How she's doing.

Jade has continued to make great progress.

Back in July, the same week that she first answered the register at school and danced in the school production, she conquered another big fear. Anybody who knows Jade knows she is pony-mad (like mother, like daughter). She has loved ponies and riding since the age of 4, had her first ride on a pony at 4 and had her first lessons at age 6. She has had regular lessons for about 3 years, has been highly praised by all her different instructors for her natural seat and skill, and can ride beautifully ... but only at walk and trot. Canter has been way too scary for her to try. She has wanted to do it, has driven me mad asking what it feels like, has read about it, thought about it, pretended to do it ... but always refused to try on a real pony. Earlier this year I thought we were going to get somewhere because she agreed to try a canter in her lesson. She was scared of being run away with, though, so wanted to do it on the lunge rein rather than on her own. This means she was going round in a circle instead of a straight line, and although she did manage a few steps of canter, she unfortunately but gently fell off. She then refused to go back to those stables. Instead she wanted to go where her friend E goes, so I asked E's mum, who turns out to have been a qualified riding instructor in a previous life(!) and she recommended Turpins Lodge near Banbury. It's a good 20-25 minute drive from our house and I never would have gone there of our own accord, but they've been absolutely brilliant with Jade. And on about her 4th or 5th lesson, she took us all by surprise. As usual, at canter time, her instructor said "Okay Jade, it's your turn. Trot to the corner, then do sitting trot and kick on and canter round to the back of the ride". And blow me down, she did! I was astonished, and so thrilled! And more importantly, so was she! Check out the video:



So, in the space of a week, she had done her first public performance, said her first word in front of the whole class, and done her first successful canter on a pony. It felt like all the walls were coming tumbling down! Fantastic!

Then came the summer holidays, and a bit of a lull. Having pretty much always spoken to her Grandpa (my Dad) she went all quiet and stopped talking when he was here, for most of the summer.

In early August, the girls and I went for a 3-day camping trip to the New Forest. On our last morning, we all went to a riding stables for an hour's hack. Shannon was in front on a leading rein, then me, and then Jade and another girl behind me. Shortly after we set off, I thought I heard Jade's voice and turned round to hear what she was saying to me, and almost fell off my horse when I realised one of the ride leaders had asked her a question and she was answering!!!! Honestly, that is one of the best moments of my life. And later on when we were talking about it, she told me that when she was wandering round the campsite one day stroking the wild ponies, a man had asked her a question and she had answered him.

Then, of course, it was back-to-school time, with a new teacher and a mix-up of classes, so some old friends and some new classmates. I had a lot of confidence in her teacher, though, because at the end of last term I went to have a chat with her, and discovered she is studying for a Masters in Special Educational Needs, had already read up about SM and her Mum is some sort of SEN trainer who has taught and advised others on selective mutism. However Jade told me she was not planning on answering the register in her new class so I did not know what to expect. Here's how it went:

Sept 2nd - Day 1 of term - Jade did not answer the register but did read out loud to her teacher.

Sept 5th - Day 2 of term - Jade asked her teacher for a maths sheet that she needed. (Initiating speech - quite amazing!!)

Sept 6th - Day 3 - called out the score she got on her maths test in front of the whole class.

Week 2 - answering the register, calling out her maths scores, talking in circle time, answering questions, and volunteering to go up and write stuff on the white board.

Sept 15th - She stood up and explained the third stage of the water cycle to the whole class.

Early Oct - has put up her hand to answer questions in class. She is 'Star of the Week' in her class this week because of her progress with talking, so gets to wear a badge all week which she was presented with in assembly in front of the whole school.

Oct 7th - along with 2 friends Jade has performed a puppet show (with speech) to the whole class.

To say I am proud, relieved and joyful is an understatement. There have been so many dark times when I truly doubted we would ever see such progress, times when I berated myself for not doing more, noticing earlier, helping her better and more consistently, when I felt I identified and empathised too much with her anxiety and didn't help her conquer it. We have not dealt with this perfectly at all. We have muddled through, sometimes pushing forward, sometimes just leaving things be for a long while. We have held back for fear of pushing her too hard, and not known what to do. And yet, imperfectly, slowly, we have helped her along and the results are beginning to show.

She still has a long way to go. She is still silent in every other social situation. She doesn't want to go to any groups or join in after-school activities. She has never asked for what she wants in a cafe or restaurant, is silent while buying things in shops, hides behind me when we meet new people and hates family gatherings and doesn't answer people's questions if we (parents) are there. Nevertheless, we can at last see signs that she is truly on the road to recovery, that it may take time but we can see a positive and normal future for her. Fantastic.

'The Triplets'

The Beans (Petits Haricots) have posted a lovely series of pics of the girls we call 'The Triplets', which includes Shannon, here.

Usborne Books for Sale

All titles are brand new. All cost £1 each unless otherwise noted.


The Amazing Adventures of Hercules – Usborne Young Reading Series 2

Penguins – Usborne First Reading Level 4

The Ugly Duckling – Usborne First Reading Level 4

True Stories of Heroes – Paul Dowswell

The Usborne Detective's Handbook £2

Knights and Armour (Internet Linked) £3

Alice in Wonderland (Hardback padded)

Lift-the-Flap Night-Time

Playtime Activities £2

Pirate Jigsaw Book £2

Farmyard Tales Treasury £3 (Hardback)

Princess Treasury (x 2) £3

A Thief in the House of Memory – Tim Wynne-Jones

The Boy in the Burning House – Tim Wynne-Jones

Usborne Discovery – Trains (Internet Linked

What's Happening to Me (Boys) (x 2)

Bible Tales – Moses in the Bulrushes

The Usborne Flip-Flap Body Book

The Story of Heidi (Padded hardback)

Starting Soccer

The Pony-Mad Princess – Princess Ellie to the Rescue
The Pony-Mad Princess – Princess Ellie Saves the Day

True Polar Adventures – Paul Dowswell

The Snow Queen Book and Cassette tape – Usborne Young Reading Series 2

For the record

Will I ever get the blogging bug back? I don't know, but I know that I regret it when I don't record the important steps as well as the day-to-day stuff for future reading.

Jade had such a good week last week. The girl who, last year, wouldn't even take part in rehearsals for the class production despite having said she wanted to play a percussion instrument, and who wouldn't take part in Sports Day just a month ago, danced in a group on Monday and Tuesday nights in front of a big audience, without a hint or flicker of dropping out or tears or anxiety. We were so pleased!

