. We had a few games, food, quite a bit of time spent out in the garden and on the trampoline, and then ice-cream & jelly/singing Happy Birthday towards the end.

Then I went for a nap!

In the early evening Jade and I set off to go and see Monty Roberts. I totally love that man and everything he says, does and stands for. His non-violent, calm yet firm approach to horse-training and remedial work for damaged horses (aka horses with bad behaviour) has so much of a wider application and I always find it teaches me a lot about how to approach things with Jade. Horses are 'flight' animals (as opposed to 'fight') and so, overall, are children, particularly sensitive/anxious ones. The thing I got from it this time is that he believes that a sustained, rapid progression through a training programme in an hour is better than doing short bursts over several days. Keep going while the horse or child is in a heightened state of learning and move on to the next stage as quickly as possible.

We didn't get home till after midnight, and then around 2am Jade woke up suddenly thinking she was going to be sick. She spent a while in the bathroom. Fortunately it turned out not to be the case and I wondered if in fact she was just really hungry as she had said in the fog of sleep as she first woke up.

So she had a long sleep-in while I had to get up with Shannon early, and then off to church early to help with setting up. Our church has moved out of its church building and now meets in the local secondary school as the membership has just grown too large for the old buildings. Fab! But it does mean a lot of work (on a rota) for setting-up/taking-down. Home and lunch was followed by a much-needed nap for me, then some HE friends came over for help with some chemistry. This was somewhat daunting as it was about half-equations for chemical reactions, and it is 12+ years since I did any of that, but between us Bill and I managed to work out what it was all about and help, so that felt good!

Back to school tomorrow for the girls, and a major week of office-moving for me, is what lies ahead.

Shannon

I've said very little about Shannon lately, and I want to remedy that. Unfortunately it's late and I want to go to sleep.

Anyway, there have been a few bumps in the road of her beginning school. And I haven't yet figured out what it's all about.

She started off very happily indeed. She enjoyed it, had no problem going, really looked forward to it. For the first two weeks she only stayed there till lunchtime, and then from the 3rd week onwards she was full-time. And it wasn't long before the complaints started. She started to say in the morning that she didn't want to go to school. She missed me too much, she wanted me to be with her, or her to be with me at home. Unfailingly, however, when picked up from school she would say she'd had a good time, she'd done fun things and all seemed to be well. Anyway, after a few days of this, I spoke to her class teacher and we agreed that Shannon could come home at lunchtime and just do half-days till half-term. That seemed to go down well with Shannon. Problem hopefully solved.

But no, she is still often saying she doesn't want to go. Her teacher says, however, and I believe her, that Shannon is perfectly fine while there. She joins in, enjoys herself, takes part wholeheartedly. I believe it because I have seen it myself. Having been in school with Jade quite a bit, and still going in at unusual times for collecting Jade and other things, I have taken the opportunity to peek in at Shannon. She is invariably smiling, laughing, joining in and looking fine. Yet she says she doesn't want to go. And she isn't out of the house for any longer than she was when she was at nursery, which she was very happy with. So I don't quite know what it is all about. I am torn, because although I don't want her to be unhappy, I don't want to withdraw her to HE just yet either. I am just yearning for enough time at home to achieve various specific things, and she isn't obviously unhappy while she's there anyway. If she was standing forlornly in corners looking sad and withdrawn it would be a very different matter, but she isn't. I will continue to listen to her, try and understand exactly what's bothering her and be open to whatever action needs to be taken, but I am hoping that she doesn't need to be deregistered quite yet!

She is however reading fairly fabulously. She can read some words that surprise me at her ability, and yet still asks about other words that have fairly simple phonic blends in them, but nevertheless she's not 5 yet and can read "Green Eggs and Ham" easily and is on about Level 4 of the Oxford Reading Tree series.

And she did hugely impress her teacher about 10 days ago, by writing numbers 1 - 36 on a whiteboard, and only stopping at that point because she ran out of space. Her teacher took her off to the headmaster's office for a special "hoorah for Shannon" moment! I don't know what level the other kids are at - it seems fairly normal for me with my two - I just wish I'd had the presence of mind to comment that that was what home education did for you! She's very into maths, numbers, very much likes adding and taking away numbers less than 10, and often asks to do a workbook at bedtime instead of a story!

More progress

On Monday October 5th, the day after my last entry about Jade's progress at school, I was officially sent home while she was at school! For the first part of the time she sent me to a pathway only about a minute's walk from our house, and then about 20 minutes before I was due to pick her up again, I got a call on my mobile saying that Jade said I could go home. Wahoo!! On the following day, she agreed I could go home straight after dropping her off, and that's how it's been ever since. I still can't get over how rapid her progress has been.

Also on that Tuesday, she started to extend her time being at school. She agreed to go and have a look at the maths lesson which occurs after break, just to see what it was like. Fortunately (she is rather maths-averse!) it seemed a fairly easy lesson on measuring, so although she only stayed 5 or 10 minutes that first time, she agreed to stay for longer the next day. She enjoyed the time they spent going round the school measuring things, so from the Thursday onwards she stayed all through the maths lesson and I started to pick her up at 12.10pm. That week she also started to do some reading in other parts of the school rather than just the TA's office. One day they went and sat in a cupboard (!) by the main corridor, and she managed to continue reading while people walked by - which is such a major achievement for her!

