Student Fight/Flight Response

Hi everyone, hope you are all well. We would like your opinion on something, if its alright.

One of our students, displays challenging behaviour in times of overwhelm and distress. She struggles to communicate with staff when she is feeling like this, therefore we are always checking in with her asking how she feels and what she needs using her Pecs book. She is amazing with this.

The problem we have is sometimes she doesn't understand or know why she is struggling/feeling unsettled, so we always make sure she can offload everything with her preferred staff. Sometimes there are no obvious triggers so we really struggle to find out what is going on.

When she does get overwhelm, at school or offiste, she will either run away from staff or completely shutdown. At times of distress she is not safe therefore 99% of the time needs to be held/restrained for her own safety. During these incidents she can become physically aggressive and will scream and try and run into the road. She will also hurt herself. As soon as she is safe we will give her a hug, which calms her down, and grab her weighted blanket. She will lie on the floor, can't speak so she will squeeze our hands to communicate, and is very shaky, and during these incidents she says she cannot hear, feel or see anything until she's in a calmer state.

How can we help her better than we already are? Her parents says she is not like this at home so it's only school.

I would just like to say that last Thursday, she communicated with staff that she is struggling and wants to run and doesn't feel like she can stay safe therefore we helped and she let us keep her safe by linking arms. She is a quick athletic runner and will do anything to escape, we've had her jump over fences, walls, run next to a dual carriageway. She knows the local area well. Most staff and students aren't local therefore we can get lost trying to find her.

NAS80219 over 2 years ago in reply to Glitter

We do use social stories for all students. They all use schedules and she is good with it but after ice skating she just has a massive urge to run, but will let us help her to resist the urge and we try our best to make the drive back to school exciting, using her favourite music, sitting next to her preferred staff and using her Pecs book. And after lunch we let her get a milkshake in her next lesson to look forward to that trying to reduce the thought of running and look forward to something.

We used to get staff dancing for her because she found it so amusing and hoped she would join in but she preferred to watch. We do have a sensory and O.T room which she can use when they aren't being used. We also let her go for walks with staff whenever she needs to and all students can have 5 minute breaks during lessons whenever they need so she can go into the garden, chat with staff and classmates, go to the sensory room or just rest. We do try our best to let her get as much energy out as she can safely.
Glitter over 2 years ago in reply to NAS80219

I think we had this girl's parent on here recently asking for advice too!

Have you tried using "social stories" every week before the ice skating starts? I'm presuming you know what that means, but for those who don't it's a little booklet made with photos to describe the situation and the feelings and say how things work.

My other suggestion would be some kind of dance exercise like go noodle that can be done in a smaller space and get all the children to spend some energy.
Howlinghusky over 2 years ago in reply to NAS80219

Is there any exercise she could do safely in a smaller space? Like maybe using a treadmill or exercise bike?

My son is a less extreme version (gets frustrated and angry very quickly with no obvious triggers, runs out the classroom but luckily never off site). He has kickboxing lessons twice a week and PE lessons at school twice a week. I can tell the difference if something happens and one of these don't go ahead!
NAS80219 over 2 years ago in reply to AuTriker

Unfortunately, our school is too small for her to run in because it is the size of a small church. When she does want to run, we said we can can take her somewhere safe, like an open field, where she can run but she doesn't like that idea because she feels like once she runs she wont stop.

We did see a decrease in her running last term because she had 2 Sport lessons a week, which was Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon. She would do bowling then ice skating. Unfortunately we aren't able to put this back in place because of many issues. She currently does ice skating every Thursday morning with 2 other students and she loves it but it is her favourite lesson and gets upset at the end and wants to run because she doesn't want it to be over. She only has 3 favourite lessons on her timetable and struggles when these are over because then she'll have to wait another week to have them again. Unfortunately the way the school runs, it is very difficult to change timetables because it will affect everyone.
AuTriker over 2 years ago

Is there somewhere where she could safely run in the school? Like a large gym room with closed doors, or a tennis court or similar? In my old school those were behind high fences. If her urge to run were channelled it might help her let off steam.

Or even encourage her to run every hour or so, see if that helped her stay calm in the first place. She might be getting a build up of energy that just needs some outlet and that internal feeling could be what tips her over the edge which would be why you couldn't see it. Can she be encouraged to take up some sport she is interested in? Something that uses a lot of that surplus energy, maybe something she can do on her own, like climbing or cycling (she could have a static bike maybe). If she's a good runner could she even join an athletics club and compete? Or she might like parkour?

I find I am calmer on a day I can go cycling and if I can't go for a while I start to get tense and am more prone to a meltdown.