However, I did notice that during the songs when everyone sang, she wasn't even attempting to take part and therefore stood out (to me anyway - she was at the back) as the only person who wasn't singing. So when, on the way home, she asked me if I would give her a 'prize' for taking part, I said I would if she would even just move her lips during the songs the following night. Maybe I was being a bit ungenerous, but I knew she could do it and I wanted to give her a bit more of a push while things were going so well.

On Tuesday lunchtime, the class TA who worked with Jade a lot last year and is the only person in the school she can properly talk to, rang me to say she had answered the register verbally for the first time! For the past two years she has responded to her name with a thumbs up. But she had said to the TA that she really wants to be a prefect. She's talked about this with me before and I'd said that it was unlikely to happen because she wouldn't be able to tell kids not to run in the corridors, for instance. She'd thought she could just go and tell the TA each time she had something to report. Anyway, as expected, she was not announced as one of the new prefects, but staff will be keeping an eye on the kids and making more prefects of those who deserve it over during the first term. So on Tuesday, the TA said she knew what she had to do to be able to be a prefect, and perhaps now would be a good time to start with her first word by answering the register. The TA suggested she say 'yes' to her friend sitting next to her, but in the event, she gave a very clear 'yes' which the whole class and the TA standing in the doorway could hear! Nobody turned a hair or made her feel uncomfortable. She said she wouldn't do it the following day because they had a substitute teacher who she knows and doesn't like so much, but actually she did, and continued to answer the register all week.

Then on Tuesday evening she took part in the second night of the production and sure enough, I could just about see her lips move during the group songs. It was obviously quite difficult for her as it was quite a small movement, which I found interesting. Strange that it's harder for her to even look as though she's singing (i.e. move her lips clearly) than to dance in front of the audience. We went out the next day and she chose another Breyer horse as her reward!

30DC result

Okay, so I suppose I should report back. It's after midnight, though, so I will be very brief.

I dithered a great deal about my subject matter, lost motivation, decided to give up, changed my mind and wanted to keep going, and realised I couldn't possibly manage a proper Cochrane review in the time available, so with only a short time to go till the end of the challenge, I decided to re-visit my dissertation subject from my degree to see what had happened in the meantime.

I didn't finish - in fact I didn't get an awful lot done at all - but I did confirm to myself that I do still love to get stuck into some academic research, and I met an amazing bunch of people and we have a closed group on Facebook where we continue to encourage each other to 'Screw Work, Let's Play'. All sorts of ideas and thoughts are flowing from that and once I'm back from 2 weeks in France I might let slip what they are....

In the meantime, I started a new blog for my research results (such as they are, very unfinished) so you can take a look here

Screw Work Let's Play 30 Day Challenge

I feel like I've been wandering in the wilderness for a long time. I'm not sure what I'm meant to be doing in life, what my purpose is (apart from raising my family) and how to make the best use of any gifts I may have. I'm sure I ought to be having more fun than I am. So when I came across Screw Work, Let's Play I was intrigued and fascinated. And when I saw they were starting a 30-day challenge to run from 1st-30th April, I was tempted. The Challenge is to actually take action and do a 'play project'. So many of us think of things that we *might* like to do, but we're not sure enough that it would lead to a job/money/a future so we hold back, stay in our secure but unfulfilling jobs and never break out and try something different. So the SWLP idea is to just play! Find something that I would love to do, that would be fun, that uses my skills/talents/personality, to explore whether I really do enjoy it and want to do more of it, to find out which bits work and which don't, which aspects inspire me and which don't, and see what comes out of it.

I only joined the Challenge on 31st March. I kept reading the e-mails about it but felt I wasn't 'good enough' to do this kind of thing. That everybody else would be high-flyers, go-getters and confident extroverts, whereas I have largely been a 'go-with-the-flow' kind of person, maybe a bit lazy, unfocused, unsure of what I wanted or where I wanted to go, so not really going anywhere much. And anyway, I didn't know what project I wanted to do. But at the last minute I realised I really didn't want to let *another* opportunity slip by; that I could change my image of who I am and what kind of an impact I can make on the world. That I can *make things happen*! Wow, how cool is that!

So, without letting myself think about it too much further, I signed up. I watched the video on how to choose a play-project, and wrote a list of ideas. I came up with several - there are all sorts of things that interest me - but there's no doubt about the top two.

Idea 1: Move forward with my 16-year dream of working in academic nutrition, by writing a systematic review for the Cochrane Database on an area of nutrition related to pregnancy/maternal/infant health. I drool over academic jobs such as working at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, but I am the parent of 2 young girls, one with special needs, and don't want a full-time out-of-the-house job. I think in the end I might like this to lead towards editing a nutrition journal of some sort, but that's too far in the future to be sure yet.

Idea 2: Go and do a horse-whispering course, to learn Monty Roberts' methods of training and helping horses. I don't think I want to work in this field, i.e. I don't want to be outside all the time in the freezing cold and mud (been there, done that), but on the other hand it totally fascinates me, uplifts me, inspires me and I just want to be able to do it! No idea what the outcome would be there, except that it does feed in to how I deal with my daughter's particular issues. But it would need around £500 to go on the UK-based training course, and I just don't have that right now. So while I would still love to do this, I can't do it on the time-frame for this project.

So Idea 1 wins, for now. I'll give it a go, see how it turns out and whether I still enjoy it like I used to.

Interesting memory from Jade

Jade has just told me something really interesting. She says she can remember being 4, and on holiday in a tent with us somewhere (could very well have been our first Kessingland), and having the selective mutism feeling when somebody wanted to talk to her, but if she had known then what she knows now, she realises she would have been able to push herself to talk and got over it. She said she thinks we should have helped her more. She was struggling to explain herself, so I asked if she meant that it was a smaller feeling then than she gets now, and that with a bit of encouragement or help she would have been able to get over it then, and she agreed.

I told her that I absolutely agreed with her - if we had known then what we know now, we would have treated her shyness/silence a bit differently and maybe we wouldn't have got to where we are now. But I said that it's also encouraging because she can see quite clearly that what she has now is just a strong habit that has built up in her brain over the past 5 years, and that's all. (Which chimes in nicely with the Linden Method which we have started to use consistently this week.)

