It’s that time of year when Facebook is covered with cute pictures of children in uniform. But for me the first day of school was a very hard day. I am unbelievably proud of Hector. He has had so much to deal with over the past few months. Moving to the UK, Tom going back to China, a new baby brother. Before that he’s been to three different school which had a really negative impact on his education. Through all this he has remained our happy, if wild, boy.
I can’t describe how difficult it is to see every other child talking to their parents about their day while your own has a tantrum every morning. Not to mention the fact that you know a lot of parents are just assuming that your child is ‘naughty’ or ‘badly behaved’.
After 2 days, it happened again. We were told Hector could only come to school part time. At first we were pretty angry about this. After all, we came here so he could get an education. However, after a second meeting I (I’m not sure I want to speak for Tom here) have come to accept it, even if the situation is far from perfect. I feel that I need to trust the school are doing what they think is best for Hector. It’s frustrating because the situation is partly financial and to do with Hector not having the 1:1 he needs. But at the same time it did take about a week for his attachment issues to resolve. And if he really cannot focus on anything for more than a minute then it would be difficult for him to get more out of morning school. It’s particularly frustrating because he can do a lot more at home than he can at school. He concentrates for longer, willingly goes to the toilet (his tactic at school is just to hold it) and listens to our instructions at least 50% of the time. We just have to hope that at some point he will decide to engage with it. It really does seem like he is choosing to not engage to some degree at the moment.
Having said all this, he really is starting to make huge progress at home including:
- Obeying instructions like stop/down (admittedly not all of the time)
- Understanding his routine to the extent of leading us upstairs when it is bath time
- Copying our actions
- Enjoying scribbling
- Taking turns with a ball
- Requesting songs or games like Peekaboo and Ring around the roses
- Enjoying books
- Needing fewer reminders to use a spoon
- Having very few toilet accidents
- Starting to appreciate his own safety on the road
All we can really do is hope that, as happened at BASIS, he will become more comfortable and therefore start to engage. I am reminded of the ’emotional backpack’ and it seems Tom leaving has had more of an impact than we anticipated. In the meantime, we are trying to make the best of the situation and have hired a nanny 3 mornings a week as well as trying to do nice things the other 2 mornings, like going to the library or to parks that are too busy on the weekend. He’s doing really well with his nanny already. So at least he has 20 hours of 1:1 a week plus the other 2 mornings with us.
At least our initial attempts to find jobs have revealed that most schools adopt an inclusive attitude. So if we can get an EHC then the likelihood is that the future will get easier. I can never decide if this is something he is just going to grow out of, compounded by the disruption to his education last year, or if this is how it would always have been. His climbing reveals that it is not a global delay as his gross motor and fine motor skills have no issues. It all seems to come down to his concentration levels or even just to his willingness to engage. So I hope school can manage to reach him and that everyone’s talk of the Leas being a great school is true!
More to follow on the arrival of baby Max!
The Hopkins of Hangzhou 