Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 93 Comments

Storm Bunker

We had a large thunder storm pass over this afternoon. The cat was taking no chances. After the first bang he made his way to his storm bunker.

Unbelievably the early morning cinema screening was very full. The cinema was mobbed. Not seen crowds like that since the ‘Everything for a Pound’ Store had a sale. It’s not a statistical significant sample population but from the early morning hordes I guess that The Avengers movie is going to pull in some astronomical numbers.

And yes it is an astonishing movie.

Yes the crowds unsettled our son but we took our customary place on the front row so no one could be in front of him or to the left of him. It’s so close to the big screen that I come away feeling like I’ve been chewing on magic mushrooms but it works for him.

For 3 hours we both lost ourselves in the Marvel Universe. All our problems and anxieties forgotten. Heroic deeds fill your heart. With even a bit of free grief counselling thrown in by Captain America. But sadly it doesn’t last. You eventually find yourself back in the same place with the same issues.

In fact it feels like we have regressed. Fifteen months ago we eventually secured some anxiety counselling for our son. I say ‘we’ as the fight to get some help started while my partner was still very much with us. It seemed to really benefit him. Progress was starting to be made. But now due to cutbacks that support has dried up. The anxieties are building and it feels like the system has cast him adrift again. We have been lucky really – far too many families get zero help – all they get is patronising comments from politicians who have no interest beyond their off shore bank accounts and rich friends.

So as the thunder rumbles on we try to fight demons. Health anxieties, fear of death, school anxieties, friend anxieties, social anxieties, reading anxieties, fear of being left alone anxieties…..

I’m no psychologist. I’m no health professional. I’m no education specialist. I’m not a grief counsellor. I’m just a parent trying to figure out this increasingly bizarre world with no one to help guide me. Doing the best I can. Deep down this scares me as what chance do I have when I can’t even come close to fixing myself. Queue worried face. 😱

Pleased to report the immediate threat to life and property must have passed as the cat has made his way back to his favourite chair again. That’s one less worry to deal with.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 70 Comments

Bogless Garden

The Bog Garden needs some rain to become boggy again. Maybe soon as storms are forecast. It can’t be much fun being a bogless garden.

Making friendships can be difficult for our Son. Maybe it’s part of his Aspergers, maybe it circumstances, maybe it’s something else. He loves texting a cool friend but they are separated my thousands of miles. He doesn’t often get to meet up with kids his age. Son has come across a few really nice kids. They let him tag along sometimes. He does like the feeling of spending times with friends. I think we all need that somedays.

However the kids will often talk about the stuff they do. The meet-ups, the sleepovers, the trips, the clubs and birthday parties. Stuff he doesn’t get the chance to experience that often. That’s tough for a kid. Also after a while they often split into pairings and son tends to be left by himself. You see the kids walking in one direction and son heading by himself in another direction. I can tell when he comes back that he’s kinda sad. He’s so enjoyed the time with them but it does make him feel lonely. Today was a good example..

As he walked back slightly apart from two of the other kids I asked if he was ok.

“I think it’s time to go Dad. I’ve had fun and they have been very nice to me. But it was getting a bit awkward as they are best friends and wanted time to themselves. I could tell. It’s time to see my best friend my dog.”

I’m so pleased he is getting a bit of time with kids his age. But I get so down thinking about the wider picture for him. I really get how he feels for one very good reason.

I feel the same with my life. I get to link with a number of really close friends online but they are many many miles away. I occasionally get the chance to spend time with some really nice people. But they have their own life’s, their own close friend groups, their own families. I hear about the stuff they do, the holidays, the nights out, the meals, the parties, the romantic moments. I’m so pleased they get to do that stuff, they are such nice people that they deserve the happy times. But it’s stuff I don’t get to do anymore. A life I feel excluded from. That’s such a lonely and soul destroying feeling. I’m old and gnarled….. that’s just tough luck for me. BUT you just don’t want your kid(s) to experience the same feeling. All we can do is crack open a couple of sodas, hit the trampoline and see how many footballs our dog can destroy today. Time to try and forget stuff.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 57 Comments

Money is clearly everything.

Our local council is North Yorkshire County Council.

Over a year ago our Local Council agreed to make savings of £2m to its service budget. Unbelievably our Council decided to end free home to school transport for disabled and special needs pupils aged 16 to 18 years old.