The following week her TA started to introduce other children into her talking sessions. She firstly introduced one girl who was nearby while Jade played Snap with the TA, and then progressed to playing directly with the girl - the first child she has spoken to in school! A day or two later (this is just last week) there wasn't anywhere else for them to go apart from the classroom, and Jade managed to play Snap with this girl with a whole load of other kids standing round watching - and listening!!! Oh how I wish I'd been there to see that! I don't know exactly how much talking she did while playing, but when I played that game with her we were encouraging her to say the name of the thing on each card as she put it down, so I think that's probably what she has continued doing.

And then on Thursday when I went to look at sofas (and ended up buying one - oops, didn't quite mean that to happen!) you wouldn't have known there was anything unusual about this girl at all. Despite me having quite a bit of conversation with a salesman, she was talking out loud and completely freely to Shannon and myself, with no lowering of her voice or hesitation at all. She didn't speak directly to the salesman, but when she had moved away and I just mentioned how amazed I was at what she was doing, he said he would never have known she had any sort of a problem!

Feel the fear and do it anyway

Two weeks ago, Jade couldn't put any part of her face underwater when swimming. She hated to be splashed. And related to this, hairwashing has always been a nightmare trying not to get any water into her eyes or ears. But two weeks ago we went swimming and took Jade's friend along, who is very confident about swimming underwater. We have been swimming with this girl before, and it didn't prompt Jade to have a go herself then, but obviously the time was just right for her on this occasion, and she decided she wanted to try and put her face underwater. She was nervous but determined, and took herself off to a corner of the pool to just get on with it herself. In her own time, and without any prompting, pushing or encouragement from anyone else, she decided on the small steps she was going to take towards this big goal, and took them herself. Firstly she dipped her mouth into the water for the briefest moment, and was happy to find that it was OK and did it again a couple more times. Then she decided that she would put her nose in, and dipped it in as quickly as possible. Again she repeated it, asking me to watch, full of excitement and pride in herself. She borrowed her friend's goggles and decided to put her whole face in the water, which she achieved despite her anxiety. Time after time, she pushed herself on tiny step by tiny step. She was excited but very wound up, and at one point had to take a bit of a break and sit on the side when she knew she needed to. She took her own time, set her own goals and achieved them in her own way. And by the end of the swim, she was going right under the water to catch a sinking hoop. She asked me to throw it again and again and was so thrilled at herself. It was lovely to see! And yet, had a swimming teacher decided that it was time for her to learn this and push her towards doing it, I am quite sure it would have failed completely. She would have been too scared to do it with any pressure from anybody else. It was entirely internally motivated, and successful because of it. I have never seen a clearer example in my own child as to why child-led education achieves far more than a cookie-cutter curriculum ever will.

At the end of the swim, we bought her some goggles of her own, and the following week she went swimming again, this time with DH but not me. She came home reporting that she could swim 3 metres under water, and sure enough I have seen that for myself today. She's now spending more time under water than on top of it. She is just revelling in her new water confidence, and it is a joy!

September round-up

I am so behind on everything but the essentials, but here I am in bed on a Sunday morning with my laptop, so will try to update a bit.

My last entry reported how Jade had just started basic talking with her TA. She was managing one-word answers to questions, and some longer phrases when clearly prompted with two options. She progressed remarkably quickly from then on (for an SM child!), although I now can't remember the exact timings. It was just after I blogged last time that I contacted an SM expert who is conducting a study on using particular computer programs with SM children at home and at school to help them start and then progress with talking with other people around. I was enquiring to see if he might be able to visit us, set us up with the software, give the school staff a much better training on SM than most of them have had (with the exception of Jade's class teacher, who doesn't really seem to have absorbed it very well, sadly). We had a very long, useful and informative phone conversation, which ended with a plan for me to go and talk to the school, get their agreement to go ahead with the software and training, and then come back to him. I did this, but I think it was within the next week that it really seemed we had moved past that point for Jade. Certainly within two weeks from my last entry, she was able to talk fairly freely with the TA as long as no-one else was within earshot. A week after my last post, we started sliding me (and DH, on Wednesdays) out, meaning Jade agrees on us moving further and further away down the corridor, while Jade and the TA are in her office talking and working together. At this stage DH and I had to remember to take a good book with us into school, as sitting in school corridors for an hour at a time gets pretty boring! A week later, we fairly spontaneously tried moving me away during actual classroom time, which is much more challenging for Jade as she is not in such a safe space. The TA had been sitting with her while I sat a couple of chairs away, and then I sat at the back of the classroom. That day, the TA gestured to me if I thought it was worth trying to get me out of the classroom, which I did. She whispered to Jade to see if it was OK with her, and Jade nodded. So I took a chair and sat outside the classroom. About half an hour later Jade and the TA went to the TA's office while I remained where I was. A while later they moved me outside the school main door, and even later on I was put right across the courtyard away from the main door. Fortunately it was a warm sunny day! I was astonished that Jade had moved me so far away in just one morning.

Since then we have continued moving us away from school, all under Jade's control according to where she feels OK to put us. She hasn't got round to sending us home yet (a 5 minute walk from school) but has sent us over half-way there. Because we're now communicating by mobile phone when I need to go back to school, and Jade doesn't actually see where I go, I have actually come home once or twice, but she doesn't know that. I would never never not be where she expected me to be if there was any chance that she would see that I wasn't there, as trust is very important, but I know I'm safe with this.

