Divergent Learning Diaries

Standing on the precipice of a new term I am grateful for the time we have had away from school.  I Know some ND families  are celebrating the impending opportunity to get back to the routine of school. The routine of school anchors and creates safety and predictability for many ND children, even those who find the day itself quite challenging.  

Our daughter Joni is one of these students.  She is interested by the content of lessons and while she doesn’t have friends to socialise with she does get a buzz off of peer interaction.  School to her is familiar and relatively safe.  It’s exhausting though and I suspect she will sleep out most evenings over the next few weeks.  We won’t see much of Joni I expect. Yes, getting back to the routine will probably be good for Joni.

But for her twin sister it’s another story.  Patti’s genuine fear of our sparkling summer ending set in a couple of weeks ago and in the last 5 days or so she has been glued to my side.  Not speaking.  Staring at me.  Frowning, grabbing my hand, searching my face for looks of comfort, trying to control my every breath or slight movement.  She is laying next to me now gazing through our window.  If I were to ask her her thoughts she would either (a) genuinely not know them or (b) be too frightened to share.  Because even though I’m her mum she still can’t find a way to express her inner experience, to articulate enough to allow me to try to lift the darkness.

When I look at Patti right now, all I see is fear.

Patti (AuDHD) is still very much in burnout recovery.  She has not been in school for around ten months now, save a few visits to her key worker and a couple of quick visits to class.  Most around her can see that she’s not recovered enough to learn and that a return to school should be carefully staged and really alternative options should be tried. 

However, Patti, a PDA child, has fixed in her mind that the only measure of success is to attend school, like her sister. That’s all she wants right now. So, she is insisting that she returns, that she goes back to class, that she will just act like nothing ever happened.  That she’s fine.  She will listen to no suggestions of taking it slowly.  She brushes aside discussions around home tuition or EOTAS.  She is adamant she will  never enter an alternative school setting.   

Watching her push herself into something that fills her with sickening dread is painful beyond belief.  But she is not ready to entertain another way.  

So here we are, staring down the barrel  of an unknown school year.  Year 9.  A terrified child, already having experienced a significant crisis, already having made some recovery from her burnout trauma, insisting she tries again. 

Does she feel like a failure because she didn’t make it work before?  Does she have to try one more time before she finally admits it’s not her that is the problem, its the school that isn’t right for her?  We know she eventually grew to resent being at home.  She felt isolated.  We can’t blame her for wanting to try to socialise herself again.  Of course we want that for her too.  But at the right time. 

So here we are now. Not knowing if perhaps this time it will be a bit better.  Maybe, her teachers will try to accommodate more now they know what she has been through.  Maybe she won’t be judged so harshly.  That said, not knowing whether she will come out of the experience in worse shape than she did before makes us feel sick to the pits of our stomachs.

We are pretty sure though that the resources she needs won’t be fully available to her.  School doesn’t mind trying with her but they are quick to send her home once her behaviour responses become too challenging. This engenders a repeated sense of rejection which Patti has to process.  School have stated on more than one occasion that the dynamic between the two girls can often make things worse and that they can accommodate one but once the other is thrown into the mix they don’t have any workable solutions.  And while Joni can cross a lot of their lines, her cheeky, sunny demeanour means that she is easily forgiven while Patti;  her fear response presents itself as anger.  Noone really wants that around.  

So do we have to pick one child who gets the education of their choice then?  It often feels that way.

In part, we agree that they would be better educated separately.  Perhaps this is how things will ultimately end up.  I would love Patti to embrace the idea of EOTAS or unschooling as if she did I would fight with my last breath to get that arranged for her.  We’d love her to access a flexible curriculum that inspires her and that she has a hand in designing.  I think the complexities of school are too much for her to navigate.   But for now, denying Patti access to her place of learning, the place named on her EHCP, the place receiving funds to give her an educational experience, would without doubt cause an emotional collapse.  It feels like a lose-lose situation.  With our vulnerable child at the centre of it.

Knowing that she’s not ready to learn, what that environment brought on last year and that she is not quite out of burnout, we are watching our beloved child try again.  Knowing this may ultimately cause her harm, are we wrong to let this happen?  

Who knows how this next chapter will end. We try not to think too far ahead and every day that is ticked off the list, where there are no meltdowns and no suspensions, is chalked up as a win.   All we can do is watch things carefully.

So forgive me for shedding a tear as we say goodbye to our sparkling summer of togetherness, sanctuary, safety, quiet, calm and a healthy dose of Taylor Swift.  We have let August slip away and now step cautiously into a new school year where it feels like just about anything could happen.

Thanks for reading

Louise