gemisht

First of all thanks so much to everyone who has commented on my post about Daisy and the problems that we have faced with school.  I know I replied to some of the comments in the comments on that post, but I wanted to say thanks for all the support from everyone, and that my heart goes out to anyone that may have experienced this kind of thing - either for themselves or their own children. It really is heartbreaking, but knowing that I have support from everyone here makes a difference. Thanks All.

 I just wanted to do a quick update to let you all know what is happening, as a couple of people that read my blog have asked how things are going.

Step 1 of many happened this afternoon. I had a meeting with Daisy’s class teacher and the school counsellor. I thought that it would be about half an hour. Guess again. It was an hour and a half. I don’t think as a parent, in fact I know for sure, that I have ever had that length of time to discuss anything with any of the teachers that either of my kids have had. WOW.

To be honest I lost track of time, but I knew that it was more than half an hour. So the three of us have discussed lots of things to do at home and at school and lots of follow up too.

I also have an appointment for Saturday afternoon for Daisy to see a Speech Pathologist. This is because she has been regressing with her speech and has gone back to speaking with a lisp. She had some speech therapy 2 years ago and at the end of about 6 months seemed to be on top of it all.

I also have an appointment with another psychologist on Wednesday afternoon to discuss in more detail what we need to do and what the next steps will be. I have also spoken to her about some other concerns that I have and I will see what she says about them. Thats a bit cryptic I know, but its a hunch of mine and I promise I will reveal all later.

 So, thanks everyone for all your wonderful comments, and for the messages and support in the meantime. Daisy seems much happier the last few days with some minor changes so I will possibly start to document what we are doing so that we can track what works and what doesn’t.

 I will keep you all posted on what’s happening. Oh, and she smiled at me today - “that” smile, the one that I have been missing. And when I went to pick her up from gymnastics, she ran towards me and I picked her up, and almost threw her in the air.  That’s my girl.

My Daisy will be home soon, I can feel it in my bones.

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First of all I would like to say thank you to everyone for your comments and emails when I took a break for a while. Your support means so much to me

So now I am back, but after a trying couple of weeks. Things have been spiralling slowly downward and almost reached breaking point yesterday morning. Not with me so much, but with Daisy. And its been building for almost 4 weeks now.

To understand where we are now I need to take you back a bit in time, to when she first started school. She was young to be starting but the staff at her preschool assured me that she would be OK, and she was so outgoing and happy that I thought that the only issue she might have was academic. Social problems just weren’t on the radar for her. She was just a social little girl that talked to everyone and had no problems making friends.

Unfortunately, this all changed not long after she started school.  Her teacher at the time had a terminally ill husband so was taking a lot of time off to look after him. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but lack of continuity with a teacher had a big impact on all the kids. They had a relief teacher on average 2 days per week for first term, and never the same teacher.

Her teacher’s husband passed away in the holidays at the end of term 1. She had four weeks off at the beginning of term 2 (understandably) and finally the class had one teacher for the whole 4 weeks. Then their teacher took all of term 3 off on Long Service Leave and they had a different teacher again, but at least for the whole term.

What I found out in term 3 from the relief teacher was that Daisy was being “punished” for needing to go to the toilet in class time. They had to go in pairs to the toilet so whoever was going with her was getting a sticker and Daisy was loosing one. This of course led to all sorts of toileting issues with Daisy, that we had never had before, and of course name calling and other teasing by the other children at school.

Apparently the teacher didn’t like Daisy and didn’t make much of an effort to hide the fact. Other kids in her class were going home and telling their Mums that they were glad they weren’t her because she got picked on all the time and being put down by the teacher, in front of the whole class. I also had to fight for her to get home readers as everyone else in the class had them except for her. When I asked the teacher about it, she told me Daisy was getting 33% of the words wrong so she wasn’t reading well enough to get one. As far as I could see this was going to turn into a viscous circle - she wasn’t reading well enough to get a home reader, but without it she wasn’t going to improve as much either. Yes, we could have just read books at home, but Daisy felt very left out that she didn’t have home readers and the other kids noticed too - so of course, more teasing. I put my foot down and told the teacher to give her home readers and I would accept full responsibility for her reading.