So the current state of affairs is that Jade is in school from 8.45 till 11.10am. I drop her off with the TA first thing, then go and drop Shannon off at her class, and leave them both while I go away. I may get a call on my mobile to move further away at some point, and I go back to school at 11.10am to collect her. The TA sits with her in the classroom for the first part of class time, while they go over literacy theory and get instructions for assignments, then they go to the TA's office to actually complete the work. Jade can talk to the TA in the same way that any slightly quieter, shyer child would talk to an adult, i.e. she is not completely relaxed, free and chatty but with a certain amount of reserve she can say anything she needs to say, initiate conversations (which is major!!), ask questions and generally get on very well, again as long as no-one else is nearby. They have walked all round the school, talking in different private places with no problems, and Jade can giggle or clear her throat (non-verbal vocalising) in the presence of other teachers or children. We are so thrilled, and astonished at how quickly things have moved in the past few weeks.

We are in the very fortunate position of having a dedicated TA, for the entire morning when that becomes possible for Jade, without having had to go through statementing, or any other administrative hoops. It came about when I involved the Educational Psychologist, who called a meeting at the school and brought in the SEN TA. When the Ed Psych said that Jade needed one-to-one support, it was immediately forthcoming!

Must publish now, my laptop battery is about to die, but will try and follow up soon!

Notes

So much to blog about, so little time. I will do rough notes and try to fill in later.

1. Had an absolutely fabulous time at Greenbelt - I left the kids at home with DH and had tons of time to go and do lots of the things I wanted to. Loved it!

2. Jade back at school, reasonably happily. Now 5 mornings per week, 8.50am - 11.10am. Some time in classroom with SEN teaching assistant by her side and me sitting back twiddling my thumbs. Then a 20-min session at the end in TA's office doing selective mutism stuff.

3. After only a week back, Jade spoke to TA! It was on a Wednesday, so DH was with her, not me. She did some reading, and answered some simple questions about the literacy work they were doing. She repeated it on Thursday. She really struggled to do it again on Friday, and I had an agonising 10 minutes sitting outside the door waiting for her to be able to say something, and eventually she did, phew!

4. Shannon has started school. After an uncharacteristically wobbly first morning (she had been quite unwell in the 5 days previously and was still a bit post-viral, which made her cling to me and not want me to leave) she has been absolutely fine. She has skipped off very happily and is very proud of herself. Yesterday (Saturday) she asked me when she was going to school again, in a tone of voice which meant she was disappointed not to be going that day!

Sunrise Off-Grid Festival

(Very late publishing of this post I drafted after getting back - was waiting to put photos in but had to learn how to get them off my phone first, and now I have done so but onto my laptop so will have to go and do that separately.)

We've just had a really interesting and fun few days away at the Sunrise Off-Grid Festival in Somerset. I was asked to go and help in the 'Sustainable Communities' area, issuing the first local/temporary currency issued for a Festival, the SOL (Symbol of Life). I went with my ex-work colleague and friend, Kate, and her 3 daughters who are good friends with my 2. We took it in turns to be on the stand issuing SOLs, and looking after the girls.

The kids had an absolute blast. There was 'Forest School' every morning from 10-12 which I went along to to help Jade be there. The first morning covered 'Nature Crafts' including making your chosen animal in clay using leaves, twigs or anything else as facial or bodily features, making a nest from straw for your animal, using mud and crushed berries to decorate banners, a nature scavenger hunt, and decorating the whole area with whatever could be found nearby. The second morning was about 'story-telling', during which the kids picked a soft-toy animal from a big sack, and then built/made a home for their animal. Willow stems could be used to make a 'tree' into which you could put a nest for a bird or squirrel, holes dug in the ground for rabbits and hedgehogs, a blue fabric 'pond' for the frogs and Shannon's lobster. The kids were amazingly creative and fantastic, and even more so when, once all the homes were built, we went round and the kids told a story about their animal. Shannon was so cute talking about her lobster's day!

That afternoon, Jade spent a lot of time with H and D, Kate's elder two girls, and really bonded with them again. They spent a lot of time kite-flying, and then went off round the festival together, arm-in-arm. Jade was able to go off without me, spend her money at some stalls on her own, and generally participant and have a fab time. So much so that on the Sunday morning when Kate and I were busy packing up the tents, she and the other girls went off to Forest School without me!! I was so thrilled! There they did campfire cooking, and I think she said they cooked some apples (baked, maybe?) and made 'bread' which wrapped round the end of a stick to cook over the fire, although when I was in the Guides we used to call it 'damper'.

There was so much of interest to see and do, although I missed most of it due to being at Forest School in the mornings and on the SOL stand in the afternoon, but I did join in with Melissa Corkhill's (Editor of Green Parent magazine) talk about home education and a workshop with Mark Boyle on the Freeconomy and his experiment on living completely without money for a year. All very thought-provoking and interesting stuff. I also discovered activist folk band Seize the Day who are fantastic!

I wish I had taken a picture of the toilets. I thought the old Greenbelt toilets were rather basic in the days when they were just a hole in a piece of wood over a big hole in the ground, but at least they had doors. These were composting toilets, aka a big hole in the ground, a plank of wood over with holes cut in, and walls and doors made of a big sheet of plastic. The sheet was cut with a knife at one side of each doorway so you could push it aside to go in. But what does sheet plastic do when cut? It curls up at the edges. And it was quite windy. So one had to develop gymnastic techniques in getting ones clothes out of the way with one hand, while pulling and holding the plastic sheet across the open doorway to avoid one's ablutions being watched by the rest of the campsite. Once finished, you chucked a cup of sawdust down the hole. It was an .... interesting experience!

I've left that depressing blogpost up at the top for far too long. Not that anything's changed particularly, but I was feeling everything very strongly just then because of the post-conference blues, and whether that brings everything into sharper focus, or just makes everything look worse than it really is, I don't know.

