This is a slightly different post this week, and revolves around SEND support, and instead of writing about a question my son has asked me I’m going to write about a question that the lady who is training me on my “Parent Led CBT” course. She is always asking me…

“How are you feeling about this week’s tasks?”

Many months ago (feels like a lifetime ago actually) after speaking to school about my son’s school refusal they referred him (or at least I thought it was him but turns out it was me) to a service that offers mental health support. At the time I incorrectly thought that this would lead to some help for my son and some SEND support.

I sent off the form that school gave me. And I waited. And waited. After a week I still hadn’t had a response or even an acknowledgement. So I emailed again and I was told this would be discussed at the next mdt meeting on Wednesday. Wednesday came and went and I never heard anything. I waited another couple of days and I emailed again and I stressed how desperate we as a family were. How desperate I was. How desperate my son was.

They rang me and said I would need to attend a care planning meeting and my son needed to attend too. So we went. And I was expected to talk about my son in front of him. It was unsettling for him. But I did it, I gave the lady all the information I filled in 1 questionnaire (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, SDQ) and we left.

A few days later she rang and said all she could offer me was a parent led CBT course. This was where they taught me the basics of CBT and I used the strategies they taught me for my son but there was an 8 week waiting list. I asked what SEND support we could get in the meantime and she said she would ring me every week to check on us and make sure we were ok….

I never heard from that lady again.

Not once.

I rang her after a particularly bad day and left a voicemail.

She never rang me back.

After a few weeks I got a call from another lady who said she had a space for me on this CBT course. In the few weeks while waiting things had gotten even more desperate and I was in the process of getting my son referred to CAMHS.  One of the questions in this referral is what other services have you accessed and apparently, according to school, it looks bad if you haven’t accessed any other services. It “looks good” if you have attended a CBT course so I thought it best I say yes to the course. So I agreed to it.

A 6 week course. 6 hours out of my very busy life. But hey I was keeping an open mind maybe it would help the situation. I did a bit of research and if my son was autistic then CBT definitely would not help. In fact, it could have a detrimental effect but again I thought just tick the box, listen and if it’s no good I don’t have to implement any strategies.

The course took the same format each week. Each week I would give an overview of what had happened in the preceding week. Then I was asked to come up with some goals for my son and then I was set tasks to do at home with him which would help him achieve the goals I had set.

And I gave it my best shot.

When SEND Support Doesn’t Fit Your Child

In the second session my homework was to question my child about his anxiety….and the lady said it needed to be at a specific time….

“As soon as you see your child get agitated start to ask him what are you worried about?”

There was absolutely no way I would ever question my son while he was agitated. I do the complete opposite and stay quiet. And when she asked me..

“How are you feeling about this week’s tasks?”

I fed that back to her. I poured my heart out about how I believed my son to have sensory processing issues that were greater than anything else so if I started to question him when he was agitated this would add to his agitation because it was more for him to process. I had done this in the past and it definitely didn’t work and I wasn’t sure I was prepared to try this again. She said just try your best.

The next week when she asked me….

“How are you feeling about this week’s tasks?”

Again I reiterated that what I was being asked to do was things I had tried in the past and this didn’t really work for my son. And again she just asked me to try my best and I almost felt sorry for her. She was trying to teach me something that I knew would never work and I think she knew it wouldn’t work and again she said try your best.

And this was how the sessions went with me talking about how my son had different challenges and I wasn’t sure how this would work with my son. These were strategies I would use day to day anyway and when that hadn’t worked that’s when I reached out for help only to be told to use the strategies that werent already working!!

It was on my fourth session that I really had to take a step back from the situation. I hadn’t completed my tasks from the previous week mainly because due to school holidays my session had changed days so instead of one week between sessions there had been only 3 days and I hadn’t wanted to spoil those 3 days with my son doing  tasks that don’t work plus I was worried about my son going back to school and I was more focused on that than anything else.

When I fed this back, she remained quiet and asked how back to school had gone after the holidays. I explained that Monday had been good, but Tuesday had been a disaster, although I did get my son there in the end. He had told me he didn’t want to go to school because they did singing and he didn’t like it. I suggested I speak to school and ask if he could sit out and that is how I got him to school. The lady didn’t seem to like this. She said….

“You are feeding into his worries”

“If you fix everything for him he will never learn to be independent.”

Now has that got your back up. Because it got my back up. I am not feeding in to his worries…..if my son has confided in me that he struggles with the singing class and I believe he has sensitivities to noise because that is what he has told me then there is no way that is feeding in to his worries.

And he’s 5 years old of course I am going to try and fix everything for him. I am not a helicopter parent by any stretch…in fact in the past I have been accused of being a “hands off” parent but I know when my son is struggling and when he needs help. And so throughout the rest of the session I remained mostly quiet. I was trying to remain calm. And this week when she asked me at the end…….

“How are you feeling about this week’s tasks?”

This was the part where I usually poured my heart out but instead I said it all in my head and out loud I said….

“Fine”

And isn’t that the greatest word ever. How many people say “I’m fine” but don’t actually mean it. How many times had I been told my son “is fine” but I knew he wasn’t and so fine seemed to be the universal word for not fine.

I only had two sessions left and I would do them. And I would do them well but I knew that every single time she asked me how I was feeling I would reply with….

“Fine”

And the next time I was advised to go on a parenting course my answer would be most definitely “No”!!