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!

Lows and highs

On Wednesday, Bill goes in to school with Jade while I (usually) work - although this week I had taken the day off and was taking Shannon to the audiologist at Cheltenham Hospital.

After having a horrible day in the TA's office on Monday, and what I felt to be a better day on Tuesday when the TA was teaching a class and not available, so we were in Jade's own classroom and she seemed to enjoy a fair amount of it, I asked her on Wednesday morning whether she would rather go into her classroom, or the TA's office, and I was surprised when she chose the office! I heard later that she had started playing games with the TA fairly quickly, sent Bill away to the staffroom after a fairly short time and then had a lovely time with the TA, playing snakes & ladders, frustration and Guess Who. She had done masses of talking, proper conversation, giggling, even to the extent of being a bit over-the-top! Bill had been sent home around 10.30am (I only get to go home at lunchtime these days), gone back in the afternoon and even then been sent to the staffroom. She had had a really good day.

On Thursday morning when I took her in, we again went to the TA's office. We started reasonably well, with Jade and the TA finishing off a game of snakes & ladders they had left from the day before. Jade was not talking, but was smiling, relaxed and happy. At one point I nipped out to the toilet for about 5 mins and then went back in. After a bit longer, the TA suggested to Jade that I go to the staffroom, and Jade shook her head. We tried a bit of cajoling, reminding her that she'd been totally fine the day before, and that I'd just been out for 5 minutes and she's been fine too, but she wasn't having any of it. She started to look more and more upset, and when we suggested merely that I sit on a chair just outside the office door, with the door left open, she got under the table that was inbetween us and clung to my leg sobbing, not letting me move at all. She just fell apart at the idea that I might move away at all, crying and crying. I sat down and she sat on my knee and buried her face in my neck and stayed there for ages, just crying and crying. It took ages for her to calm down, all the time with me encouraging her to fight the 'worry brain', not listen to the lies it was telling her about the terrible things that might happen, reminding her that she was learning to be stronger and to talk back to it and not believe it; telling her that the worry brain was spoiling her day and if she would just fight back against it, the day would improve, and so on. I don't really know if any of that helped. When she had finally stopped crying, she wasn't ready to interact with the TA again so I suggested that Jade and I have a game of snakes & ladders, which she agreed to do. She seemed OK almost straightaway, as though she had got all the emotion out of her system and was ready to go again. She and I played a game, then the TA joined in the next game with all 3 of us, then the TA and Jade played together while I sat back and gradually mentally withdrew so I was not listening/responding to them or their conversation. Then the TA suggested the two of them play a game of Guess Who, and immediately it was set up, Jade started talking/asking the questions quite confidently. She was as vocal with the TA as I have ever seen her, being quite assertive and even cheeky in the game play! With some trepidation (though that wasn't obvious to Jade), the TA suggested that I go out and fetch coffee for her and tea for me, and Jade nodded quite happily that this was OK. I made sure to take it quite slowly, and Jade was still quite fine and chatting away when I got back. Then it was breaktime, and Jade was quite happy to find her friend and go out to play while I stayed in to talk to the TA. There have been times recently when she hasn't been happy to go out to play without me, so that was good.

The TA and I chatted things over. It is strange how she can let Bill go much more easily than me, and that even the following day she can't hold on to the fact that she was fine yesterday, and let me go just the same. We talked over what we might do after the Easter holidays, whether to change classes seeing as she is very reluctant to go into her own for some reason, and what might be the best plan for increasing the number of people she talks to, specifically the teacher whose class she is likely to go into in September.

After break, Jade's class were making Easter baskets, and she agreed to go into the classroom for that. While coming back into school with her class, her class teacher asked her a question, and she answered, albeit with a single word and closely into the teacher's ear so no-one else could hear!!!! She's done reading to the class teacher before, but never answered a question. Wow! It was like she got all that emotion out of her system during the morning sobbing, and then once free of it she could do all sorts of things! In class the TA sat with Jade and I sat at the back of the room, though quickly got involved with helping loads of the kids. Jade was quite happy for me to be nowhere near her, and enjoyed the activity. After that it was lunchtime and I went home for some food. Jade agreed that I needn't go back into school but just to go straight to the church where there was the end of term Easter service at 1.30pm. Jade was sitting next to a girl called D in the church, and later, when we were at home, she told me she had managed to speak to D, for the first time!