I have kept thinking over the past couple of months that it would be interesting to be blogging my impressions of spending a couple of hours in school four days per week. Sometimes I have found myself impressed by what they've been doing, and contemplating how we wouldn't be able to do those things at home, and sometimes I've been hating aspects of it and uncomfortable with the sausage-machine aspects of school.

But first, the personal aspects of how it's going. Jade has been in her classroom for 1-1.5 hours four times a week, mostly with me but one session per week with Bill. She's a long way from being comfortable or relaxed there, but small steps forward have been made. When she goes into assembly, she no longer sits on the floor by my chair at the side of the hall, but goes in the line with her class and just sits in the hall wherever she ends up, while I still sit at the side. The next step there would be for me not to be in the hall at all during assembly, and I think we will do that quite soon next term. The other small step forward is that when her class go to sit on the floor at the front of the classroom, I no longer go and sit with her but I sit on a chair a bit further back, only stepping in if some kind of interactivity is required. She doesn't talk to any of her friends in the classroom or in the playground. She doesn't listen to what the teacher is saying and start any actions herself - she always needs a lot of prompting from me. If we have broken into small groups for discussions, I always go with her and she doesn't take any part in it. If we've been looking in books, she has participated in that, helping to choose sections for someone else in the group to read out. She says she likes it 'a bit' and isn't objecting when it's time to go to school, but she is definitely ready to leave when the hour or so is over and often whispers to me to ask how much longer we'll be there.

After the classroom session, we've been going to the SEN teaching assistant's office for 'sliding-in' sessions. This involves Jade and I playing any game that involves an element of speaking, e.g. snap, I-spy, while the TA stands some distance away as agreed with Jade. She then gradually (with Jade's agreement and direction) moves closer every few minutes. We have got to the stage where she is about a metre away and Jade will continue to speak, in a very limited way, to me, but hasn't yet managed to respond to any simple direct questions put by the TA. Going through the same process at riding, however, and she has allowed Mary the riding instructor to join in a game of I-spy with us.

The plan is that once Jade is comfortably speaking with the TA, she will then take over from me and Bill in taking Jade into the classroom, at first just for short periods and then for longer. That's as far as the planning-ahead has got, so far. Jade doesn't know that last bit yet!

In the meantime I have bought books on CBT for children, managing anxiety in children and so on, and am attempting to read them, make sense of them and put them into action. It doesn't help that I am useless in sticking to a plan or programme and am constantly distracted and side-tracked.

In the meantime, Shannon is all geared up for starting to attend Reception in September. She is very excited about it and longing to go. She has happily attended some taster sessions. I think she will be fine, although need to not just assume that she will be but remain alert for any signs otherwise. I spend so much time thinking and worrying about Jade's situation that I've almost classified Shannon as "will be perfectly alright no matter what" because she is so different, but that's not necessarily the case.

Despite that earlier post, there are still times when I wish I could just chuck this all in and continue purely to HE, and there are times when I am really looking forward to them both being in school. For the time being, it is doing Jade some good and she really needs this help to find her own self, her own courage and space away from me. I will make sure we do not rush through that process too quickly to her detriment, but at a pace which is as comfortable as it can be for her. Facing her fears and anxieties is never going to be easy but it has to be done. I will just have to see how it goes for Shannon. She would be absolutely lovely to HE apart from the fact that she would be begging me to see friends every day. Maybe if she spends a year in school and gains a good collection of local friends we could then fulfil her social needs after school time even if we do HE her.

In the meantime, we are in the summer holidays and I have plans, although as I've already said, not much skill at putting them into practice. This week we might be designating 'Sculpture Week', starting with a trip to the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail (and a couple of other attractions while in the FoD), and then planning and building some sort of sculpture in our garden. This is weather-dependent, and therefore highly susceptible to change!

Life

I barely know where to start. My head is a muddle and so is my life. So many things are worrying or unsatisfactory at the moment and I can't begin to make sense of it all.

I am very worried about Jade. When going through (and chucking out) some old papers earlier on I came across a list of characteristics of self-rejection, and all the ones that aren't adult-centred are relevant to her, namely inferiority, insecurity, self-consciousness, shyness, critical, envious, jealous, unable to respond to others, over-sensitivity and touchiness. That describes her so well. She hates her younger sister and never has anything positive to say about her. They do play together but never have any close, caring, sharing moments. She is jealous, envious and critical particularly of Shannon but also of other friends. She will not share ANY of her toys with Shannon, snatches them, and yet thinks she ought to be able to play with anything of Shannon's without restriction. She can't/won't talk about feelings, she pushes everything down, won't let herself cry if she can possibly avoid it, is extremely moody, very often has a really sulky, grumpy scowl on her face. I am so worried about what her life will become if we cannot shift her out of this place within herself somehow. And how the hell did this happen anyway? I absolutely bent over backwards to meet all her baby needs, I was a calm, patient, loving and adoring mother in those days and followed continuum concept/attachment parenting principles because I loved to do so and because she was such a thrill and a joy to have. It was supposed to give her a completely secure base from which to move out and explore the world. And something, whether it's biology or maternal anxiety while she was in the womb or just something we have failed to do when she was much littler, or a combination of them all, has left us with this anxious and frankly often rather unpleasant child.

Both girls just want me all the time. They want me to bring them downstairs in the morning, me to do bedtime stories, and just about everything else inbetween. Daddy won't do - they complain if it's his turn (despite him being much nicer than me a lot of the time). Shannon demands carries or piggy-backs several times a day (not often agreed to, but the demands are wearing nonetheless) and Jade leaps on me at any opportunity trying to ride me like a horse. And this is despite my absolute rage at her continuing to do it and making it extremely clear that it drives me mad.

