I thought it was about time I at least tried to get back into my lovely little blog. It's been at least 3 months since I wrote on here and I have missed writing, it's just been hard to know what to write.
I didn't feel like I could do reviews or gift guides, put up sponsored posts or even write about other little things when so much has been going on; really hard stuff. It was like the elephant in the room and I was avoiding writing about it so I stopped writing about anything else too because everything felt fake when not addressing the Big Thing.
Don't get me wrong. We still have had plenty of good moments which I can tell you about but first, the reason I have pretty much abandoned my blog. Long term readers will know I have always struggled with A's behaviour. When he was about 3 he was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, more commonly seen in children with additional needs but A was deemed too young to look into anything else at the time so we went with this.
Over the years A's behaviour has mostly stayed the same. Looking back, I can see behaviour he does now and realise it was always there, I just didn't see it. For the past year and in particular, the past 6 months, we have seen a dramatic increase in his poor and aggressive behaviour.
There is a lot going on with A, I don't want to write in absolute detail but as is sometimes common when families come together there are often at least several of the family who fail to get along. This seems to be the case with A and James. A has been more and more physically aggressive and unlike a lot of children he doesn't have the filter to stop. He wants to hurt and he will do it, with no stop. I have had to restrain him multiple times and he has attacked myself and Mr K numerous times.
At the moment, family life is fractured. It's difficult being together as a family because something always kicks off. We do our best to give the children their individual attention and all are doing well in school which is a relief. J is much happier in his new school. He had some issues with bullying both in general from other children and sadly A was part of that on occasion, something I am deeply disappointed about. All children are now in new schools and all are benefiting from their new environment.
Will continues to do Home Ed. Currently we are looking at weather, swimming weekly, measuring our home and looking at area and perimeter with the goal of building a small scale version of our bungalow. We are also looking at Japan for our culture lessons and incorporating this into cookery (home made Mochi here we come!) We are still looking at the wars for history which ties in great as Midge is doing this at school as well and soon we start looking at electricity but so far we have been growing our crystals (which little joy sadly!)
Midge has grown up so much in just these past few months. We are very aware as she is the more quieter one that she needs a lot of attention herself, difficult when you have 3 boys with very different needs. School is going really well and soon we will hear which secondary school she will be going into. Her new passport arrived yesterday which is wonderful and we can now look forward to putting money aside as best we can so she can holiday with my sister and parents next year. She continues to be sensitive but has certainly learned to hold her own a bit more and the pre teen phase has well and truly begun!
James is much happier in his new school setting, a faith school 5 minutes away from our new home. He likes our new place and is much more happy to come over. He still finds home life tricky and we know a lot of it is the tension and issues between him and A. He also seems to be using all that energy to be well behaved at school and we have noticed when he returns home it's like an almighty explosion both physically and emotionally.
A remains fairly set a part from the rest of the family. He still gets his one to one but he often sees himself as more of an adult and that his fellow siblings are 'the kids.' He has adjusted to our life, he likes the new house and he likes his new school after a wobble starting where he refused to go in with a male teacher! He continues to push boundaries and sometimes it is hit and miss carrying out consequences to his actions. Some days he will do time out okay and others he will try to hurt himself in some way to get me to stop the process or he will just snap; he screams shouts and becomes aggressive until things go his way. Of course they don't so as you can imagine this can go on a while!
A is starting play therapy next week up until Easter next year (unless we get another professional coming into the mix from social services) I'm paying for this privately after being let down by his previous school and Early Help services. As mentioned above, our family is now under social services which we self referred to after trying every other avenue. Our social worker is a really nice man, all the kids like him (apart from A who is 'in the middle about him') He has taken on board everything about all the children and has admitted that this will be a long road for us.
A has a lot of emotional needs and they need to be addressed. We have a fab home support worker at James' school and we are hoping when the new one starts at A's school they will be just as good. SENCO remains to be seen, we are hoping they put across a good referral for us to the local children's therapy place to see a paediatrician otherwise we will be back to square one yet again in that regard. Our social worker wants to go straight to CAMHS but the doctor has been told he has to follow this current route first.
Martyn and I, although having had ups and downs we continue to support each other the best we can. We are both often drained and tired and it is hard being a full time carer and a mother just as it is hard being a father, a home educator and living with a chronic and very painful illness for him. We continue to make each other laugh at least once a day, talk openly about how we feel and discuss the children. We both come together to pray and do our Bible reading at night along with some christian devotional sites which we find uplifting.
So, although long, I hope I haven't bored anyone too much. Life is hard right now but no one said it would be easy, especially not with children (and 4 of them at that!) we have to hope that now we have social services involved and what appears to be a good social worker, we can access the help and support we need in whatever form to help the children and ourselves.