By the end of the year, my bright eyed, social little girl with all the confidence in the world was not recognisable. She had no confidence, was scared to try to learn anything new, wouldn’t talk to people, let alone look anyone in the eye. And her bright eyes were gone, replaced by murky depths of experience that just shouldn’t be there at her age.  And she was angry all the time at home. She somehow managed to keep it together at school, but would come home and fall apart. She lashed out at the three of us all the time. I understood why and it broke my heart.

I did what I could to change things, but the school wouldn’t move her to another class as they said it was too late in the year. So we had to make the best of a bad situation and make sure that it didn’t get any worse again.

Daisy repeated Kindy at the same school and with a different teacher who was fabulous. She did repair some of the damage from the previous year but Daisy was still in contact with the teacher from the previous year. And she still seemed haunted and I know she was scared of the other teacher.

DH and I made the decision to move her to a different school. Not because we wanted to encourage her to run away from her problems, but because we wanted her to not have any contact with the other teacher and a change of scenery.

This is her third year at the new school and she has been thriving. She is doing so well on all fronts that the difference is staggering. I almost had the real Daisy back again. Until 4 weeks ago.  When school went back at the end of April she started telling me every day that she didn’t want to go to school. And we had tantrums, not the tears and shouting type, but the digging her heels in, refusing to get ready and shrieking at the top of her voice tantrums. And taking 10 minutes to put on a pair of socks just to delay the inevitable of going to school.

Then 2 weeks ago she came home one day and told me her current teacher doesn’t like her. That signals the end of Daisy’s world and renews the fear in her that there might be a repeat of last time. We seemed to get through that OK after she and I talked about it and I have been keeping a watchful eye on Daisy to see how she is.

Until yesterday. I went in to wake her up and she told me she was feeling sick in the tummy and couldn’t go to school. The warning bells that had been a dull roar in the background in my head were suddenly getting louder. I convinced her that she needed to go to school and thought of a couple of things for her to look forward to. Then it came time to get ready and she dug her heels in again. And Just. Wouldn’t. Get. Dressed.  Then the shrieking started. And kept going, and going, and going.

That was almost breaking point. So I went to see the Deputy Head yesterday to talk to her about my concerns regarding Daisy and my suspicion that something had happened, or was still happening, at school to make her so unhappy. The Deputy was great. She had a meeting with Daisy yesterday and they have come up with some things for her to do so that she is a bit happier at school. And some things to do at home to encourage her to get ready in the mornings. And I will talk to the school librarian to make sure that Daisy knows that the library can continue to be her sanctuary if she needs it.

I have a meeting with her class teacher next week and we will go from there. Fingers crossed that we can continue to repair the damage to her self esteem and spirit from that first year of school, rather than going backwards into the abyss that we were in.

I want my little girl back, the one with the bright smile and not afraid to try doing new things. The little girl who loves meeting new people and delights in her own achievements. And if I need to I will move heaven and Earth to make sure that it happens.

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I was talking to Mum today and she was telling me some of the funny things that the kids said while they were staying with Nanna and Grandpa for a week in the holidays.  I thought I’d share a conversation that Daisy had with Mum, and later with Dad. Mum had to go to a function on the Saturday night and Dad stayed home to mind them. On the Thursday before Mum was organising to get a lift with another couple that were going to the function. After the phone call with the husband of said couple, Daisy gave Nanna the 3rd degree about who she was on the phone to. The conversation went something like this:

Daisy: Who was that on the phone?

Nanna: That’s the man that I am going out with on Saturday. 

Daisy: (Hands on hips) Does Grandpa know you’re going out with someone else?

Nanna: Ummm, well, yes he does actually

Daisy: And how does he feel about it????

 Later on at some stage Daisy talked to Grandpa about it too.

Daisy: Grandpa, did you know Nanna is going out with someone else on Saturday?

Grandpa: Well, yes I did.

Daisy: Well, how do you feel about it??? 

Talk about getting the third degree from an eight year old.  Apparently they then explained to her that it was OK, Nanna was just getting a lift to the function with them.Note to self - remind Mum that Daisy takes everything you say very literally - be careful what you say. 

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