This is the same council who does not provide any specialist support to kids with dyslexia.

This is the same council who has been cutting the size of Educational Health Care Plan grants to disabled and special needs kids who somehow manage to get through the tough pre qualification assessment. Penalising the very kids who need the highest level of support.

Today our Conservative Council – that’s the same party our Prime Minister heads, thats the Prime Minister who recently said ‘I’m on your side” – announced that the first year of the cut has resulted in a £800k saving. The Council reviewed itself on this issue and concluded that “the implementation of the policy has not had a detrimental impact on the ability of young people accessing their education”

Well that’s well earned pat on the back for the Council then. Is it just me who gets beyond severely pissed off with this – please tell me if I’m missing the point with this because I will happily crawl back into my little hole if it is just me.

Maybe some of our esteemed councillors should venture out of their plush council chambers, get into their Jaguar, BMW or Mercedes cars and actually see what the real world is like for a change.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 46 Comments

Angles

Son came back from school with news of a maths test tomorrow. So we probably won’t get round to looking at the French Test which is Thursday. It seems like test after test. When I was at school the only test was really the daily trying to avoid being eaten by the Sabertooth Tiger.

Son wanted to have a look at angles. So we went through a number of angles listing them as acute, right, obtuse or reflex. Went well until he started to struggle. As soon as you started rotating the picture and he couldn’t process the information. For example these angles proved very easy for him.

Yet with the same angles but reversed he couldn’t visualise them at all.

This replicates some of the stuff we have encountered with the way he scans words and number patterns. Maybe it’s something he can work on. Maybe it’s something he just has to adapts to. It was an area the Health Service wanted to look at but the specialist team was closed due to budget cuts.

I need talk. I remember putting together an IKEA wardrobe. The bloody wooden demon took 2 days to assemble. It wasn’t until I came to stage 85 out of 86 that I realised I had put it together back to front. The door side screwed to the wall and the rear happily facing out. Partner not impressed with the idea of maybe knocking the wall through so we could gain access to the wardrobe from the kitchen.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 63 Comments

Spelling….

Some roads are straight and easy to navigate. Other roads are not….

A few years ago the U.K. Government changed the way children were taught and tested. To ensure that ‘children are better equipped for jobs a greater emphasis should be placed on spelling, grammar and punctuation’. As a result marks are now specifically set aside for these factor in exams. Labelled SPaG marking. It was argued that the previous inclusive educational approach was wrong.

The Government approach is to focus on a limited number of correctly spelt words. Let’s produce kids who can spell one word perfectly rather than have kids who can use an extended comprehension.

Where does this leave kids with dyslexia.?

Teaching Groups, Charities, Dyslexia Associations, Parenting Associations and Health Bodies objected. But what do they know….

Dyslexic Kids can apply for extra time in exams. They can apply for a scribe. They can apply to use a reading pen. They can apply to use a keyboard rather than pen. BUT.

They have to demonstrate a level of independence to gain access to the spelling, the grammar or the punctuation marks. If they can’t then the marks are not available to them.

Looking at our son’s case it probably means that when he takes his final exams if he opts for reasonable levels of assistance (as required under Equality Legislation) he will at best be able to access only 33% of the total SPaG marks available.

In my eyes this is wrong. But this is modern U.K. education policy.

Sadly it doesn’t stop there.

The Government decided to change the course content for Computing. Computing underpins everything now. The range of potential computing skills are endless. So many of our kids have passions and untapped skills here. The opportunities are boundless. Let kids tap into this. NO. The Government decided that the course should now focus on coding and structured programming.

Not often can I talk about a subject with anything other than guesswork, but computing I can get to amateur level. This is way beyond the dogmatic ideological buffoonery that underpins Government thinking. Why in God’s name have they picked the most uninspiring and regimented area to focus on. The approach seems to be let’s push out kids who can code rather than develop kids who can utilise the potential computers offer. Yes let kids have a basic grasp of coding then allow those who want to take it further the option to do so. I remember training in 3 programming languages – all becoming obsolete within 5 years.

AND yet again the Government – The Government which is on our side – have penalised kids with dyslexia. Coding and programming is built around specific commands and symbol patterns. Dyslexics struggle with this. So our son is stuck in a weekly computing lesson which focuses on programming. He flounders as he can’t spell the commands. His confidence gets battered. His struggles with spelling are cruelly exposed. His love for computing is fading. The school knows this but cannot change because it’s the set teaching method. Madness.

