Routine returns.

So Charlie and Jack went back to school last week, as did I! I saw so many lovely back to school posts of children starting school and the new year..,The children who are Charlie’s age really caught my eye. In main stream school he would be entering year 6, the last year in primary school, thinking of the next big step of secondary and beyond. In his SEN school he is based within an SLD (severe learning difficulties) class with 5 other children, mostly fully non verbal like him, and aged from 7-11. He has been in this class for 3 years as it is a totally sensory based curriculum. I kind of love the fact that he won’t have to sit SATs/GCSE’s and have that unnecessary stress put upon him. He’s my little free spirit! Charlie doesn’t write, he reluctantly picks up a pencil but tells you with his eyes that he’s not going to be playing along with this game. We assume he cannot read words, but he may do and simply may not be able to communicate this. He does notice signs and symbols and focusses heavily on these as well as picture communication cards (PECs) at school, mostly for food, his biggest love!

I never usually compare children at home with my boys or at work as children are all individuals and they all have their own unique ways of developing and progressing in their learning journey. Charlie knows no different from his world. I did however have a moment of wondering…what if things were different…I didn’t feel sad, angry or sorry for him..or us, it was just a moment of wondering what if…I have done this over the years and never usually said that I do it…but I do! And it is human nature to wonder about things surely!?

Autism has taken us on a unexpected journey, that 10 years ago, when I held my beautiful 8lb baby boy in my arms I could never have imagined the rollercoaster we would be going on. It has made us all laugh, cry and become frustrated with a system that you have to battle with constantly to get what your child needs. But Charlie without autism and SLD wouldn’t be Charlie. This is all we all know how to be. I read a beautiful poem when he was little called welcome to Holland it says it all really (see below) we may have been planning to go to Italy but now we are in Holland the windmills and tulips are stunning and we certainly aren’t mourning Italy…?

I have to say I was Dreading the school holidays ending (like a lot of teachers I guess!) but not only because my hols were ending, mainly because Charlie was quite settled and almost serene in some ways. Don’t get me wrong we still had meltdowns and some pretty big kick offs which just come as part of the course with his condition and ever developing hormones. He still hated sleep, but we didn’t have the forced routine on top of it.

We could generally go with what he needed that day. If he needed a quiet time at home with his trampoline we could do that, Or we could go out and run him all over so we could actually attempt a good nights sleep. Some days we had things planned with friends and I knew he just couldn’t cope at that point. It wouldn’t be fair on him, Jack, my sanity or anyone we were going to meet! And that’s ok, we have wonderful friends who just ‘get it’ when I say Charlie can’t do this today or we need to leave now. But I know if he was stressed around any of these people they are always on hand to help as they know us so well. So so thankful for the lovely friends in our lives. ?

Charlie has had a mixed start to the term, clashing with another child at school has caused nip and scratch injuries, he is still doing this to himself also. Charlie loves to make noise and the other boy doesn’t like this… hence it always ends in tears! So he can come home very stressed! To help Charlie chill out we knew what would answer was…after Charlie loved the hot tub on holiday so much we actually couldn’t resist Santa coming early and bringing him his own at home. Which as you can see he loves…

Here’s hoping he settles at school, and keeps enjoying the hot tub as much as this. His smiles brighten our day and seeing him and Jack happy is all we want! see Holland is just as wonderful as Italy?

Thanks for reading all!

The Freeman’s xxx