Obligatory back-to-school-post

Because what sort of SEN Mum would I be if I didn't cover this?

You know that point in some movies, when, as the viewer, you can't imagine how things could get any worse, and when it seems like there is no way the protagonist is going to get out of the situation they're in? Think of the incinerator scene in Toy Story 2. The toys are sliding towards the furnace, bracing themselves for what seems to be inevitable. That was our Thursday morning. Unfortunately, unlike Woody, Buzz et al, I'm still waiting for the little squidgy aliens to come and save us.

Before I had children, I assumed ‘sending your children to school' involved deciding on the right one, a few bumps settling them in and at the beginning of term, and then you're away. I laugh at how wrong I could be! A quick run-down of where we're at at the moment: My eldest hasn't been to school full-time for nearly 3 years and was not able to go to school at all for 18 months. We've tried homeschooling, tutoring and part-time mainstream schooling, all of which have pushed her dangerously close to break-down (again).

Our middle daughter is battling through Primary school. She was unable to get into school in the mornings without serious interventions for 4 years, but seemes to have made a breakthrough last summer term. She now goes in reluctantly, but is more disruptive in the classroom than my eldest ever was. I dread the "Ooh, Mrs Miller" coming from her teacher at the end of the day as they try to catch my eye.

Our youngest is starting school this year. For the last 4-5 years, both of her sisters have reacted to going to school as if they're being sent to an abattoir. It isn't any wonder that she's not massively thrilled about the idea. I am steeling myself for her school years as she struggles with speech and language the most out of all of them, was diagnosed the earliest, and I'm not entirely sure she really knows what is going on some of the time.*

This morning we had the whole gamut of emotions from all three. Triggering each other into meltdowns for different reasons. Uniform that had been wrestled on was taken off minutes later, duvets were hidden under and shoes were thrown. There was screaming and shouting (obviously), and in the middle, right at the point where I didn't think it could get any worse, the Headteacher of their school phoned me. She phoned with news that she had had a meeting with the Local Authority in the days prior to term starting, and they had said that if my eldest couldn't attend school regularly on the two half-days she is due to come in, then she would likely not be given a specialist place for secondary, and her alternative provision place (which she loves) would also be taken away.

My mind flashed-forward to a whole 7 more years of desperately trying to educate her, whilst not having a moment to myself... 

This, coupled by the fact that the girls were all meant to be dropped into school at different times (settling in, full time, part-time) with different pick up times, that if I'm honest I hadn't really rehearsed in my head to see whether it was actually possible, meant I felt like I could have a stroke at any moment.

The morning passed in a blur as I cajoled, bribed, persuaded and comforted the three of them. I used every single emotional regulation/anxiety-abating tool in the large metaphorical toolbox I've built over the last few years. The result? Finally, a brief 20 minute window when they were all at school - miraculous! I sat in my car, in the school car park, and stared out of the window. And stared, and stared. My brain and emotions at full capacity. A passing teacher asked me how our summer had been and I could barely string a sentence together.

Can't wait to do it all again!

*I would like to acknowledge that the school they started last year has been absolutely fantastic. They are extremely accommodating, and after I told them of our situation, nothing has been too much trouble. They are incredible. A real eye-opener in terms of what an inclusive school and inclusive teaching looks like.

Adventure Playground

It’s our second attempt to drive to our latest favourite adventure playground. Our first attempt ended abruptly when the youngest started twisting in her seat and desperately reaching towards home. With each straining move backwards she looked redder in the rear-view mirror. Then she started crying, and then she started getting extremely angry. We tried questioning her, “What’s wrong? What do you need? Can you tell us? Just use your words.” The last phrase definitely being the one I feel most guilty for using - asking someone to use their words when they can’t is like asking someone to “just speak Danish” or any other language they don’t know, impossible and infuriating. Our middle child has taken on the mantle of ‘translator’ and can often work out what the youngest wants so tells us all to be quiet whilst she has a go, “Birds, you want to see the birds? Babies? Baby lambs? Barbie? Oh Barbie! Mum, she wants Barbie.”

We all know that we will be able to spend a lot longer at the playground if we collect the Barbie, so even though we are halfway there, we head home. It turns out that the eldest wanted some lipbalm, the middle one wanted her bag, and I wanted a jumper as well, so it was probably just as well.

The playground is busy, it’s a mid-week, summer holiday day, and although there’s a very fresh breeze blowing, there are children and exhausted looking parents everywhere. “Thank God for adventure playgrounds” I think, as I plonk myself down on a picnic table and unload everything I’m carrying. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what we’d do without them. We can easily spend a whole day at one.