I was away at a conference at the weekend with work, and had an absolutely lovely time. I had forgotten how energised I am by ideas, and interesting conversation, and feeling like what I do has a purpose and is successful and respected. I was so fed up when I got home. I didn't want to be here at all, didn't want to go back to screaming, whining children and mess and ungratefulness and repeating the same phrases over and over and over again until I yell and shout and say things I regret.

Yet there is no way I can work any more at the moment. Jade is completely unable to function in the outside world without either me or DH with her at all times. She is so, so far away from being able to be in school in a normal way that at the moment I can't imagine it ever happening. I don't know what she's feeling about school at the moment. She missed most of last week because she had a tummy bug, and has missed most of this week because they are doing tests and we've been advised not to bring her in in the mornings (and I can't do afternoons because of Shannon, except on Wednesdays). I kind of don't want to ask her whether she wants to continue going, because in one way (see above) I want her to, so that I can eventually get some of my own space. On the other hand trying to gradually integrate her into school is so stressful and shows up in stark contrast just how different she is from every other child and I frequently want to just chuck it all in and stick to HE. But then I'd have no respite on the horizon at all, and we'd still have to go through some sort of similar process with other groups or social activities anyway.

There is so much of my own that I want to do. I want to study nutrition more, and maybe become a nutritional therapist or something similar. I want to sort out all the bloody mess and clutter in this house and live like decent normal people with a nice house. I want to get on with scrapbooking, reading, thinking, exercising, organising and other things that require concentration and attention. I just can't bring myself to start anything because I know I'm going to be interrupted every 30 seconds and it utterly does my head in and renders me incapable of coherent thought. I'm crap in the evenings because bedtime routine takes from 7pm to 9pm and after that I'm too tired and resentful to start anything. And neither do I plan or organise any interesting HE stuff, nor do my children come up with anything that looks nearly as educational as other children seem to do, nor can I take Jade to groups or anything interactive, so I'm doing a completely crap job of HE too.

And there is no uplifting ending to this post. I just hope someone somewhere will tell me where I can get a personality transplant for Jade.

School Part 2

Jade's enjoyed herself at school this afternoon, though with DH taking her rather than me. She arrived at lunchtime and joined in a bit of running around with other kids as long as Bill was in close proximity. He says kids gathered round and were asking lots of questions about her which he answered. Once afternoon school started they had a French lesson, and she was relaxed enough to laugh and enjoy it although not joining in. After that it was a tennis lesson, which she didn't want to join in so she and Bill sat and watched. Then the teacher offered them a pair of racquets and a ball so they played around between them and she had fun a bit separately from the rest of the group. When I got home from work she was still buzzing about it and saying she had a really fun time at school.

It's still impossible to see how she will cope without a parent there, but it's at least good that she's enjoying it so far.

When we got to Brownies I had forgotten a vital item, so asked her to stay there while I rushed home to get it. She was quite happy to do so, and when I got back they were already in their sixes and doing the register, so I stayed away and didn't join her until everybody got into a circle for the next bit. It's definitely time for me to take a step or two back at Brownies and start weaning her off me there.

School Part 1

It's been a stressful few days. I took Jade to visit her class on Thursday morning, prior to proper enrolment and it was hard going. She of course was withdrawn, very overwhelmed by all the people and the new routine. She got worse over the 2 hours we were there and by the end wouldn't even write her name on a piece of paper. We left the classroom for a bit of respite at one point and she couldn't/wouldn't tell me how she was feeling, but she was on the verge of tears. However she was very interested in all the displays on the walls and we spent some time browsing them and she whispered to me about the things she saw. The final straw was when the teacher asked to speak to me outside the room for a few minutes, and when I went back in Jade was in tears.

I was absolutely kicking myself for not having arranged a visit earlier so she could see what she was letting herself in for. I was overwhelmed by my own anxieties about this not working, and what that might do to her confidence. It seemed just ridiculous to me to expect her in any way to be able to settle in a classroom with 25 other kids and 2 adults when I haven't yet ever left her at Brownies with 9 other girls or at the junior church group with about 4-5 other kids. I was wishing we had made diligent, structured efforts to achieve those hurdles before we set ourselves at this massive goal. At this stage we're not even dealing with selective mutism, but rather with social anxiety and separation anxiety. And I don't have a manual on how to deal with those.

However, we bore in mind that on previous occasions she has had a big reaction to something at the time, and then over the course of the next 12-24 hours has reconsidered her feelings and been able to do the thing she had been refusing to do. So Bill talked to her and she agreed to give it one more try, and later on I talked to her and said how I always hated at least the first month of any new job, because everything was so strange, and you don't know the people, and it's all unfamiliar and you feel uncomfortable, but gradually you get used to it and start to settle in. So she agreed to try it for a month. And the following day she was quite happy to go to the school to buy her official school top with the logo on it, wore it away from the school and didn't want to take it off for ages. She still talked occasionally proudly about 'her' school and was quite happy to give it another go. It gave me an extremely stressful few days, though, and I was feeling completely wretched about the whole thing.

This morning she has quite happily gone into school with me for her first 'proper' morning. She was happily laying out her uniform last night and very keen to look just right, and she agreed that she would try and do the actual work the teacher was asking her to do, and not to sit on my knee during carpet time (or whatever they call it!) but to sit next to me instead. We are going to have to take these tiny steps towards separating from me. She was extremely slow to write anything that she was asked to, and hasn't actually produced any written work, but has written down the question she was going to answer, and her name and date on a couple of exercise books. We've spent a lot of time in a big group with the teacher talking and involving the class in discussion, which of course she won't take part in, and also in a small group of 5 talking about non-fiction books, during which she whispered her answers to me and I told them to the rest of the group.

