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How can I help my five year old

NAS81239

Sorry for the long post. My five year old, almost 6, started school in august. So far we’ve had the odd little instance where he doesn’t want to go into school but he always goes in. At his recent parents evening his teachers seemed really happy with how he was progressing. I mentioned that since he had finished nursery and began school I don’t feel like any support has been put in place to help him. At nursery we had daily chats at hometime with his teacher. Nothing huge, maybe a wee 30 seconds but long enough for us to know if he’d had a good/bad day or anything she wanted to tell us. They had input from the educational psychologist and a local team who helped the nursery to help him with his speech/social mixing and so on. At school there has been nothing. I mentioned this at the parents evening and now we have a meeting set  with the psychologist, his teacher and the head to basically have a proper with each other I think. I don’t know if hat I should ask them to do, or what they should offer. I see people online mentioning ECHP I think, like plans but I have no idea what they are.

my worry is that they say my little guy is doing well he seems to be trying so hard to be like the other kids, to copy what they do/how they act. If he’s happy then I’m happy but after school he is so tired and like a ticking time bomb. It’s like he keeps everything in all day and just becomes so wound up. It’ll either result in shouting or so many tears and he just says he’s so tired. I’m just at a loss how to help him feel comfortable/happy to just be him. I don’t know if this makes sense but any advice would be so very appreciated.

  • in reply to KJ1234

    As far as i can gather  it’s sort of like a plan that the school have in place on how to help an individual child, if any is needed. 

  • in reply to Autonomistic

    The quiet space is a really good idea. I’ll talk to the school about it and see if they have an ideas. I might try and do the same at home, just even a wee space where he knows he can go if he’s feeling overwhelmed and then we know ourselves to give him some time to himself. Thank you

  • in reply to ProbablyTheWay

    Thank you for replying. It’s reassuring to know that we are not alone in this sort of situation. He does seem calmer when we allow him time on his iPad but sometimes this itself causes a meltdown when I try to take it away or get him to put it down. I know this works to calm him though so Maybe it’s the lesser of two evils. Ill need to wait and see what the outcome of the meeting is but illmake sure they definitely put a plan in place to help him. Thank you 

  • I think you're right to be concerned. The transition from nursery to school will likely have been much harder for him than for non autistic children. It is quite common for autistic children to appear to be coping at school, but exploding the bottled up emotions once they get home.

    It sounds as if he is desperately trying to fit in by observing and copying the other children. That is masking as a survival instinct and and it is exhausting. It is not sustainable in the long term and may well have a detrimental impact upon his mental health if it continues. He may be learning something from observing but I don't necessarily think his teacher should be seeing that as doing well. You are right that he needs to be comfortable to just be himself.

    Is he aware yet that he is autistic? There were some suggestions on here recently about books to explain autism to children and teach them that it is ok to be different. https://community.autism.org.uk/f/parents-and-carers/28722/kids-books-about-autism

    I would suggest that as a minimum there should be a quiet space at school, where he knows he can go to if things become too overwhelming.

  • Sounds like we are in a very similar place. 

    NAS81239 said:
    he is so tired and like a ticking time bomb. It’s like he keeps everything in all day and just becomes so wound up

    That is exactly what he is doing by the sounds of it and is what every autistic child does at school. It is completely normal and at least shows that he is comfortable outside of school enough to show his true emotions with you. 

    My son is 4 and started school this September gone and he is very much the same. They are happy with his progress in school and we are too but when he comes out it's messy and violent and loud. Our normal routine is to get home and give him his iPad to let him relax before then resuming normal play etc we would do on weekends. 

    We also found it weird going from having chats at nursery pickup to nothing but we are confident that should there be an issue they would notify us we are also really happy with how they are supporting him and we had meetings with their SENCO lead before he started there.

    We have just received our first draft of an EHCP after weeks of chasing for it - it basically is like a guide for them on how your child works and what their needs are i.e 1 to 1 with a TA or to go into school through a quieter way rather than with everyone else.

    Rest assured you are not alone in this!