I do hope that somebody at CAMHS next week can give us some insight into all this. I certainly find it confusing!!!

Between then and now

So, since March 8th, things haven't got any better. It's constantly been a case of one step forward, one or two steps back.

A couple of weeks ago, having finished the previous week quite well, talking again to the TA and feeling OK in school, on the Monday morning she unexpectedly refused to get out of bed and get dressed for school. As usual when she is feeling strong emotions she wasn't able to say anything about what was bothering her. Bill was completely unable to persuade her to get dressed either (often he's better at it than me) and in the end, I left him at home with Jade while I took Shannon to school, where I spoke to Jade's TA who offered to come to the house and see her.

Unlike previously, the TA was completely unable to get any response from Jade at all, except that she ran away to her bedroom, hid in her wardrobe and covered herself with toys so she was hidden. The TA did her absolute best, reading stories to Jade (in the wardrobe) to try and relax and engage with her, but she couldn't get anywhere. After about an hour and a half she gave up and went back to school. I can't remember now what I said to Jade, but I did manage to persuade her to get dressed and just go into school at lunchtime for a play with her friends, and then a brief visit into the classroom after lunch. This was successfully achieved, and then we went home.

On the Tuesday morning, she was much better about going to school, and had a fairly normal day there except she didn't want me to go home while she was in maths, but to sit outside the door instead. Then I just went home at lunchtime to grab a sandwich.

On the Wednesday, it being Bill's day to go to school with her, she again refused to get up and dressed. Lots more talking, encouraging and cajoling took place, before she eventually agreed to go in as long as I went in with them and stayed for the first 15 minutes or so.

On the Thursday and Friday, things went relatively smoothly.

The strange thing about this week was that we had no idea what had caused it. Previously we've always been aware of some particular incident that had upset her, but not this time. She started to say 'the work is too hard' which is difficult to believe as she is fairly bright and actually does pretty well most of the time. We wondered if she just meant she didn't like having to think and use her brain?! She said she felt uncomfortable in the classroom and didn't want to be in there most of the time, so we resorted to her spending her time doing work with the TA in the TA's office instead of in class. She let me go out to the staffroom a fair amount of the time.

Last Monday (22nd March) I took her into the TA's office as usual, they played a game to help Jade relax and settle in, and then started work. There was a literacy (reading comprehension) test, which the TA explained and then Jade sat and did quietly. As I was sitting behind Jade, I could see that she got everything correct as far as I could tell. As she had 10-15 minutes time still allowed when she had finished, the TA suggested that she should check her work. Jade idly flipped through the pages not being very thorough. The TA noticed, and told her she really should read through the questions and her answers thoroughly to make sure she was really happy that she had done everything she could. Jade was clearly very cross about this, frowning and glaring, but reluctantly did as she was told. Afterwards, she refused to talk, refused to go out into the playground for some fresh air, or to play, and then after break refused to go into the hall for the rehearsal of the Year 3/4 musical that is being staged. Prior to this she had been in the rehearsals, and I had just done a deal with her that morning that if she would mouth (not sing) the words to one verse of one song, I would get her a treat after school. She had agreed and said she would be able to manage that. She was also keen to do some of the percussion which I felt would be a fabulous step forward in actually making sounds in a public performance rather than just sitting there silently. Unfortunately, her anger over checking her test paper just made her refuse to do anything at all in the musical that day, despite our best efforts. She refused to even go into the hall, so we went back to the TA's office and did maths instead. I couldn't believe that she was actually preferring to do maths than be in a musical rehearsal! I eventually did manage to get her to go outside at breaktime and by stealth I managed to get her to do a bit of running and star jumps (I pretended I was really cold and needed to warm up) and sure enough after a bit of exercise in the fresh air with a friend (who she had said she didn't want to see) she started to cheer up.

During this time she would not speak to the TA while I was present, but when she was relaxed enough to agree that I could go to the staffroom, apparently she would start speaking and interacting more.

So, at the beginning of Monday 22nd March I had a child who was agreeing to mouth the words to a song, play percussion, take part in the performance, talk to and relax with the TA, let me go home at 10.55am and not return till 1.10pm. 10 days later I have a child who will not have anything to do with the musical performance, refuses to talk to the TA or even let me leave the office any more, wants me to stay after break while she is in her maths lesson, and, on Monday, who absolutely froze up completely and refused/was unable to bring herself to do anything at all while in the TA's office.

