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newly diagnosed son

hibbsy

Hello there, we are new to this forum and we are looking for help and support that anyone can give please.

Our 11 year old son has just been diagnosed with a-typical autism.He also has a speech and language problem, dyslexia (which we have known about for a couple of years) and a severe anxiety problem.

He has had a severe melt down at school as he is struggling with the pressures of the impending SATS tests this year and feels inadequate against his peers. He does have CAMHS involvement, SENCO support, and we are liasing with an educational psychologist, but we are stunned at this new autism diagnosis and struggling to come to terms with both that, and our sons low self esteem, awful anxiety issues and very low state of mind, it really is heartbreaking and we are struggling to know how to support him best. He has constant outbursts and meltdowns, can be rather aggressive at times, followed by tears upon tears and then becomes withdrawn and negative.

We are completely exhausted and concerned about the future and how we are going to get through this. Any help and advice would be so gratefully recieved!

Parents

  • Hi there.

    I don't mind you asking - just didn't want to put in too much info to begin with.

    We've made 2 major changes to our lives as a family. The first was to move away from a fairly inner city location and school, where our son was having a dreadful time. He was the only white boy in his class - which we didn't mind at all, except that the other boys didn't have the same interests or family lives, so he had absolutely nothing in common with them. As he was struggling anyway to make friends, it was fairly awful for him and he felt very lonely, which contributed to his low self esteem etc. We moved to rural Scotland and now live in a very small village where he is allowed quite a lot of freedom as it's pretty safe. He goes to a school in the next village and is in a class of 18. The other boys have much more similar interests etc, so whilst we mourn the loss of the multicultural background we wanted our kids to have, he's actually so much happier and has friends. We chose this school because they have a SEN co-ordinating role for the area and have, on the whole, been pretty sympathetic (although it's not all plain sailing), apart from with the most extreme behaviour.

    We've also found that there are far more resources in the area compared to where we were before. We had very little agency support there, but within a few months of being here we'd been referred to all kinds of services we didn't know existed and got free night time pants delivered to the door!

    The second change has been in our patterns of work. It gradually emerged that we couldn't sustain 2 of us working more or less full time, with children in childcare out of school hours. Our son just didn't get on well with this, so we've had to reduce our hours so that one of us is at home most of the time. This of course has meant a large reduction in our family income! This wasn't particularly a choice - but it wouldn't have been right to carry on how we were. After school club was just too un-structured for him to be there 3 or 4 days a week.

    So there you are. Poor but calmer! It must also be said that the whole family has benefitted from the move from the city, so we don't regret it at all.

    All the best!

Reply

  • Hi there.

    I don't mind you asking - just didn't want to put in too much info to begin with.

    We've made 2 major changes to our lives as a family. The first was to move away from a fairly inner city location and school, where our son was having a dreadful time. He was the only white boy in his class - which we didn't mind at all, except that the other boys didn't have the same interests or family lives, so he had absolutely nothing in common with them. As he was struggling anyway to make friends, it was fairly awful for him and he felt very lonely, which contributed to his low self esteem etc. We moved to rural Scotland and now live in a very small village where he is allowed quite a lot of freedom as it's pretty safe. He goes to a school in the next village and is in a class of 18. The other boys have much more similar interests etc, so whilst we mourn the loss of the multicultural background we wanted our kids to have, he's actually so much happier and has friends. We chose this school because they have a SEN co-ordinating role for the area and have, on the whole, been pretty sympathetic (although it's not all plain sailing), apart from with the most extreme behaviour.

    We've also found that there are far more resources in the area compared to where we were before. We had very little agency support there, but within a few months of being here we'd been referred to all kinds of services we didn't know existed and got free night time pants delivered to the door!

    The second change has been in our patterns of work. It gradually emerged that we couldn't sustain 2 of us working more or less full time, with children in childcare out of school hours. Our son just didn't get on well with this, so we've had to reduce our hours so that one of us is at home most of the time. This of course has meant a large reduction in our family income! This wasn't particularly a choice - but it wouldn't have been right to carry on how we were. After school club was just too un-structured for him to be there 3 or 4 days a week.

    So there you are. Poor but calmer! It must also be said that the whole family has benefitted from the move from the city, so we don't regret it at all.

    All the best!

Children
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