Whenever it's been appropriate and without boring her rigid with it, I've been talking with her about self-calming tactics like taking 3 deep breaths, telling yourself calming thoughts, and imagining that she is a big strong animal rather than a nervous little girl. I've been looking online for child anxiety management resources and found a couple of interesting looking things that I will probably get once we're into a new month with new salary in the bank. And tomorrow (Tuesday) her class teacher and myself will be in London on a one-day training course on SM. Hopefully this will prevent any future occurrences of the teacher asking Jade in front of the group to answer a question with a nod or a shake of the head. She of course did neither as it was far too much in the spotlight for her.

During my reading up on anxiety management I have been reminded that avoidance of a feared situation just strengthens and strengthens the fear, so helping her to face up to what she fears and to find ways of reducing the anxiety it provokes is the way to go, rather than pulling out and avoiding the situation again. I do still wonder whether we have bitten off rather more than she can chew and maybe there are some children who are never going to cope happily with a school environment and as long as she can be helped to join in smaller groups with less pressure/expectation but still without a parent present that ought to be good enough. So we shall see.

Having spent some time in the classroom now I would love to read John Taylor Gatto about the hidden curriculum of the classroom, to see whether that is really what I see happening there. Certainly I can see some children being subjected to a certain amount of embarrassment and anxiety, although in the midst of lots of positive and interesting stuff too.

Anyway I should be in bed now as I have to be up at 6am so that'll have to do for now.

All change

It's a time of significant change here. Jade will be starting school on Monday 27th. Shannon's playgroup is closing next Thursday, April 30th. And the small charity I work for is having difficulty raising funds for this financial year, and I may lose my job. I am looking round for another one. (And in the middle of all that, we will have Benjamin's 10th birthday to get through).

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about the school thing. I am glad that Jade wants to go, because that in itself shows significant progress emotionally and socially. The school are bending over backwards to make it alright for her, by starting her part-time, me going in with her, the teacher will go on a selective mutism training course with me next Tuesday (assuming there are still places available), and if all goes well she could make significant steps forward with social and emotional things, like being able to be away from me, learning to be with others and talk to them and so on. The teacher is good, the class is warm, supportive and friendly - it could make a world of difference to Jade to have this experience. And I am so looking forward to having some headspace for me, time to regroup and take stock of everything (though that might now have to wait till September with Shannon not being at playschool).

On the other hand, all of us HEors know enough about what school can do to some kids and sending her to school to gain in confidence seems rather the wrong way round. And I will miss her :-( We went for a lovely walk in the sunshine on Monday morning and it was that fantastic feeling of freedom while all the other children in the world (it seems) are locked away in school! I love the individuality that HE gives us, the freedom and time to live life as we want to.

Ah well, all we can do now is suck it and see. We have to do this now - Jade wants to and it would be wrong in her particular case to deny that, and there is a good chance she will make big strides forward.

So at the weekend I shall come off the blogring, if the Blogring Controller could arrange that ;-) Make sure you set your bookmarks or RSS feeders now!

In preparation for school, I have been having a little look at where Jade is at educationally. I did a couple of reading tests on her, resulting in a reading age of 12y 7mo (she is 7y 10mo). Overall with maths she seems to be around the end of a Year 2 level, so about a year behind, but she does struggle with maths, doesn't like doing it and I haven't pushed it much, having hoped she will reach an age where it will 'click' more easily. No such luxury in school! And as far as everything else, I haven't a clue! The rest doesn't bother me really. I have printed off those verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers that everyone else has been doing lately but haven't had the chance to give them to her yet. She continues of course to learn everything in the universe about horses and ponies, and could now quite competently devise a stable management routine and feeding routine for any equine friend that came her way. She knows more than I do (and I was an utterly pony-mad child too) about breeds, markings, tack and points of the horse, although not as much about riding yet ;-) That's where her anxiety and lack of self-confidence show through - she's taking the learning to ride process quite slowly.

She spends most of her time pretending to be a pony, pretending to have a pony and setting up various 'stables' round the house, garden and garage, or playing with toy ponies. Occasionally I drag her away to do a spot of maths or grammar, but most overt educational stuff stopped a while ago. She also got a new bike recently (I'd been wondering about getting her a new one for her birthday in June, and then I saw a lovely one 2nd hand for £25 so got that one) and she's loving that - and has started becoming more adventurous about going a little further away from home unaccompanied.

Shannon has been a bit challenging lately! She is wetting her pants most days, despite having been potty trained for a year or more. She just doesn't want to stop whatever she's doing to go to the toilet. And wants carries/piggy-backs/shoulder-carries several times per day. And is just generally whiney and demanding a lot of the time. But I think I have assumed too much that she can cope with whatever comes her way - by comparison with Jade she is confident and robust and I think I have just been so relieved by that, that I have perhaps not been as sensitive to her needs as I otherwise would have. So perhaps she will benefit from Jade being at school and Shannon having some more one-to-one, concentrated attention that doesn't just leave her hanging on running after Jade and L from next door trying to do whatever they do. It was a surprise to me to get her leaver's report from playschool which described her as a "quiet little girl" - quiet is not an adjective I ever would have thought would be used to describe her - and it worries me a bit. Is she significantly squashing her personality at playschool, or not as confident there as I thought she was, although it is very small and they've only had 6-8 kids there since last September? Maybe she won't be as totally unscathed by school as I have been assuming.