Things are just going further and further backwards.

More anxiety, and CBT

We've had 2 weeks back at school after half-term, and I want to keep track of what has been going on.

SHORT VERSION: For those who don't want to read every detail, in the two weeks since half-term I have been in school every day, mostly from 8.45 - 11am and 1-3pm. She stopped speaking to her TA, to my Dad and to my Mum during this time.

LONG VERSION: For my future reference and for the assistance/warning of any other people with socially anxious children!

Jade was reluctant to go back to school on the Monday morning (no surprise there) but I felt it was a small enough reluctance (not out-and-out terror!) that would succumb to a bit of bribery, so I promised to buy her a little something for her bravery after she had gone in, and also reminded her that she would be with her TA, and that I would make sure she was happy before I left. Sure enough, that helped and she agreed to go. She hung on to me at school to start with, and we spent some time in the TA's office playing games and getting her comfortable and relaxed again before I went home. Once again she refused to go into her own class due to the fear of her teacher saying something that would upset her (resulting from her teacher very kindly asking her if she wanted to borrow £1 for the bring-and-buy sale on that fateful Friday, not realising that's what had been scaring her in the morning, and inadvertently bringing the whole situation up again in Jade's head and resulting in her running away from school at lunchtime.) She stayed with the TA for the first 2 hours of the morning, was OK in her maths lesson on her own after break (different teacher), and was with the TA in the afternoon in another class lesson.

On the Tuesday we decided it was time to tackle this fear of being in her own teacher's class. We told Jade that both I and the TA would go into the class with her, the TA would sit with her, and I would sit at the back. She felt able to do this, so in we went. The first 1.5 hours of the day (after assembly) are always literacy, which she is good at, so she has a level of confidence in her ability to do the work, which also helped. The task of the lesson was to choose a traditional story/fairy tale and re-write it as a play. Working with her TA, she chose Rapunzel. We have the book at home and it has been around a lot lately because it is one of Shannon's favourites. The TA couldn't remember how the story started, so came over to me to ask, and I reminded her. After all, it had been about 15 years since the TA had read the story! In our version of the story, the mother, pregnant with Rapunzel, craves a vegetable she sees growing in the witch's garden. The father goes and steals it for her, but gets caught by the witch, who says she will take the baby once it is born in return for the vegetable. Because the stolen vegetable was called a 'rapunzel' that is what the baby is called when it is born. Then the witch takes her, puts her in a tower and so on.

So, the TA, prompting Jade to start writing her play, asked Jade what the vegetable was called. "Rapunzel", said Jade. "No, what is the vegetable called?" says the TA. "Rapunzel", says Jade. "No, not the name of the girl, what is the name of the vegetable?" says the TA, and Jade's face started to turn red and teary. I hadn't heard what was being said, but just noticed that she was looking upset. The TA signalled to me that it would all be ok, but actually Jade's tears got worse and after a few minutes the TA decided to take her out to her room, so I went too. After it had been explained to me, I was able to tell the TA that it had been a misunderstanding and Jade was right, and she was very apologetic. She apologised to Jade for getting it wrong. Jade was very upset, but recovered after a while. However she couldn't cope with the idea of me going home at breaktime, so I stayed, and stayed, and stayed.... and we only managed to persuade her to let me go home at lunchtime to get some food, as long as I went back for the afternoon, which I did.

On the Wednesday morning it was Bill's turn to go in to school with Jade as I work all day. We had a phone call from the TA in the morning before we left that the TA wouldn't be in school as her father was very ill. So Bill went in to school with Jade, stayed in the classrooms with her all day and just came home to get himself some lunch. The same happened again with me on the Thursday, except that I asked Jade if it would be OK if I went home at breaktime (after which she has maths which I have never attended with her) as long as I came back at the end of lunchtime ready for the afternoon. On the Thursday after school, my Dad came over as he often does, to see me and the girls. For the first time ever, Jade did not say one single word either to him or in his presence. She has very occasionally needed a little warm-up time before talking to him, but has always thereafter seemed completely at ease with him. On the Friday we did the same, except that I spent less time in the classroom and went out into the staffroom for an hour or so both before and after breaktime. The TA wasn't in for any of these days due to her father's illness.