She also drew a lovely series of cartoon pictures (which she has done quite a bit of recently and shows something of a talent for) depicting herself hiding behind a parent when another child approaches, but gradually coming out and moving closer to the other child, and the parent stepping back, and her own expression changing from worried to relaxed and talking as she gets closer to this other child. I've asked DH to scan it in and maybe I will upload it if Jade lets me.

Organising and decluttering

I've always been messy. As a teenager I had the sort of room where you couldn't tell the colour of the carpet for all the stuff all over it. As I've got older I've got less and less happy about living like that. I hate having anyone over because I'm embarrassed about the house, and I've been irritable and grumpy with the children when I wanted to declutter and tidy and they just made more mess. When I was home-educating I thought it was lack of child-free time that made it impossible for me to get the house clear and tidy, so when Jade started school in April 2009 I knew I wanted to make it a priority. After a year-and-a-half of intermittently trying to do it myself (between spending vast amounts of time with Jade in school and other interruptions) including taking (excellent) online courses and reading decluttering books, I have realised I'm just not going to be able to do it. For whatever reason, I just can't see what to do or how to do it. I can't decide where to put things and I can't decide what to get rid of and what to keep. I was just getting paralysed with indecision.

So I decided it was time to call in a professional. I Googled and found the Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers, and from there found Kay Julian of Welcome Space.

She came on Monday. We spent the first hour exploring the extent of the problem in all of the rooms, and then we got to work. We decided to start with the girls' rooms so that some of the stuff downstairs that was theirs could find a home upstairs instead.

The 'before' photo below shows a worse situation than normal in Jade's room, as we had just got new-to-us beds for the girls in the past month and the chest of drawers from Shannon's room was being temporarily stored in Jade's room, along with the zip-and-link beds that used to be our guest beds but now need to be got rid of.



It's not all that clear how much has changed in this next photo, but at Kay's suggestion we moved Jade's chest of drawers to the other side of the room near her wardrobe, so there is a 'clothes' side of the room and a 'toys' side of the room. Kay found the most efficient mixture of containers to go in Jade's toy cupboard to store things away so that her home-made stables, tackrooms and other horse paraphernalia could all live together in one corner.


There wasn't as much to do in Shannon's room, but the pile of toys and 'stuff' that was piled in one corner all got tidily stashed away in containers and homes found for them on the various shelves and spaces. She now has a clear floor and a proper home for everything.

The living room doesn't look drastically changed either, but everything was cleared off the table. We reorganised the drawers in the bureau to the left so that the bottom one became the tidy and organised craft drawer, and the top one became the 'to-do' drawer, where active projects and things waiting to go to other people can be stored. I also put a 'to do' note on my calendar so that I have a visual reminder of what I need to get done.




The basket that can be seen on the right-hand-side of the sofa has been re-purposed from a book basket to a 'toy-tidying' basket. At the end of the day, if the girls want to leave any of their toys downstairs ready for the next day, they can do so as long as they fit into the basket. Anything that doesn't fit has to go upstairs.

Kay took away the unwanted chest of drawers and a great pile of other stuff destined for the charity shop, and some rubbish that needed disposing of.

Today I have got rid of the majority of the stuff that was on top of the bureau (seen in the 'Before' pic), chucked some away and relocating some to the craft drawer.

Kay is coming back next Monday to tackle the worst downstairs room. Already I feel lighter and more free to think about other things. I am looking forward to discovering that my house can be nice!

Stuff!

Here are some random meandering thoughts about other stuff that's been going on lately.

I have for a long time contemplated that I may have food intolerance issues, what with IBS, eczema and lack of energy. I've not wanted to face the trouble of an elimination diet with no idea whether it was a complete waste of time. I've wondered about doing a YorkTest blood test but they're expensive. It's only because Shannon has daily tummy aches, and has done for a long time, that I've finally got round to doing it for both her and me. My results have come through. I have a major reaction to cow's milk, significant reaction but less so to wheat and egg white, and borderline reactions to about six other things including pork, shellfish and sesame seeds. I am not looking forward to giving up milk, wheat and eggs. But it's worth a try, and if I end up bloat- and pain-free and with more energy, it will be well worth it. Shannon's results are not here yet. The test includes two phone consultations with a nutritional therapist (which I'm going to be studying for next year, so this is good practice being on the receiving end) to make sure you don't miss out on nutritional needs while eliminating foods.

Talking of diets, I was horrified at the weight I found displayed on the scales at the beginning of September, and immediately signed up with Tesco Diets. I've been taking it steadily, with a few treats and variations here and there, but have lost 10lbs and am only 1.5lbs from my target weight now. I really had been overdoing it on the biscuits and crisps, and really had to get myself under control again.

This is our next bit of exciting news:



We are solar-powered! 12 solar PV panels and some solar thermal tubes. Even better, we now have a new, working boiler (condensing, of course) so after 3 or 4 weeks without heating or hot water (the old one broke down and we have been making do with the wood-burning stove and boiling kettles for hot washes) it was absolutely bliss to have a hot shower, feel heat from the radiators and hot running water from the taps. I hope I will never take them for granted again! There was lots of preparatory work to do before. We have been partly funded by the Severn Wye Energy Agency as part of their Target 2050 project, having been chosen as one of their exemplar homes to show how ordinary properties can reduce their carbon footprint. So we've had to get 100% low-energy bulbs (we already had lots, but we've had to do all the rest e.g. lamps on dimmer switches), replace all the draught-excluder strips round the windows and doors, and increase the roof insulation by getting spray foam. This last one was tricky due to the odd shape of our roof meaning we had a separate bit of loft over our kitchen and a dormer window in our bathroom which was a pig to insulate and in the end Bill had to hack off the inside plasterboard on the roof and sides of the dormer window for it to be insulated from the inside. The bathroom is trashed but it is warm! Even before the heating was fixed, the house was noticeably warmer with the improved insulation.

Shannon is 6!



She chose to have a bowling party, although I have no idea why she decided it was a kitty bowling party and she needed to dress up!

