>A sight that haunts me all day long…

>This is a sight that haunts me all day long. My baby sat by himself feeling sad. For the non regular readers let me explain that J is 9 years old and has autism, ADHD

>This is a sight that haunts me all day long. My baby sat by himself feeling sad.

For the non regular readers let me explain that J is 9 years old and has autism, ADHD and hypermobility. He attends a mainstream primary school. J finds making friends hard, and maintaining those friendships are even harder for him. Now at home I can protect him it, but I know that I cannot do that for life, he has to learn to interact with others, and one of the things I have been fighting for is more statmented hours to allow the school to provide some help at lunchtimes. In J’s last year of infant school(he is now year 4 in Junior school) he came home to me saying how he didn’t want to go out at lunchtime as there was no one who would play with him. I won’t lie, I broke down in tears when I went to speak to the deputy head about what J has said, all I could see in my head is picture of my little boy all alone while the other children play around him oblivious of him. I was reassure that he is never alone, but I swear they said it to pacify the blubbering mother balling her eyes out in front of them.
I don’t blame the other children, they have their own lives and own friends, and I don’t want them to take pity on J and feel like they have to play with him. But at the same time I don’t want him being a target for bullying if they see him alone. Jordan plays on his terms, a game he wants to play, if you want to join in with that game then great! But Jordan cannot understand why someone else might want to change the game or not play the way he wants to.

At J’s annual review with the school, the council, specialist teacher, class teacher, SENCO, and his support worker, I put my concerns across and the school agreed that he doesn’t like being outside, if the option is there he will stay inside with the computer for company. So the school have applied for more hours so they can provide some help at lunch times, the council were the ones who recommended they done this so I am hoping this is a good sign for them being awarded the extra hours. What they do with those extra hours and how they implement it, I have no idea. I don’t want J to be the only child in the school to have a learning support worker with him outside in the playground for company. I hope they work on creating some fun games for Jordan and the other children to all join in together. In fact it amazes me that that doesn’t happen already, the children are let out at lunchtime and left to get on with it. They have to create their own games and amuse themselves, so it’s of no surprise to me that some of them might get up to no good, as in my experience children misbehave when bored.

The picture above was taken this morning. There is an area where the children wait for the bell to go before they are allowed into the classrooms. J decided he didn’t want to go to school today as he wants to stay at home and play LEGO. Despite my reassurances that it will still be there when he gets home later, it didn’t make much difference. Once he is in a certain frame of mind, there is no changing it, all he can think about is LEGO. So I snapped this picture of him sat there this morning, as it broke my heart. I would love to know what is going through his head. Despite some discreet hugs (trying not to make him a target!) and me trying to cheer him up, this is the mental image that I will see all day in my head.
Some days I am so tempted to keep him at home and home educate him, protecting him from the big bad world, but I know that he needs more help than I can give him, both educationally and socially. So I will carry on fighting to get him every bit of help that I possibly can.