This Summer we’ve been planning as we go. We decided that with the girls being at the stage they’re all at, a ‘holiday’ or any time away, would be the opposite of relaxing for my husband and I. Different beds equalls even less sleep, more meltdowns, anxiety leading up to the plane journey, anxiety about the plane journey back, different smells, tastes, checking the safety of places, heat… the list goes on. So, with a fair amount of resignation, we opted for a staycation SEN-style. That’s not just staying in the UK, but staying at home. I’ve taken a picture of everything we can do locally, and put it in a book, and then when everyone is having a good day, we look through it and see what we might like to do that week. To be able to always bank on an adventure playground being a hit is magical. There will be various dramas, but generally I will be able to sit down for at least ten minutes at some point. And this one has coffee, bonus.

There’s always some poor sod who seems to have it worse than you at the adventure playground as well. It’s a great reminder that even though we’re struggling away, things could always be worse.

It’s while I’m in this zen state of reflection that I notice the elder two walking back from the restaurant, a good 400meters away, and in another section of the park. They’ve somehow got out of the playground, headed over to the restaurant and now they’re now making their way back. It’s baffled me what they are doing and how this has happened.

I go to the playground gate to meet them and am met with a tirade of shouting, “We thought you’d gone!” my middle child gives me a hug and my eldest gives me a real telling off, “What did you do that for? You could have told us!”

It turns out they thought I had left the playground. I think back to the brief call I took from my GP and the fact that as it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to broadcast to the rest of the playground, I retreated to a nearby corner.

“Girls, I’ve been here the whole time. I would never go anywhere without you. Ever, ever.” The moment is forgotten quickly but it reminds me that it’s easy to forget their challenges when they look so at home and happy. And of course that I must never relax again, ever, ever.

The Day After Beach Day

I’ve tried the handle several times, but it’s locked. It’s definitely locked. I’ve been locked in the garage. This hasn’t happened before.

“Girls. Girls? Girls come on, unlock this please.”

The garage is only lockable door in the house. Any junk food I buy goes in there, or it disappears within hours of being bought. Whole packets of biscuits, entire multipacks of crisps. Even when I think I’m surrounded by the girls, somehow snacks are snuck, and devoured. The wrappers bubble to the surface of the daily house detritus some time later, before I realise the crime has been committed. We could stop buying them, yes, but sometimes after a good day, I think - hell, what’s a crisp/chocolate roll or two??! Then I’ll buy them, they will vanish, and no one will eat anything resembling good food for days, too full from salty, chocolaty, pre-packaged, predictable fodder.

On this occasion, nipping into the garage has provided my elder two with the opportunity for the perfect crime - to lock me in the garage, open the car where the ipads are, and play on them. To say their screens are like crack is an understatement. They will happily lock their own helpless mother in the garage to get their fix.

I hear nervous giggles outside the garage door by the car.

“Come on, unlock the door please. If you don’t I’m going to get cross, this is dangerous. If there was a fire I would be burned alive in here”. I have a habit of over dramatising situations as it only seems to be the really shocking stuff that gets through to them.

My middle child sheepishly unlocks the door and makes a good case for how she did it by mistake. I don’t believe a word of it, but I’m free and I have bigger fish to fry today.

It’s come to my attention that despite having what feels like a PHD in parental controls, my eldest has managed to watch videos on YouTube under search terms such as ‘man sucked into jet engine’ and ‘Momo is back’. Both are so terrifying, and make me, as an adult, feel so sick, and by extension worried, that I have vowed this morning I’m am going to tackle this situation and install software to stop this it in its tracks.

I have tried before. But for some reason tech companies make it nearly impossible to block their content. Funny that…

3 hours, 5123 interruptions and 3 meltdowns later, one nearly being mine, I think I have done what I need to do. Oh, apart from the fact that said software doesn’t seem to work on child profiles on Kindle. Awesome. Will someone tell me why I can’t just toggle ‘child device’ on settings somewhere???

The rest of the day is spent refereeing the girls’ fights, calming meltdowns, and getting tired to our bones. I unhelpfully work out that if each child calls me because they need me at least once every ten minutes, that’s 18 times per hour, and 270 times in a 15 hour period that I’m responding IMMEDIATELY (any later is not acceptable) to their needs. No wonder I’m knackered.

I’m horrified to remember that it’s a ‘non-melatonin’ day, as we have to take a break for 2 days out of every 7, and we have decided that Friday and Saturday should be those days. It works in term time when they need sleep for school but it’s a real kicker in the holidays.

Days out are wonderful, but flipping hell do we pay for them the next day.

Beach Day

“Mummy, what are our bodies for?” I’m giving our youngest breakfast in bed (because it’s easier) and it’s too early for this kind of existential questioning. Luckily she’s happily distracted with the delivery of her usual: a specific cereal on a specific tray with a specific pillow underneath the tray on top of her legs. The daily ritual then goes: she will ask me “Can I eat it?” and I must answer “Yes” before she can continue with her day. Any variation and we have to “go back to the beginning”. Anyway, today she “doesn’t want any talking now” so I open her blackout blinds and go back to the monumental packing job downstairs that is necessary for a beach day.