She is such a sweet girl. She is so loving and caring. She regularly throws her arms round adults, gives them a big hug and says "I love you". Whoever we've visited most recently, she 'really loves [them] and wants to live with [them] all the time'. She will stroke my face and say "are you alright Mummy?", loves nothing better than great big long cuddles, and says "I missed you" if I've been out for half-an-hour! She loves to share anything she has with others, even her big sister who, shall we say, finds sharing a bit more of a challenge. Shannon has the greatest laugh, a big smile and a big warm heart. She not only cheers up her teacher's day, she cheers up my days every day, and I consider myself truly blessed to be her Mum! I don't know what I did to deserve her, but it must have been something very good! She loves to dance and is always jumping up, doing moves that I have no idea how she knows how to do! She also loves all sorts of different types of music and will often say in the car that she likes something, of all different genres. I'm thinking it is time to really think whether she would like to learn an instrument properly, though I'm not sure what would be best to start with.



Finally, I'm very glad to report that although this time last week Poppy was seriously ill with a chest infection, after a week on antibiotics she is much better. She doesn't have much energy for walks, but on the whole she is back to her normal self. At 12.5 and with heart valve problems she's almost on borrowed time, but thankfully she's pulled through this time.

Saving the best till last

Having been chided by my friend Michelle, I am blogging! It would be easier if Shannon didn't insist on sitting on my knee and therefore having to do this one-handed, but I will manage somehow!

So, what's been going on then? Well, the one blogpost that has been in my mind for a while is "Jade is thriving at school." Yes, thriving! It's a bit galling for an ex-home educator to admit, but it really is doing her good. Because she is now familiar with the environment, the people and the routines, she is gaining enough confidence to try new things that she would never attempt in a group of people she didn't know so well. For instance, she has volunteered to help out in the infants (4-7yr olds) playground once a week, along with a couple of friends. I think she is enjoying being one of the 'big ones' who help out the 'littlies', despite how horrible she is to her own sister at home! She tried out African drumming when a group visited the school for everyone to try. To be honest, I was astonished when I found out she'd actually done it in front of the rest of the class. She never would do that if we'd gone to a HE workshop or similar. She's taking part in different sports like netball, tennis and hockey. Again, just totally unthinkable for her to attempt to try these in a group of strangers. If we were in the fortunate position of living in Cambridgeshire and could go to Latinetc and Historyetc with all our lovely HE friends, in a regular group, it may be a different story, but even then I'm not sure whether she would have gained enough confidence in that group to take part.

She is going in happily every day, without any parental accompaniment at all. Yes, she has a bit of a moan about it from time to time. She put 'no school' on her Christmas wish list yesterday! And that is about the compulsory forced factory-production nature of schooling, and I am not saying that school couldn't be improved - it certainly could. But it is certainly doing her a great deal more good than harm. And I can tell she really enjoys her sense of achievement when she's learned something and tells me about it, especially stuff I don't know. She enjoys history particularly and at the moment is reading "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens, having been introduced to him during the work they're doing on Victorians this term. I certainly didn't read Dickens when I was 9! And even when I did read it, compulsorily for O Level at about 15, I didn't enjoy it like she is.

Every Friday morning, the school has an 'awards' assembly where each teacher picks one child for a 'merit' award for good academic work and a child for a 'star of the week' award for character/behaviour/personal qualities. A month or so ago, unbeknown to me, Jade was picked for a merit award for her excellent use of vocabulary, one example of which was the use of the word 'oblivious'. When her name was announced, she got up from her place and went to the front to collect her award with everybody's eyes on her and applause. A term ago, she would probably have bolted from the hall, or stayed glued to the spot and cried, or something. But she didn't; she actually got up and went to the front for her award. I so wish parents got warned and that I could have been there to watch (but then the relevant parent being present would be rather a give-away!) but never mind the award, I was just thrilled to bits to hear that she got up and went to the front, no matter what for.

Speaking of the awards assembly, Shannon got one last week as well. Hers was a 'star of the week' award for having a lovely smile, being happy and smiley all the time and cheering up the teacher whenever she looks at her! Shannon is the one who is most likely to say "I don't want to go to school". But whenever she is there she seems happy, relaxed and as though she's having a good time. However she is the one that I think would thrive more on home education, apart from her major need to play with other kids every day. She would take part in demonstrations and workshops with gusto, and ask questions, and follow her interests and not worry about getting things wrong.

But personally, I am *loving* my 3 quiet days at home. I love it. I love being on my own, reading, tidying, sorting, thinking, sometimes sleeping, unassaulted by the multitude of demands and interruptions. It feels like it is my 'sanity' time.

So, while Shannon is relatively happy, we'll leave things as they are.

Oh, and finally, saving the best to last, Jade has spoken her first words to her teacher! She has been having 'sliding-in' sessions with her TA (to whom she speaks) and her class teacher and 2-3 other kids at lunchtimes, just 15-20 minutes playing games, and during a game of Happy Families she asked her teacher for a card! The journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step.....

And now I need to put Shannon to bed, but when I get back, I will blog about 'other news'.

Thoughts on future HE

When Jade first went to school in April 2009, we were very uncertain whether she would settle into it or not, but she had asked to go, and we really wanted to see if we could make some progress with her severe social anxiety and selective mutism, in a safe supportive place with trained, committed staff and people whom she could get to know day in day out and learn to trust that nothing bad would happen to her there. She needed to grow her own confidence that she could manage without being with me all the time, and expand the range of people she could be with and hopefully talk to.

We've had major ups and downs in that process, but at the moment things look reasonable. She can talk to her TA usually, though still with some anxiety and not with the complete freedom she talks with at home; she has learned to cope without me being there all the time; she talks to other children on the whole; she can read to her teacher in a small group, and she has answered maths questions in a low voice but enough that the children on her table could hear.

There are still areas of difficulty, obviously. She won't go to Brownies without me, and in fact she's said she doesn't want to go back because it's boring. It's boring because she won't join in any games, and as they play lots of games at Brownies a lot of the time she is sitting at the side with me, just watching. She won't do 'wake and shake' in the playground in the mornings, even at the back where nobody would be watching her because they'll all be facing the front and even though I'm with her and doing it too. She won't go for riding lessons, even though riding is her favourite thing to do. She really wants to be able to canter, despite her fear of doing so, but won't do it in a lesson because she doesn't want to be watched. She can't canter on her loan pony, Lily, because Lily is too strong and would likely gallop off! She won't talk to my Mum any more, or other relatives or any other adults apart from those mentioned and us at home.