On Monday we did the same again, and I was in the staffroom when the TA came in, having come in to school to discuss how/when she was going to work that week. Her father is terminally ill but had become relatively stable again. She told me that she would be in during the mornings for the rest of the week, but not be doing her usual afternoon teaching. We arranged that on the Tuesday morning, I would bring Jade to the TA's office at some point during the morning for a bit of game-playing, ice-breaking and getting back into the swing of things. This is what I did, but Jade would neither speak to the TA at all, nor even let her join in our game of Tiddlywinks. On Wednesday it was again Bill's turn to be in school with Jade. Strangely even though she feels less 'safe' with her Dad (though I don't know why - he's often more patient with her than I am, and certainly just as kind and understanding), this meant that she wanted him with her more, i.e. she didn't want him to leave the classroom to be in the staffroom at all, and she insisted on him going into maths with her, which I don't. Thursday and Friday followed the usual pattern, except that my Mum had come up to visit (she sleeps elsewhere as there's no room for her to sleep at our house). Jade did speak a little in front of her (but not to her) on the Thursday but not at all on the Friday.

SO.... during all this time I've been spending in the school staffroom, I have been studying books like this and this. Teach-yourself-CBT-so-you-can-teach-it-to-your-child. I consider it ridiculous that I have to do this instead of having a properly funded Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service with the resources to do so instead, but needs must. Nobody else is going to give her the help she needs, so we'll just have to do it ourselves.

Good and bad

I am in a foul mood. I have to find a way to get more energy, because I am wasting too much of my life feeling too tired to do anything. I need to start running again. In the meantime it's been half-term and pretty much nothing of any substance has gone on. I am so grumpy with the children when I am tired because I just feel like I haven't got the energy to interact with them.

Bad - Jade hasn't even wanted to go and see Lily, the pony, despite having a free week to do so. Lily is a bit too much for her, really, so she only wants to do walking and that gets fairly boring for all of us.

Good - Shannon is learning to trot on Lily and really enjoying it!

Bad - I really really want Jade to get on well with her riding - maybe I am identifying with her too much but I had that pony-madness when I was young, and I was soooo happy to be able to get Lily for her but she is so nervous and anxious that she can't make any progress.

Bad - L from next door got riding lessons for Christmas, has had about 4 lessons, and is already doing stuff that Jade has never dared do. I hate that. I need to get over it, it's Jade's life not mine, but there we go.

Good - Shannon can almost ride her bike without stabilisers. On Tuesday we were outside for about 45 minutes, me holding her up, and she was telling me not to let go, and for a while it looked like she wasn't going to make any progress. I was trying to let go but she seemed to be wobbling too much and I was having to really hold her up. Then we had one time when she seemed to be doing well and I did let go, and she continued for about 20 yards on her own, and I was yelling at her "you're doing it, you're doing it on your own!!!" and she was so thrilled! She had several more goes after that, with varying success, but she definitely managed 50 yards a couple of times.

Good - Bill came to church with us on Sunday for the first time in about 3 years (apart from Christmas). He hasn't said much about it, but I'm just so glad he's willing to give it a try again.

Bad - we tried to put the rabbits together again after completely scrubbing out the playhouse/run to get Butterfly's scent off it so she wouldn't realise it was her own territory (as she thinks of it) and thought we had been successful when they were quite happy together for the first hour or so, but a while later I realised there were great clumps of fur in the run and they were fighting again. Blackie is currently living in the chicken coop, and we want to get her out of there so we can get chickens again.

Good - we have enjoyed quite a few games of Junior Monopoly and Junior Scrabble this week.

Bad - we went to get the girls' feet measured yesterday, found that Jade had grown half a size so needed new school shoes, and bought some. Since getting home we've both decided we don't like them, so will have to take them back. Luckily they have a policy of refunding within 10 days if unworn.

Good - Gary from Junior Church came today and Jade played a game of Battleships with him, while Shannon and I went into the other room and played on the computer. A little more progress with the SM!

Bad - Jade has said she doesn't want to go back to school on Monday. I've told her that avoiding the thing she fears will only make it worse, and that she has to face her fears.