My husband and I are up early. We sprang as well as we could out of bed, despite being in and out of 2 of the kids bedrooms three times the night before, to get ready for the day before the unicorns (3 autistic girls is very rare so I’m told) were up and yelling. Being up early, the sun beginning to warm up the earth, and the peace and quiet, made it feel quite like the early morning of a mediterranean holiday. So that’s what we imagined as I packed all the things that ChatGPT told me we’d need for the beach. I use ChatGPT a lot these days for this kind of thing, as I like to tell myself it frees my brain up for more important tasks. I think it’s just me being lazy. But also ChatGPT is more organised than me, and wouldn’t forget, for example, a travel cot, when staying the night somewhere with a baby. Which happened once.

The girls wake up, we get them into their rash vests and swimmers or swimming trunks for the most sensory sensitive one, and bundle them into the car. The eldest takes the reins as the DJ and we listen to a wild and intensely hectic genre of music I can only describe as haunted-fairground-techno-on-x3-speed. The inspiration for her playlist is her latest love of a kids horror movie called Five Nights at Freddie’s that she hasn’t actually watched but goddam Youtube seems to be telling her all about. Without access to my phone, as she has it, I half close my eyes and try and meditate. At least driving gives you some distraction.

Whilst we’re in the car, we have a pre-briefing session. These always sound like a genius idea. It’s that thing where you tell the kids what’s going to happen at the event you’re going to and key safety points or things NOT to do, and you speak to them before the actual event so that they know what’s coming or what is expected of them. Having said that, we avoid expectations as our eldest is demand avoidant and they are her kryptonite. Autism is wonderfully paradoxical.

“Ok girls, so the rule of the beach is ABC - Always Be Close ok? So always be near Mum and Dad, always be able to see us, always be close. Stick like glue. OK everyone?” I ask each of them what I’ve just said, and, seemingly, all seem to have grasped it.

10 minutes into being on the beach, and my husband is up to his neck in the sea in his clothes. He’s wading out to grab our eldest who has become just a little head bobbing about in the sea, much too far out and on some kind of sandbank. She moves quickly, and whilst we were expertly, but distractedly, putting up the sun-tent, she had started walking into the sea. He smashes against a few waves, reaches her and pulls her into the shallow water, explaining why she mustn’t go so far out while her sisters and I look on. The message seems to land. If he is too harsh with his words, she will get very upset and run, if he is too soft, she will do it again in another 10 minutes. These kinds of events used to terrify me, but thanks to now being slightly de-sensitised to them due to their regularity, and thanks also to my beta-blockers, I find them more of a run-of-the-mill kind of episode. My middle one shakes her head sagely, “Oh dear. She was not being close was she. Silly monkey”. She hates not sticking to rules, and this breaking of the ABC code is bothersome for her. She frets constantly about her eldest sibling and her safety. Poor kid.

The rest of our time on the beach passes without major incident, and my husband and I even manage to drink a low alcohol beer in our camping chairs. We talk about how British beaches really are much better than the ones in the Med, and who would want to go on a holiday abroad anyway? The younger two are very happy fulfilling some sort of sensory need that means they wriggle their wet bodies around in the dry sand for hours and hours together, whilst our eldest dons the arctic fox mask she’s made and leaps about in the sand dunes ‘practicing her quads’, which is jumping around like a fox on all fours. At least the whitish-grey mask is easily recognisable in the sand dunes. My husband faces the sea, and I face the dunes, swapping over every now and then and we try and ignore a group of teenagers who are laughing at her.

Back home later in the day, and the evening light draws in and dapples the trees. We’re all feeling sun-kissed and I’ve got that lovely post-sun, post-shower holiday vibe having had a quick rinse in the shower. The house and garden is quiet because the girls are all watching a movie. Not the same movie in the same room - each a different movie in separate rooms in the house. My husband and I enjoy the peace and quiet and reflect on a good day all things considered.

Our youngest tires of her movie after a few minutes and comes and finds us. She shows us her ‘cute walk’ which is her walking but with a slight hop in there as well and then she comes in for a big squeezy cuddle.

“Mummy, there’s something wrong with my voice” she says earnestly, looking into my eyes, looking for the reflection of herself in them. “Is there darling? What’s wrong with your voice?” She tries to tell us that her voice doesn’t work properly, and when she tries to say things it doesn’t work. Afterwards, she skips off to show us another one of her walks before we have a chance to answer and my husband and I look at each other speechless, surprised by this moment of lucidity and awareness, and completely heartbroken.