Anyway, at the beginning, I urged Jade to try school for a week, and then for a month, and then for a term, and then for the rest of the year. As I've said she's made good progress but still needs to make more, so in our latest discussions of how long to stay at school, we've said she needs to stay till the end of primary, but can be home educated again instead of going to secondary school. She seems happy with this, both about staying at school for 2 more years but also about not having to go after that!

However it's giving me pause for thought on various fronts, and this morning after being woken at about 5.30am by Shannon, I lay awake till 7am worrying and fretting about Jade.

If Jade was normally socially competent, I would not doubt that HE would be best for her. Home education of itself has always seemed vastly superior to me, for the freedom and depth and range of education, and freedom from the excessive peer pressures and attitudes of schoolkids, especially during the tumultuous adolescent stage. Even just thinking about Jade herself, I'm very glad to think about her not being in that pressured, difficult and stressful situation.

But in the small hours of this morning, I saw very clearly the other side of the coin. Adolescence is the time when friendships become extra important, and it is going to be vital that she has at least one or two good, supportive and reliable friends who will be kind about her struggles and difficulties. My worry is partly fuelled by occasionally reading a blog by a teen who struggles with anxiety and selective mutism and who is heading scarily towards anorexia as she struggles massively with her self-image and who she is. I also think back to my own teenage years which were dominated by my own anxiety problems (phobia) and how scarily astray some of my own thinking and views were.

Jade currently has 2 good friends who want to see her out of school time, though there are others at school who seem to like being with her but don't make any attempt to be in touch after school or in the holidays. One girl lives next door, and though she is a kind and good-hearted girl, she is very much a slow learner, and Jade is rude and horrible to her quite often (yes, we do pull her up on it and talk about it and punish her for the worst behaviour but it's taking an awfully long time to change this behaviour/attitude), and I just think that once they outgrow childish games and get into the teenage years, I can't see the friendship continuing strongly. Jade's other friend is herself a bit prone to fiery outbursts, and on Friday lunchtime they fell out in a big way (though Jade has to sit next to her in class all day, since she was deliberately put with a friend to help her in her new class), and she is also one who is in the lowest academic groups in the class and I am worried about the morals and attitudes of the family she comes from and all in all I am not sure that friendship is going to be one that lasts or if it does, I don't really want to encourage it all that much.

Living in such a rural area, there are not many HEors so there is not a strong prospect of good friends in the HE group either. There used to be 3 girls of roughly Jade's age who were HE'd, but she didn't particularly gel with any of them and of course I don't even know if they still are or will continue to be HE'd. Jade has never made any particular friends at church and again in a rural area people come from all over the place so could easily be 15 miles away from us. Once she reaches secondary age, it is really not going to be so straightforward for me to attend groups with her and stay, and unless she is already established in a group by then I can't see her attending on her own.

So I had this scary vision of Jade aged 11+ with no good, trustworthy friends, unable to go to social groups and make new ones, isolated at home, getting less socially confident as the pangs of adolescence strike and ....... urgh!

Add to this, the fact that DH is due to retire in 4 years, his income will probably reduce by half or more, I need/want to study for an MSc over the next 3-4 years so I can become a nutritional therapist and work after he retires and supplement our income, he doesn't want nor would he be very good at being the main educator, if Jade isn't going to school then I bet Shannon wouldn't want to stay either, and I won't be able to study properly if they're both at home all the time, and I just don't see how it's all going to work.

Back to school

It has all gone fairly smoothly! Which is better than I anticipated, after Jade said half-way through the summer holidays that she wanted me to go into class with her to start with when she went back. I thought that if she was worrying about it so much in advance, things would only get worse the closer it got. But no!

I told her that I knew she would be fine and that it would only take her half an hour or so to remember what to do and where to go and what this was all like and that she could cope with it, and then she'd be fine. I agreed to sit outside in the courtyard until 10am, so that I was nearby if she needed me but not actually in the building. When she woke up in the morning, she had a few tears with anxiety about doing swimming and PE. I was able to tell her that there wasn't any swimming this term, so she needn't worry about that, and that I would talk to her TA about her PE anxieties. And pointed out that she definitely wouldn't be doing any PE the first day anyway, so not to worry about it today. She got up and dressed happily after that. Shannon was excited to go back and had been looking forward to it for ages, so she was ready and waiting nice and early.

We walked round to the school, and I dropped Shannon off in the infant playground first of all and saw her go in with her new teacher. Then Jade and I went back round to the junior playground and everybody had already gone in. (Normally they do 'wake and shake' movement to music to wake up their brains first thing, but not this first morning). Anyway I didn't mind the chance to just hold her hand and see her right into the classroom on this first morning. Now she's a Year 5 she goes upstairs to her classroom. So up we went, into her classroom and the teacher welcomed her warmly and pointed out where she was going to sit, next to her friend B. Jade needed to put her backpack on her peg, though, so we were directed back outside the classroom to the cloakroom area, where we left the bag. Then as we headed back towards the classroom, Jade stopped and went all weepy. I gave her a cuddle, lots of reminders of positive self-talk to try and fill her mind with, but she wouldn't go in. After a few minutes I could hear the teacher had finished taking the register and all the children started lining up by the door to go down to assembly. We were very near the door, so I told the teacher that Jade was 'having a bit of a wobble' and the teacher was very kind and calming and said "that's OK, lots of us have a bit of a wobble on the first day back, including the teachers!" She asked Jade if she would be happy to go into assembly, and she nodded, so I went with her at the end of the line back downstairs, and she agreed to go into the hall without me. I indicated I would wait outside as we'd previously agreed. I went and sat in the courtyard for an hour, reading the book I'd brought, and at 10am her teaching assistant came out to me and said Jade was absolutely fine and was happy for me to leave! And she's gone back happily every day since then with no fuss or trouble, I leave her in the playground like every other parent does, and don't go into school at all! She's even done PE, and enjoyed it!

Shannon, on the other hand, loved her first 2 days back, and then last week started to say every morning that she didn't want to go. She only says it before she's actually got out of bed. Once she's up and dressed, she seems quite happy to go. I've tried talking to her on several occasions about what exactly does she not like, but she can't articulate it. If anything, it seems to be playground related possibly - getting used to people not wanting to play games her way, or not being her friend. If it's not that, then it's just that she doesn't want to be out of the house that long, because she frequently says she just wants to be with me all the time. I have spoken to her teacher, who has agreed to keep an eye on things especially in the playground, and who said she was surprised because Shannon is very happy and productive in the classroom. Certainly every day when I pick her up I ask her if she's had a nice day and she says yes. I ask her to tell me what was fun or good and she can usually think of plenty of things. I'm keeping a close eye on what's going on and trying to read between the lines but at the moment I think she is generally happy enough except she doesn't want to get up and dressed and go out in the mornings, and who does?!

