Some days I feel like crying and today is one of those days.
I should be feeling happy and relieved because the children are all back in school, the baby is asleep on the sofa and I can have some peaceful ME time!
But for once I'm not glad the children are in school. For once I wish they were home with me. For once I wish I home schooled them.
But I worry if I start crying, I'll never stop!
The main issues are my eldest and the second youngest.
Robert is 12 and the only one in secondary school. We are having a lot of trouble with his behaviour and he has seen the educational psychologist in school, he is being referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) and I've just spoken to someone at SNAP Cymru and he is being referred to Gyda'n Gilydd. But whilst his behaviour is troubling and he has been a nightmare over the holidays. Today its the behaviour of another child I'm worried about.
When Robert was in primary school there was another boy in his class named Norman*. Norman is a very nasty and disruptive child, I've caught him swearing at me (this earned him a punch from Robert which thankfully Robert didn't get into trouble for) and at the tender age of 8 he threatened to break into a classmates house and rape her and up until this point (and the age of 12) he has threatened two other girls with the same and groped a classmates breast on the train to school (which led to him being banned from the train).
When it came to the end of primary school we breathed a sigh of relief that Robert and Norman would no longer be in the same school as Norman was going to the main catchment area school whilst Robert went to the one on the outskirts. However my guess that Norman would only last a year proved to be truer than I thought and after surviving just two terms (which included two suspensions and being banned from the school bus and train) he is starting at my son's school today!
In fact Facebook was funny last night as you had one group of parents cheering that Norman was no longer in their school, and another group groaning that he was now at theirs instead! Such is the animosity towards this one boy. My friend has an older son in Norman's old school and he told her that he had been in the canteen at school when news came through that Norman had been expelled and the whole canteen cheered!
Hopefully my fears are unfounded, but I do worry about the fact his nemesis is now in his school. We're already having enough trouble with Robert's behaviour in school and at home without having Norman to worry about as well! Robert also has a habit of using Norman as his scape-goat, as in Norman made me or it was Norman's fault!
The other issue is 5 year old Clare who suffers from faecal impaction or severe constipation. She is under the children's department at our main hospital and sees them every other month and is on medication to keep her "loose" however sometimes, like now, she becomes "bunged up" meaning she has a blockage of poo inside her bowels and new poo seeps around the sides of the blockage meaning she has no control or feeling and often soils her underwear. These holidays she has been going through 5 pairs of panties a day and I really don't know who she's going to cope being at school all day not to mention that if she holds it in all day so she doesn't soil her panties, it's just going to make her constipation and blockage worse.
What I wouldn't give at the moment for a magic want to make it all go away! To cure Robert and Norman of their disruptive behaviour and to get Clare's "naughty bowel" working properly without the constipation.
Instead I just have to keep going, as much as I would like to hide under my bed, and instead I will be grateful that after 7 years of trying to get help to deal with Robert behaviour rather than him being dismissed as a naughty boy, I'm actually getting somewhere!
* All names have been changed to protect their identities