Well, that's all for now as I'm all blogged out after being out of practice for so long.

I have just had the craziest, busiest 2-3 weeks I can remember for a long time. And the silly thing is I can't really put my finger on why. I just feel like I've had a list of 100 things each day that I absolutely had to remember, and do, and follow up, and it's been extremely hard keeping up with it all. I hardly seem to have had time to sit down for days!

So therefore I can't remember much of what we've been up to. I know that Jade and I have covered how to put things in alphabetical order, we've done some number place work (is that what you call it? when you're doing units, tens, hundreds etc?), she's done double column addition with carrying, and some more stuff about common nouns and proper nouns from First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. She's made a 'bus' from a huge box that our new car towbar came in; Jade and Shannon have both made fairy gardens in seed trays, and Jade's gained her Disability Awareness badge at Brownies. I know we've had several significant conversations too, including micro-climates, centrifugal force, right angles, 90-degree and 180-degree turns (which she's had great fun practising while marching), and about the current state of the economy.

Shannon has been alternately utterly charming and completely impossible. She is so affectionate I can't be angry with her for long, when she gazes deeply into my eyes, strokes my cheek and says "I love you, Mum". She'll go far, that girl! She is still annoyingly rigid in her 4-year old thinking, though, and trying to dissuade her from her established pattern of doing certain things is a recipe for grey hair and high blood pressure! I continue to be astonished at the polar opposite characters that my 2 daughters have. Jade will not speak to anybody outside the family whereas Shannon winds down the car windows to wave and shout hi at random pedestrians; Jade still cannot be left anywhere without a parent present but Shannon this week was saying how much she loves to go places on her own without anyone else in the family being there (e.g. to a friend's house, and to playschool); Shannon is mostly very amenable to discipline, whereas Jade, well let's just say she's still very much a work-in-progress! We love them both dearly, of course, but just shake our heads at how we got these chalk-and-cheese girls!

We got a new(ish) car last weekend - a Citroen Xsara Picasso to replace the clapped-out old Subaru Estate. I'm pleased to have a manual car again, whereas DH prefers automatics. It's bright red, and has been christened "Ruby". The girls love her, especially the little tables they get in front of them in the back seats.

And we're off on a week's holiday tomorrow - to stay in a converted railway carriage in a village near Scarborough. DH's Dad has recently gone into a care home and we are going to visit him there for the first time, and Bill needs to help his sister sort out the stuff in his old house. We've also wanted a holiday in Yorkshire for a long time to enable us to get to see stuff in York and elsewhere.

Jade is making nice progress in her SM therapy now. We have started 'sliding-in' the teenage assistant at Brownies, and in only 4 short sessions Jade has been able to talk out loud with this other person sitting right next to her. I just really want to fast forward over the next six months or year, because I am so excited about the progress she is making and I want it to hurry up and be done!

Important Things

Yesterday, all of us went to Leicester to attend the SMIRA (Selective Mutism Information and Research Association) Parents' meeting, which is held annually. It was the first time we had attended, although we had booked to go last year and couldn't go because I was unwell.

I'm not good at estimating numbers, but there were probably around 50-60 adults and 30 kids, some with SM and some were siblings. The first thing that struck me, to the extent of bringing me to the verge of tears when I first saw all the kids together, was seeing so many of them with "the look", which once you've seen it in your own child is burned on your heart forever. It's a kind of timidity/shyness/anxiety look and it was just astonishing to me to see all these others with it when I have seen it so often on Jade. And really sad, considering that some of these kids were in their mid to late-teens, absolutely beautiful, gorgeous people who should have been so proud of who they were but instead were crippled with the anxiety of being with other people. (And as I type that, I'm reminding me of me, as I also know that objectively I have nothing to be afraid of but am often way too anxious around other people). What was also really interesting, though was finding out later that some of the kids were SM kids but they didn't look like that.

The other thing that struck me before long was I assumed that many of the selectively mute children would not be able to stay in the kids' activities room without their parents, like Jade couldn't, but in fact I think Bill and I were the only parents who had to stay with our child. We took it in turns to be in the sessions or staying with Jade (and Shannon, except she didn't need us there). Most of them, of course, will be used to being at school without their parents.

I think the reason for this became clear later in the day. There was some discussion in the afternoon session about how some children with selective mutism also have social anxiety, and some don't. Many SM kids can perform dancing or music on stage, or be perfectly relaxed in the classroom or elsewhere, as long as there is no pressure on them to speak. Jade, however, seems to have a hefty dose of social anxiety as well as SM, and will not join in games or activities in groups because of the fear of failure and embarrassment, will not join in games at Brownies except 'tag' for fear she might be 'out', will not do anything when other people are watching her. And that was the mistake we made when we first flexi-schooled her in Year 1, when she went 3 afternoons per week for dance, games, PE, music etc. We thought she'd have fun with these activities, but they were precisely the activities that she had trouble with, and of course by the end of the year she was hating it and refused to go any more. It's odd how sometimes things suddenly become clear - we are dealing with two separate but closely-related diagnoses. I knew she had social anxiety, but somehow I was thinking of it as part of the SM, whereas it is not exactly.