Greenbelt 2010

I wasn't sure how my 23rd Greenbelt would be for me. For the first time, I was going completely on my own. Last year, I left Bill and the kids at home, but I knew the Off-the-Pathers would be there and I would be camping with them, even if only seeing them intermittently. This year, nobody else I knew was going, so I would be camping alone as well.

I also dithered about accommodation for a long time. In the past we have always taken our caravan, and last year I drove it there on my own but knew that there would be people to help me unhitch and push it into place. This year there wouldn't be that help, but there were other problems too. The caravan is 28 years old and not all that great any longer. The rooflight leaks and various other things don't work, but the biggest problem of all is that our falling-down garage has just been dismantled, and all the contents stored in various places including in and under the caravan. There was nowhere else to put them if I used the caravan. Our tent is massive, and I certainly can't put it up on my own. In the end, only about 3 days before going, I booked a (rather small!) pre-erected tent through Tangerine Fields. This gave me the blissful situation of not having to try and get there early enough to get near the front of the hours-long queue to get in and get a pitch not too far away from the festival village. In Greenbelts past we have sometimes been a 10-15 minute walk away, which when you've been on your feet all day, or when you want to nip back to your tent to pick up a jacket or umbrella, or grab a sandwich, is really quite a trek.

Arriving this year did present its own difficulties, however. Due to the constant rain of the previous few days, the ground was very wet so only essential vehicles were allowed onto the campsite at Cheltenham Racecourse. This meant that after getting there at about 4.30pm (yes, I really did take my time, seeing as I only live 30 mins drive away!) and waiting in a queue for about 45 mins, I had to park in the main carpark and then carry all my stuff. Seeing as I had everything for camping except the actual tent (airbed, sleeping bag, duvet, stove, washing up bowl, eating stuff, cooking stuff, food, clothes, boots, coats, books) this presented rather a mammoth effort. Fortunately two things helped. One was that Greenbelt run a series of electric golf buggies as taxis round the festival site, and I was able to find that not too far away and leave an ever-growing pile of stuff there as I made trips back and forth from my car to the taxi-stop. Secondly I praised and thanked those wonderful Citroen people who included a little pull-along trolley fitted in the back of the Picasso. This meant I only had to make 4 trips back and forth instead of about 10! Thank God it wasn't actually raining! Nevertheless my arms and shoulders ached rather by the time I was dropped off on the campsite. The next bit of bad news was that, again due to the rain, the taxi had to drop me off about 100 yards away from my tent. Doesn't sound much, but again when carrying that much stuff it took several back and forth trips to get it all there. By this time it was just starting to rain, too. I was shown to my titchy tent which was in a great position only a 30-second walk from the edge of the Festival village and really near a couple of the main venues. Actually if you take a look at this short video, that's where my tent was. Just behind that great big orange tent (from Tangerine Fields, OK?). So very near the action! Anyway, I eventually got all sorted out in my tent (discovered that one of my pillows must have dropped off the taxi trailer on the way round), went and got some food from the Performance Cafe and sat and ate, listened to some wonderful live performances and read my Festival Guide. By then it was about 9pm and I was absolutely and utterly knackered, so I just went back to my tent and went to sleep! I had quite fancied going to see Jude Simpson (stand-up poet, comedian, singer), but she was going to be at the Big Top, there would have been a big queue, and I was just too tired.

I don't really know what happened to Saturday. I still felt tired when I woke up - I do get times like this when I've been busy, busy, busy for a while and then I just crash and barely have the energy for anything for a whole weekend. There wasn't anything I hugely fancied going to in the morning - one possible talk that would have been interesting - but in the end I decided to have an easy relaxing morning in my tent and get going in the afternoon. I ended up falling asleep again and sleeping most of the morning. I had a shower booked for 2.30pm, and so decided to make myself some lunch before going out for that, and then I heard the awesome Beer & Hymns session happening which I had forgotten about (seeing as I was fairly close even in my tent!). It's one of the most popular things at Greenbelt and is always packed out as you will see if you check out the Youtube videos here and here. If church was like that, you'd go a bit more often, wouldn't you?! Me too. Anyway, it was good to hear it even if I wasn't actually there, had my lunch and went off for my shower. Despite being booked for 2.30 I didn't actually get in till about 3pm, and afterwards again there wasn't anything I hugely wanted to go to so I wandered around, going into tents and looking at the shopping stalls. Despite that not sounding very exciting, it is one of the things I love at Greenbelt. The sellers are probably mostly the same people who go to other festivals but I really like the non-fashion, non-High-Street, handmade, alternative clothing. Yeah, me, Mrs Conventionality. But I love that people can wear what they like without being looked down on, that things are usually individually designed, have multi-ethnic influences, etc. It being an arts festival, there are loads of interesting stalls selling art and jewellery and clothing and decorative stuff, you can get temporary tattoos or braids or have a massage, and I just love the whole feel of it. There are also tents from groups like Christian Aid, Tear Fund and YMCA, who put on challenging and thought-provoking interactive displays about the uneven distribution of wealth in the world, hunger and poverty, wars, injustice and present-day slavery. These shake me out of my comfortable white middle-class lethargy, give me a different eye-view on the world and challenge my assumptions about what I can or can't do to make a difference.

So I pottered around, spent a fair while and a bit of money in the book tent (no surprise there then) but just didn't feel motivated to go to any talks, performances or events. I ended up going back to my tent, reading, eating, relaxing, and actually thoroughly enjoying myself just being quiet and on my own. I think I just needed space to unwind.

On Sunday, though, I was determined to get up and get going. First of all I went for a run! This was supposed to be Week 9, where I do 3 x 30 minute runs. The first one I wanted to see if I could do a full 5k, and ran for 34 mins 50 seconds; but the second and this third one on this day I just couldn't seem to manage the full 30 minutes and both times stopped at 25 mins. And I'm supposed to run 10k on 3rd October, yikes!