Bad - we were about to book our summer holiday, in a yurt on the Isle of Wight. When I e-mailed, despite their website showing a week in August being available, it turns out it wasn't so now we can't go to that particular place, and it did look really nice. :-(

That's all I can think of right now.

Setback

I want to blog about the setback Jade has had in the past week. I am sure we will get past it in due course, but it might help me in future, and others, to know that setbacks do happen in the ordinary course of things and can be overcome.

Last Friday morning, we all walked to school together as normal, and Jade was quite happy about it. Since the beginning of February she has been in school full-time without any classroom support, and just a few sessions with her TA for specific therapy purposes to try and continue moving forward.

While Jade lined up with her class ready to go in, I stopped for a few words with her teacher, just in passing conversation. I was about to leave when Jade beckoned me over to where she was standing in line, and said that everybody was supposed to take £1 in to school that day to take part in the bring-and-buy sale in aid of Haiti. She had not mentioned it to me before, so I guess she had forgotten, or maybe she'd already decided she didn't want to take part so hadn't told me. Unusually, I had a couple of loose pound coins in my pocket, so I said "Oh, don't worry, you can have one of these" and gave it to her. She shoved it back at me and said she didn't want it. I slipped it straight into her coat pocket and said "Oh go on, just have it in your pocket and then it's there if you do decide you want to buy something." By this time the class was starting to go into school, and she hung back and started to look all weepy. I didn't realise that the whole bring-and-buy situation was too much for her to cope with because she has on occasion been into a shop to buy something on her own (asking me to stand outside while she did it). She doesn't talk at those times, but manages the transaction silently. She's also been at a festival and a village fete (with friends, admittedly) and bought something with her own money from a stall, so I thought she would be able to do this. She was looking very upset, though, and refused my encouragement to just go in to class, so I gave her a cuddle and persuaded her to come and sit with me in the yard just outside the front door. I gave her lots of cuddles and reassurance, and then attempted to talk to her about something else to take her mind off the upset and get her back to being calm and rational again. It didn't work. We'd been there about 10 minutes when Jade's TA come out of the school, saw us and was greatly relieved. As far as the class teacher was concerned, Jade was in the line about to come into class and I was just about to leave the playground when she last saw us, so she didn't know where Jade had disappeared to. A search had started!

She sat down with us, and I started to tell her what Jade was upset about. This was too much for Jade and she ran off. I didn't think she'd go far, and shouted to her to not go out of sight, but off she went round the corner. The TA said she would go inside and tell the teacher that Jade was found and Ok, and I set off after Jade. She disappeared remarkably quickly, but I found her in the churchyard which is part of our normal route between home and school. I called her to wait for me and she did, and we sat down on a bench. She was upset and didn't want to go back to school, but I told her that they would not know where she was, and whether I had found her, and whether she was safe, so we had to go back at least to tell them that everyone was OK. She agreed to come with me so we walked back to school. The TA met us and we went straight to her office for a chat.

The TA really is very good with Jade. She just 'gets it' with Jade's anxiety. She does not fear to push her a bit harder than I would, but I think that's positive. And she is very warm, affectionate and caring too. She takes no nonsense in school generally (I think all the kids and half the staff are a bit scared of her!) - she is senior TA and the SEN admin co-ordinator and runs the breakfast club and after-school club (phew!) and has a lot of responsibility in the school. She uses humour and silliness to help Jade relax and giggle, and yet can be serious and heartfelt too.

So we spent a bit of time in the office with the TA, and gradually Jade started to relax. The TA said she knew of a horse poster that had been brought in ready for the sale, and she would take Jade off to buy it. All through this, Jade was completely non-verbal, even with me, although she can usually talk to the TA. Even at home, though, when she is feeling strong emotions she can't articulate anything at all and goes all silent. (Hmm, just like her father ....!) However she relaxed enough to agree to go with the TA to look at the horse poster (eventually - to start with she didn't want to let go of me), and I said I would wait outside in the yard, where they could see me from an upstairs window. As they came back downstairs, they both waved to me and I could tell from the movements and body language that Jade knew I was going to go home and she was waving me goodbye. Off home I went.