Sadly I could go on about other subjects and more Government interference. But the point has been made.

Education is so vital that it should not be left in the hands of our self absorbed and incompetent politicians. How about the politicians just focusing on screwing up Brexit and leaving education to the teachers, the parents, the area experts, the kids. In today’s language that probably gets me labelled as a dangerous socialist. A Traitor. Frankly I don’t care. What I care about is the kids going through our educational system. Clearly that’s something our leaders clearly can’t comprehend.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 72 Comments

Captain Dumbo

Friday was a teacher training day so it’s a long weekend.

“Can you check if the cinema is empty. If it is can we go to see Captain Marvel”

For some reason the 12.15 showing only had 3 seats occupied. So off we went. Unusually for us we arrived early. Plenty of time to buy popcorn and a coffee for me. We took our seats in Screen 1. We sat on the front row – Son finds that less stressful.

We sat and waited. The adverts didn’t come on. Eventually 20 minutes late the pointless adverts about BMWs and Breakfast Cereals commenced. Then the movie trailers, Bizarrely nothing about the upcoming Avengers movie. Finally the lights go out – it’s show time. Bring on some Stan Lee magic.

Hang on a minute why is the film in double vision…

Hang on a minute why is that a Disney logo not Marvel…

The blurred film starts..

“Dad this is Dumbo”.

It was. Wrong film. We would have sat and watched the film but it was the 3D version. Looking round the other people in the cinema had glasses on. That’s forward planning….

We quickly did the walk of shame out of the screen. Passing those smirking faces – ‘look at those twits – you can’t watch 3D without special specs”. The cinema has about 12 Screens. All the screens have double doors. One to take you to the right side and one to take you to the left side of the seating area. All except Screens 1 and 2. They only have one door. I saw the sign for Screen 1 and just assumed the right door took us to our side of the screen. Wrong that was the door for Screen 2.

Is it just me. Can’t we just have a routine day. Am I just completely incompetent. Good job that you don’t need to pass a test to become a parent.

So new tickets bought for the next showing in 1 hour. A quick Burger King. New pop corn purchased – didn’t have the heart to go and retrieve the ones we left with Dumbo. And finally we sit in the right screen and watched Captain Marvel.

I suspect I’ve blown my chances of making the Avengers Team although I could make a case for taking the lead role in Dumbo 2.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 78 Comments

Five Things

Its been one of those days. About 24 hours of work to be done but I only had a window of opportunity between 8.10am to 4.30pm – extra hour of school on a Thursday. On top of that I needed to clean the house, change the bedding, complete a review form, clean out the Gerbils, mend a pair of jeans, Iron, try to stop a utility firm from sending adverts addressed to my partner and pay some bills. Never going to happen.

Especially when

  • The school bus left early so we missed it. So an unexpected car journey took place,
  • Captain Chaos found a new escape route out of the garden. So a full search and recovery mission had to be launched. Once the dog was safely back in the house I had to repair a new hole in the fence,
  • The hoover drive belt snapped. Luckily I had a spare but it took a while to find it…
  • Two unplanned urgent ‘drop everything’ jobs came in,
  • I couldn’t find my bank card to pay the bills. Mad panic and frantic searching. Eventually located bank card but in the process of searching I came across my car insurance policy. It’s about to expire so needed to reinsure urgently.
  • Couple of hours later Captain Chaos escaped again. Clearly the repaired hole was not his escape route. So another search and recovery operation had to be launched,

Halfway through completing the review form and our son came back from school. The window of opportunity snaps shut for another day.

Anyway at least the Gerbils are in a clean cage now and Captain Chaos has had two new adventures.

In the UK it’s Mother’s Day soon. It’s a good time to give a shout out to all the mums out there. I struggle to cope with one day of this – you do this everyday. Thank you for being brilliant.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 80 Comments

Hands in your pocket

The school review meeting wasn’t a load of fun. Polite but very serious. But one thing did make me smile. The night before our son had a bit of an anxiety attack. The source of the anxiety was school rules. Son had seen two kids given punishments for walking around with hands in their trouser pockets. It’s something he can do absentmindedly.

“Dad somedays I wish I was a tree with no hands and no pockets..”

Surely this can’t be the case.

So while I was waiting for the teacher to pick me up from school reception I asked the school administrator about the rule. She confirmed that it was an automatic negative for this heinous crime.