Anyway, I finished my run a bit later than I intended so was late to get to the Sunday morning communion service. I have often missed this in years past because, although the sight of 20,000 people turning up to a worship service is moving and impressive, the organisers often seem to try and do things in an 'innovative and interesting' way, otherwise known as weird, and for me at least it has often fallen flat. This year was much better. They used well-known songs rather than new untried ones, and kept the whole thing shorter than before. It was good.

Straight after that, I decided to try a talk by Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest from New Mexico. He is the founding director of The Center for Action and Contemplation. He's been at Greenbelt before and seems to be a popular speaker, so I thought I'd go and see why. This talk (one of four) was entitled "The Art of Looking Sideways at Us" (Greenbelt's theme this year was "The Art of Looking Sideways"). The blurb said "The mind thinks it can look at things directly and understand them - which is a very big assumption. There is another way of knowing ourselves and one another that Fr Richard Rohr calls "non dual thinking" or contemplation. He is convinced it is the only possible way to forgive." The queue to see him was very, very long, and I ended up not being able to get in, but I was able to sit outside near the door and mostly hear what he was saying. In essence he was saying that we are all unable to see ourselves clearly, but we are surrounded by mirrors (other people) to help us see ourselves as we really are. And that we need to receive the feedback we get from others and act on it, and also be aware that not only do we not see ourselves truly, but neither do others see themselves truly as well so we need to be as sensitive at dealing with their blind spots as we want them to be with ours. There was a lot more to it than that, but there was a fair amount of noise going on around which made it difficult to hear, and about half-way through it started to rain so I left. It did remind me of my own uncertainty as to whether the 'real me' is the way I think I am, or the way others think I am. I know there is a lot of myself that I do not reveal to most other people, so who's to say that the way that other people see me is the 'real' me? On the other hand, we are all prone to deluding ourselves and avoiding facing the real truth about our motivations and behaviours, so maybe other people do sometimes see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Now that would have been a good debate to have with a crowd of other Greenbelters in the Jesus Arms, had I known anyone to debate with!

After that I went straight to hear John Smith. He is the most amazing man. He's been at Greenbelt several times but not for quite a few years. He is an Australian, biker preacher, founder of the God's Squad Motorcycle Club, similar to Hell's Angels but Christians! He has worked with and mixed with outlaw biker gangs for years. He is an incredibly powerful speaker, highly intelligent, cutting to the heart of 20th/21st century culture and contemporary issues. He lives as powerfully as he speaks, being prepared to put his own life at risk to stand up for justice and truth. Years ago at Greenbelt he totally opened my eyes to what it really means to live a radical faith and to challenge structures and powers that oppress people. He's not well, having prostate cancer at the moment and he definitely wasn't looking too great, but he's lost none of his drive and insight and conviction. Loved it.

From there I went to "Self confidence for women: saying no", led by a life coach. This wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be, though that could be because my main problem isn't saying 'no', but asking for things that I want. I couldn't really think of anything much I wanted to practise saying 'no' to, except picking up the girls' toys and clothes rather than making them do it, which always feels as though it would take more energy than doing it myself. Anyway, it did get me chatting with a nice woman during the session.

Then Bill and the girls came to visit, as they couldn't bear not to see me for 4 days . To avoid paying a fortune for day tickets we met outside in the car park and I brought some food out and we sat and picnicked and chatted.

At 6.30 I went to hear Janey Lee Grace talk about "Ditch the chemicals: save cash, save your health, save the planet". That was interesting, though a lot of it I knew already, and mostly she talked about the alternatives you can get to conventional cleaners and cosmetics. I think I need to change my shopping habits because although I want to avoid these things, I still usually take the route of least resistance and just buy stuff at the supermarket.

I dashed from there to hear the psychologist Oliver James (author of They F*** You Up and Affluenza) say "It's a mad world". I can't find the notes I took at the moment, but it was along the lines of how rates of mental ill-health are rising rapidly and what to do about it. Apparently those who believe that fame, beauty and possessions are the most important things in life are 5x more likely to be mentally ill than those who have other aims and priorities. He referred to the current education system as being "a disgrace"! I liked that. In brief, he recommended bringing up children along the lines written in "Toxic Childhood" by Sue Palmer - limiting TV, computer games and designer labels, etc.

I then caught a bit of the London Community Gospel Choir on Mainstage, after which I got some food, and called in on my friend who owns the Christian art agency, Veritasse. He always has a large tent display at Greenbelt so it was lovely to see him and chat and catch up on the past year. We were joined by another ex-member of Chipping Campden Baptist Church, so that was fun too.

At 10pm I went to a session of Taize worship. This is always beautiful, quiet, contemplative and peaceful worship. A lovely quiet end to a good day.

On Monday morning I started off at 10am with a workshop on "What Greenbelt means to me". I had thought this would be a big session with loads of people, but walked into a room with only about 10 or 12 participants - yikes! No chance of sitting anonymously at the back and just listening, then, as I had intended. It was really interesting, however. A couple of researchers started a study last year into the meaning and impact that Greenbelt has on people who go, by asking 10 people to keep a journal over the weekend of how they were feeling and responding to what was going on around them at Greenbelt. The researchers introduced the background to the project and read from some people's journals, and lots of themes emerged that rang lots of bells with me. About Greenbelt being almost like a 'tribe' of like-minded people who feel more at home here than anywhere else, and to whom it is an incredibly valuable and important event each year. And how it is a very different 'tribe' than those who attend Spring Harvest or New Wine, which are much narrower and strictly defined events than Greenbelt. Greenbelt attracts a lot of people with very liberal faith views or no faith at all, as well as those with a full church-related Christian faith. I love that debate and diversity. Many of us in the workshop spoke up about our own experiences and were recorded for further use in the research, so who knows, my thoughts and comments may turn up in a research paper or even a book at some time.

By then it was about 11.30, and I didn't have anything else to go to till 2.30, so I decided to do some of the shopping I still wanted to do. I had decided on a bracelet for my niece's birthday, and Bill had asked me to get a big heavy woollen jacket similar to my red one that I had bought at Greenbelt a few years ago, so I went seeking those out. I also bought myself a couple of bracelets, (over-)spending the money my Dad had given me for my birthday, and some more books (oops!). I dropped all the stuff back at the tent and had some lunch and then went off to my next session.