At lunchtime (about 12.30) I had just decided to have a bit of a nap so that I wouldn't be too tired and grumpy when the girls came home. (I think Shannon had disturbed my sleep quite a bit the night before). I settled down on the sofa, and then after a few minutes heard running feet, the side gate open and the back door. Then Jade ran in, threw herself onto me and tearfully said "I'm not going back there." She had run away from school! She had no bags and no coat. I tried to get her to tell me what had happened, and it was quite hard to get anything out of her, so I simply had no idea whether she'd been in a terrible state all morning or what. I can't now remember exactly what I said, but I think maybe I talked about hard days and things being better as long as she persists and doesn't run away from facing them. I told her I had to ring the school to let them know where she was, and they had no idea she'd gone. It had been lunchtime, and she'd eaten her lunch, but had disappeared fairly shortly afterwards when let out into the playground. There are pedestrian gates that it's easy to get out of, and obviously the playground assistants just hadn't been looking in her direction at the time she took off. I'm glad, really, because I hate to think of the hysteria and panic it would have caused in her if someone had tried to stop her.

Anyway, we cuddled on the sofa together and took the opportunity for her to watch the documentary on selective mutism that had been on earlier in the week that we'd videoed. At the end of it she did say it made her feel better knowing that other children struggled like she did, although she did know that before as she has been to a SMIRA parents' meeting with us and met other children there.

The TA rang me and asked me to try and find out what had made Jade take off, because apparently she'd spent part of the morning with the TA, then gone with her into Jade's usual maths class (different than her normal class teacher), the TA had offered to have lunch with her but she'd said no, she'd be OK having lunch with her friends, and had done so, and had been quite back to normal and happy by then. She did say that the class teacher had spoken to Jade at lunchtime and asked me to find out if that is what had upset her. Sure enough, it was. Her class teacher, not knowing about what had happened between Jade and the TA during the morning, had kindly come to Jade at lunchtime and asked if she had any money for the bring-and-buy sale and offered to lend her £1 if necessary. Jade apparently had just shook her head and not seemed to react in any bad way, but it had obviously really shaken her again and she had got all upset about her inability to do such things and taken off.

The TA came round to our house at 6pm after she'd finished after-school club, and had a chat with Jade and reassured her that she wouldn't be forced to do anything she wasn't ready to do, and that if she needed the TA first thing on Monday morning, she would be ready and prepared to be with Jade during the morning.

Monday morning came, and though Jade was obviously not as happy as normal about school, she didn't refuse to go, and got up and ready as usual. We went and found the TA and told her Jade needed some assistance to get started in school that morning. Off we went to the office again, and after some talk Jade was happy to agree that I would go home and she would stay with her TA rather than go into her classroom. And that's what she did that day. Although happy to be with the TA, she refused to go into her own classroom with her class teacher.

On Tuesday morning, the TA had an unavoidable meeting out of school, so she arranged for me to go in with Jade. I went into class with her as I used to do, and though I sat nearby to start with, I fairly soon moved to the back of the class and stayed out of the way. The agreement had been that I would stay with Jade until 10am and then go home. Jade however was not ready to let me go by 10am, though she seemed OK, but by 10.30 she was happy for me to leave, which I did. I thought the worst was over, and that now that Jade had been able to stay in her own class with her own teacher for 25 minutes on her own (till break, after which it was maths with a different teacher), that she would be OK from now on. The TA came back into school later on and found Jade in her maths lesson, but again Jade didn't want to go with her own class teacher so spent the afternoon with the TA who teaches other classes in the afternoons.

On Wednesday morning, Jade wanted Bill to stay with her in class, despite the TA being with her. In the end, apparently Bill stayed till about 11am and then left. Again Jade spent the afternoon with the TA.

On Thursday I had to work so said I could only stay till 9am. We went straight to the TA's office and played dominoes, and by 9am she was happy for me to leave. Again she refused to go into her own class, and spent most of the day wherever the TA was.

Today, she had swimming, but her TA is the swimming teacher so I thought that would be fine. However she was upset again this morning and did not want me to leave, and in the end I agreed to follow the coach in my car and go to swimming with her. By the time she was half-way through her swimming lesson she agreed that I could go home.

So that is the current situation. With Bill or myself with her, she has been able to be in her own class with her own teacher, but if we're not there she refuses to go in even with the TA by her side all the time. And now it's half-term, so she'll have 9 days for the fears and anxieties to build up in her head again and not be challenged by the reality that nothing bad actually happens.

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.