So for the next 10 minutes I watched the constant stream of humanity walk passed reception. I observed 4 rule breakers – hands clearly in pockets. Not a care in the world. All 4 being Teachers. One rule for all I suspect not……

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 63 Comments

Those pesky Vikings

Living with anxiety is the real deal for so many people and kids.

“DAD, DAD I am getting really anxious, sorry its the middle of the night”

Anxiety seems inexplicably linked with Autism. We are so used to these panic attacks. They can happen at any stage.

“This one is a daft one. A really daft one. But I am panicking”

Son there are no daft ones. Whatever the cause – panic attacks are awful. We call it the anxiety vortex. When they take hold they just keep gaining strength – making rational thought almost impossible.

“It sillier than the school history one”

At school the teacher was talking about the Middle Ages. The Black Death came up. The whole thing unsettled our son. Given what he has been through Death haunts his soul. When he did some research he found that the cause is still not agreed upon but it could be bubonic plague. Bubonic plague still kills today. The anxiety vortex took hold. It took a couple of days of hard work to bring it under control. We are still trying to extinguish that one…

“Dad when I went to the York Dungeons. Well it was fun and kinda scary. Well one room scared me. It was the vikings. The models looked awful as if they had the plague, the room smelled of death. All I can think about is Ghost Vikings. Ghost Vikings coming to get us. I know it sounds daft but it’s starting to unleash a lot of other vortexes.”

So during the night we talked about Ghost Vikings. We talked about a lot of things. Stuff like that today football is super popular in Scandinavia – if Viking ghosts did come back they are more likely to want to play football than go on a violent pillage. Stuff like given the astronomical price of Alcohol in Norway the ghosts would just be heading straight for our pubs and our village doesn’t have a bar….

This one was a relatively easy vortex to tame. Yes we could easily debunk it. But Anxiety and fears are so very real. Many cannot be tamed. Many more are still to be unearthed. If you are suffering I send you my love. It is so so tough.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 69 Comments

Trees

What a stunning tree.

We took Captain Chaos for a walk this morning. Still trying to process yesterday’s school review meeting. Maybe it’s because I am tired but I just can’t get my head fully round it’s implications. It’s times like this when being a single parent sucks… No one to talk things through with. No voice of reason. So the ideas and words just keep swirling around.

I turned up carrying my 300 pages of notes (sorry Trees…). When I opened the paper pile a must do House DIY list dropped out. Sadly nothing can be ticked off the list from the last meeting. Where does all the time go.

The meeting lasted two hours. So many discussions. So many disagreements. So much frustration.

I suspect the best way to summarise is to see a never ending circle.

I ask for something. School confirm it’s not happened. Health Service says the need is real and should be met. School says they don’t have the resources to do this. School asks the Council for funds. Council says it’s not an education issue, it’s a health issue. Health Service says they don’t have the money and it’s an education issue. And on and on. If we give money to health to provide additional support then that has to come from the school and they then can’t even meet his minimum care standards. So Son has real unmet needs – everyone agrees on that but no one is prepared to provide the funds. Everybody at the meeting clearly cared about our son. Let’s be honest Health and Education have been hammered by our current Government. You can only cut things so far before things start falling apart.

Let’s quote our Prime Minister again

“I’m on your side….”

Just sod off. You are not on OUR SIDE. You are just looking after yourself. You don’t give a damm about kids like our son. Get back to looking at your, your husband and your friends off shore investments….

So the bottom line is Health are going to write to the Council and request additional funding. Council are going to write to the Health Managers and ask for additional funds. While our PM sits in Chequers and tries to find more desperate ways of staying in power. Go on May why don’t you bribe the DUP with billions of pounds of public funds again – while lecturing the rest of us that ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’. Madness.

More positively school are going to try some minor adjustments to see if that helps our son. They are also going to formally request exceptional one-off funding to pay for an in-depth dyslexia assessment. The funding probably won’t come but at least school now recognise the impact dyslexia is having on our son’s educational performance.

So hopefully at the next meeting we will have seen some progress and at the very least confirming that

  • Son has started getting some more tailored support,
  • I have started doing some of the DIY projects which are badly needed,
  • I will have gone paperless so more beautiful trees will be saved AND
  • our incompetent and distinctly unpleasant PM is consigned to historical ignominy…..