Dave Andrews is another amazing man who lives out his faith in real practical action among the world's poorest and most marginalised people. Check out the website for some of the stuff he's done. It's impressive. He spoke about his "Be the Change" campaign, taking the words of Gandhi that we should "be the change we want to see in the world". It started in a small unassuming way with Dave thinking about and meditating on the Beatitudes (Be-Attitudes, he calls them) that Jesus spoke of and deciding to live them out in his own life. His daughter told him she "liked the person he was being now", one thing led to another and the word got out, and it turned into a major campaign. Check out - it's interesting. As the website says, "Many of us desperately want to change our world. But it is an illusion to think we can change anybody else but ourselves. The truth is that we cannot change them - we can only change ourselves. We need to remember the alternate version of the Serenity Prayer, and repeat it regularly: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it is me!”

After that, it was time for a bit of light relief, so I headed off to Mainstage for Sing-a-Long-a-Grease. That was great fun! Grease is the only film I've ever been to see at the cinema more than once - when it first came out and I was a spotty teenager I went 3 times, and know all the words off-by-heart of course.

Then, there was a talk about challenging the over-commercialisation of childhood. More scary statistics about the number of adverts and product placements and sponsorship ads that our children see and the targeting of children by advertisers and marketers which goes against the code of practice they're supposed to adhere to. The campaign website is at www.byebuychildhood.org though there's not much there at the moment until the campaign is properly launched in a couple of weeks.

Next I went over to Mainstage again to catch a bit of Jars of Clay, a band I've heard a lot about but never actually heard so I thought I'd check them out. Thought they were OK but not amazing. Later I saw a poster suggesting that the line-up had been rearranged and Jars of Clay hadn't played till later on. I wonder who I'd watched then? Wish I'd seen the real thing!

Then I caught the second half of a talk by Pip Wilson entitled "Sometimes the Cheese is falling off our Cracker". I have no idea what that title meant - here is the rest of the blurb. "We all need tools in our life toolbox for the times we are sharp with the ones we love or for 'difficult' relationships at work. Level 5 is a tool, a skill to have ready for emotional moments. It is about managing emotions and learning the ability to avoid regrettable outbursts. A workshop to get tooled up." I missed the first half, and joined while people were getting into groups of 3. I joined an older lady and a young man and we joined in the exercises of practising talking and listening at different levels. Level 1 is cliche or small talk. Level 2 is fact. Level 3 is opinion. Level 4 is feelings. Level 5 is total, uncompromising honesty. Unfortunately Levels 1-4 took too long and we didn't have time for a proper discussion of Level 5, which is what the thing was supposed to be about. So I still don't have a new tool in my toolbox except for realising the obvious of talking about something with others at the level of total openness and honesty. Of course, he may have explained a great deal more during the first bit that I missed. Fortunately talks can be bought and downloaded from the Greenbelt website if desired.

After that I went off to a 'musical comedy showcase' with the lovely Jude Simpson referred to earlier, the Rev. Gerald Ambulance and Jenny Lockyer. There was more but I had to leave to catch my final appointment for the evening. Jude Simpson was great, the other two not so much, but I still enjoyed my one comedy gig of the weekend.

Finally, I went to a film called "Grizzly Man", a film about a strange man called Timothy Treadwell who lived among the grizzly bears in Alaska for 13 summers and was eventually killed by one. Interesting and strange.

So that was my Greenbelt. I would have preferred to spend it with other people I knew around. I want plenty of you reading this to book for next year, so that there are people I can meet at the Tiny Tea Tent, chat over breakfast with and chill in the Performance Cafe with. Even if you have no Christian faith you can have a good time at Greenbelt. But even without other people, I still had an amazing, inspiring and challenging time, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. I have already booked my ticket for next year while they're at the cheapest price. See you there?

June 22nd

I wish, on this date every year, I didn't keep checking the clock, remembering what was happening at this moment x years ago. This year x = 11. It was in the evening when it all started to go wrong. The nagging thoughts that had me tense all afternoon, grew larger and louder, until, after Bill got home, we decided to take Benjamin to the hospital in Birmingham to get him checked out. Well, we never got there. And ever since then, on 22nd June, I have spent the daytime thinking, "well, here we are on June 22nd, and I'm fine!", and then the sun starts to go down and the shadows lengthen and the feelings grow and I don't want to remember but I can't help it.

May

When I was HEing, I was quite anti-school. I still am in many ways. I still think that for many (most?) children, HE is definitely a better education and is better socially and emotionally. However, I am finding I am having to eat my words and revise my opinions, particularly in Jade's case, as very surprisingly it turns out that school is very good for her, so far!

There is no way I could have persuaded her (and still couldn't) to take part in music lessons, sports lessons, language lessons or any sort of performance outside of school, and yet at school in the past month, in a safe and secure environment with which she has become familiar and in which she has grown to learn that the people there care for her and understand her, she has taken part in tennis lessons, hurdling, her class assembly including doing a class 'rap' (I saw her slightly moving her lips and she did all the dancing/actions) and of course normal lessons including French. She is telling me 2 or 3 times a week about a new child she has spoken to for the first time (which is getting expensive - I buy her a present for each new person!). And to cap it all, and this may be the biggest surprise of all - she likes maths!!!!!!!!! The girl who used to end up in tears almost *every* time I tried to do maths with her! I was watching a TED video earlier and she joined me half-way through it, and I explained it was a teacher speaking who was trying to make maths teaching more interesting, and she exclaimed "well, how stupid is that - maths *is* interesting and I *like* maths already!" I had to turn and look at her to make sure it was my daughter sitting next to me!

My attendance at school has got less and less over the past 3 weeks. I just kept needing to be somewhere else earlier each day when possible, going and sitting in the staffroom as early as possible and leaving her to discover that all was well, and this despite her TA being off for the past 2 weeks as her father has sadly died. I've also been not going back at the end of lunchtime, and not picking her up till the end of the school day, and she's been just fine. So at the moment, usually, I go in to school with her in the morning, go to the staffroom after 5-10 minutes, and go home around 9.30-9.45, and not collect her till 3.05pm. It really is so lovely to see her happy, relaxed and participating well in school, and as I said, taking part in things I never would have been able to persuade her to outside of school, due to her anxiety about new people and new situations. She still doesn't talk to any other adults apart from her TA, and even with the TA it's intermittent, but now she's well-established in her attendance again and able to let us go home, it'll be time to start working on 'sliding-in' the class teacher that she will have in September, to see if we can possibly get her talking in class in the new school year.

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.