August
Well, summer holidays arrived and I was not too worried about them as I did have a few things planned for Sunbeam. The first week was a bit boring, nothing planned but I reasoned that he has to realise that life can be boring and we can’t have things organised for 24/7. The previous week I had seen my GP for an update on my “happy” pills and I told him I was feeling much better, more my old self and more or less back in control. Ha! I had forgotten that this was the week before school holidays and by the 3rd day of the holiday I need a higher dose!!
The second week I took Sunbeam to visit a friend in Clacton. That was a huge success! We visited Duxford Aerodrome and then the following day found a brilliant WW2 museum in St Osyth. He understood how long we were staying and he was fine. He only had one meltdown when I took a sly photo of him. I pretended I hadn’t taken one of him which was a BIG mistake. He went ballistic in a very controlled way! He calmed down eventually and then went into mega apology mode. My friend said that she could tell that he’d been holding himself in during our stay!
We went to the New Forest Show which was a huge wash out and got soaked for the day but Sunbeam got his picture in the paper as a “whizzkid” steam enthusiast!
Then we decided to go for a week’s holiday to Spain. We booked a villa so that we would be on our own and we only went for a week as Sunbeam can’t cope with longer anymore. The villa was wonderful, thank heaven, as Sunbeam was homesick from the moment we left home! We flew from our local airport in Bournemouth so it only took 15 minutes to get there but he was getting wound up about flying, about the holiday, about EVERYTHING!
Sunbeam would go out for an hour or two then want to return to the villa (which was fine by me) but hubby couldn’t think of anything worse than lying around the pool all afternoon (ADHD??) so I would stay with Sunbeam and hub would go off to investigate the area. Sunbeam then announced he didn’t like Spain, didn’t like the roads, didn’t like the heat, didn’t like the food so we offered to find an English restaurent/bar for a meal. Found one that seemed OK and ordered our food and then Sunbeam went into meltdown saying that what he didn’t like was the Spanish doing English food!! NOT what he said! Hubby then went into panic and said he couldn’t tell the lady we needed to cancel our meal so I did. She was fine about it and we then spent the next hour finding a restaurent that appealed to Sunbeam whilst listening to him in meltdown and apology mode!
Well, our holiday came to an end and it felt more like a month than a week! The one thing that did keep him going was a friend of mine had managed to find a PS1 game, Hogs of War, for him. Needless to say he spent the last few days of the holiday worrying about how he was going to get the game and he doesn’t want to spend time with her son who is EXACTLY the same as Sunbeam! Sunbeam says they have nothing in common!!! We arrived home at 1am to find a parcel with Hogs of War in it then, of course, he wanted to play the game and didn’t want to wait until the morning!
He starts at the new centre/unit on the 5th September and naturally he’s getting anxious about it. I can’t wait and I’m optimistic that once he’s there he’ll settle very quickly. I have to be optimistic because if I don’t there’s no point in going on. I know that I set myself for disappointment but what else can we parents do? We have to have hope. We have to aim for our children to reach their full potential and that they get something out of their lives that makes it all worthwhile.
I’ve taken time out from the ASDfriendly web site. I needed the time out. I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to return. I still get very angry and feel passionately that children like ours are being ignored. Teachers must be trained to teach our children. For some of the children who could cope with mainstream school it would just take a more understanding approach. It would have made so much difference for Sunbeam but because of their ignorance he had to have an emotional breakdown before anyone took his needs seriously. The other boys who will attend the new centre are also highly sensitive. One boy has lost all his hair because of stress.
I’m hoping I might hear from Sunbeam’s old school as I wrote to the headmistress at the end of term naming the teachers who bullied him and refused to help him. I also highlighted a statement on the school website which is completely untrue which is that “every teacher has been trained to teach children with special needs”. I sent a copy of the letter to the board of governors and the Educational Complaints Office in Dorset. He did acknowledge my letter and admitted that more children like my son are entering mainstream school and that the training needs to improve. But when? How long will it be and how many children will suffer before it changes?
End of rant!! I’ll keep the blog going just incase anyone is following this. I’m now helping and supporrting my friend whose son is so like mine. He’s a couple of years behind Sunbeam. She feels daunted at the prospect of the fight ahead of her but at least she’ll be forewarned so therefore forearmed!