The formal morning sessions were dealing with SM in bilingual children, who have a higher incidence of the problem. I missed a lot of this bit because I was in the childrens' area with the girls. The first thing Jade noticed were two horses head masks being played with by some of the children, and then she couldn't concentrate on anything else at all until she'd got hold of one of them. Meanwhile we noticed another girl who had a sweatshirt with a pony on it, and I told her that Jade was made about ponies too. She told me she had a pony of her own, whose name was Moose, and from then on Jade was her devoted shadow! What was amazing was that I got chatting with a woman at lunchtime who recognised my nametag because we had e-mailed each other a bit a year or so ago, because she home-educates her SM daughter, who is pony mad, and this was the girl! I told her that her daughter had spoken to me, and she said yes, she did speak in pony-related activities only, and obviously I had just got her on the right subject! And it turns out that she doesn't have much social anxiety either - she can dance on stage, and go to pony camps on her own, and is happy to go to HE activities and groups.

The afternoon sessions contained more general discussions, which raised some useful points for us to take note of, though mainly reinforcing the principles of 'no pressure' to speak or do a particular thing in most circumstances, and 'baby-step exposure' during planned therapy sessions to try and improve the situation.

The other important thing to report is that we have decided on school. If you go here to read about the preamble it will save me a lot of time repeating myself.

Because Jade became very keen on going to the school here in Moreton, due to knowing several girls from Brownies, in January I went for a second visit on my own and discussed with them what measures they might be able to put in place for Jade if she went there. They were incredibly positive and helpful, being willing to do almost anything that would help her to settle in and be happy there. The Headteacher suggested that, because Jade's best friend who lives next door is on one of the joint Year 3&4 classes, it might be a good idea for Jade to go into that class after Easter (in Year 3) so she has a term while L is still there (in Year 4), to help her settle in. He also suggested that she could start part-time, and that a parent could go and stay with her if needed. After mulling it over for quite a while, the whole scenario sat much easier with me than I would have expected, and so that is what we are going to do. We have not yet defined what 'part-time' means, and we still have to work out the finer details, but Jade will be starting there after Easter and Shannon will start in September. I am much encouraged that she has made really good progress with the speech therapist in the past few weeks and last Tuesday did absolutely brilliantly and actually answered the ST's questions directly, albeit only one-word answers in a somewhat mumbled fashion. I was thrilled! And we have talked an awful lot with her about how all sorts of things are difficult and scary when you first do them, but you take baby steps and keep practising and get better and better at doing them. We've also talked a lot about how some things might seem scary, but when you achieve them you feel absolutely on top of the world afterwards, and so proud of yourself. So we are more hopeful than we have been for a long time that we might actually be able to make a big improvement in her situation, even if she is always a bit prone to anxiety just as I have been all my life.

I will reiterate that I do only see this as a medium-term temporary measure. I see it as specifically to help her get over her social anxiety and selective mutism, and to hell with what happens academically. I will be pleased if she stays for a year, maybe two, feels successful and happy socially, and then decides to be home-educated again. I am certain that I do not want either of them to go to secondary school.

Organising miracle!

I've just finished a 6-week online course on how to be organised - called Organising 101. I am quite certain it is changing my life!!!! How about that for a recommendation! For the first time ever I can see how it is possible to live differently and in a house that I like. No online course can look after my kids for long periods of time to enable me to get a lot done quickly, but at least I now know what to do when I do get some time, and I have a plan and a vision for doing it.

So now I'm just about to start "Quick and Simple Clutter Control" also run by Aby on the same website - Simplify101.com. So if you're in need of some organisational or decluttering help, I would highly recommend that you go and sign up. Yes it does cost a bit of money ($30, so around £22-25 I think) but it's well worth it. The course starts today, so be quick! (And no, I'm not on commission - just a very happy customer!) Click on the button below to take you straight there.

It's about time

Jade can tell the time, yay! After trickle-feeding her little bits of information over the months and years as she has asked about it, the last bit has finally clicked into place and she is proudly telling the time about every 10 minutes!

Regular Light Alcohol Drinking Raises Cancer Risk For Women

See this link.

Tired Tuesday

So I stayed up way too late last night (blogging, amongst other things!) and have been very tired and grumpy today as a result. Not helped by getting a phone call at 8am to say that playschool was cancelled because the playleader is ill. So if Shannon has to be at home all morning, there was no point sending Jade to the childminder either, and bang goes my one free morning to get anything useful done. I was childishly grumpy and resentful about this for a long time today. In fact, I think I still am ....

Anyway when I managed to get myself together enough to do so, we went off to my lovely group at church, put the kids in the creche and felt a lot better for being with a warm, caring and funny group of women. We're starting a whole-church study for Lent called "Better Together" which will encourage us all to really care and be there for one another both in the church and in the wider community too, so I'm looking forward to getting into that.

We came home via the supermarket so that we had the necessary stuff to make pancakes with. Then I put a film on for the girls, and I went off to bed! It was bliss.

Much restored, I got up and helped Jade to finish off the last two things for her Friend to Animals badge so that's all ready to hand in at Brownies tomorrow. She wrote something about how you know when an animal needs to go to the vet, where and when the vets are open, and what to do if you find a sick or stray animal. Finally she has decorated a hard plastic mask in a zebra print. She did it in felt tip pen, though it might benefit from going over in paint tomorrow. I think the felt-tip pen might just wipe off - I haven't tried it now it's had a good long time to dry. Meanwhile Shannon did a bit of computery stuff - CBeebies and Webkinz I think. L from next door came round and they all played together for a bit while I prepared dinner and did computer stuff myself. They've also both played with Polly Pockets.

From time to time during the day, when I remembered, I threw the odd '5 times table' question to Jade, and though she usually looked resentful when I did so, she answered them correctly anyway.