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The last fortnight has been intensely focused on 2son as he comes closer to accepting the need to move on to a another specialist school, one that can support him up to 25. I had visited this school in November and said I thought it would suit and it has taken 2son up to now to accept that he had to go see it.
I took him up for a day trip the previous week so he could have a look at the school and the accommodation and then took him up this week so he could stay for two nights and experience it. It went successfully in that he didn’t need to call me for support and he managed to join in. He needs to be pushed into a corner before he accepts that he has to get on with something and just do it. He was understandably incredibly anxious, as was I, but he was also very matter of fact about it. He didn’t say much about it afterwards, other than he thought it would do, which is really high praise.
I have been preparing for this event and worrying about it and trying to sort out domestic and work responsibilities. I cleaned out a U-bend for the first time last week but we still have a blocked sink, which is a trivial problem in itself but it adds to the list and serves of a reminder that something else will always happen to add to the list of boring stuff to sort out. Being away so much I oculdn’t call anyone out to deal with it.
1son is in Italy and hasn’t really been in communication much although his brothers report that he’s playing a lot of video games in the evening so that suggests he hasn’t got a job yet and is saving his money. I got an email from 3son’s teacher while I was away explaining that he is about to bugger up his remaining A level. I think he’s done with it all really and that despite wanting to do A levels he’s just no longer in the frame of mind to do them. Getting an apprenticeship would be one thing, but a job would also make sense. 4son is quietly getting on with his GCSEs and actually doing more than five minutes revision for them. He’s noticing the difference in results.
As usual, I’ve gone through all four children before turning to me. I still feel overwhelmed by the next stages for 2son: getting him to visit a second school and getting the local authority to fund what will be another expensive option. This is all supposed to be agreed by the end of this month and so far this year I’m on my second temporary case worker for SEN and no sense of how long this one will be in place.
I’m struggling with therapy and my therapist says she’s realised that she needs to dredge my childhood out of me as no set of questions, whether the TA that we’ve just done, or anything else is going to do it. I have a narrative about my childhood that I can deliver but I find it quite difficult to go beyond that and to really remember how I felt. I have blocked it up so much that not only is it difficult to unblock, but it is also difficult to recognise what I have blocked out. I need to do some serious digging. However I also am coming up to an intensive part of our course. Next weekend we do our skills recording and then we spend the Easter holidays analysing it and writing a full essay on it. I still haven’t fully listened to the last three skills sessions that we recorded and found it difficult enough to get our short essays done for this weeks which were only 500 words each. So I am feeling that there is currently not enough time in the day for me to do all the things I need to. I will get there but not without a fair dose of anxiety along the way. It does also make we wonder how I will cope with the workload requirements for the diploma, where the essays are double the length. Applications open in a few weeks. Several of my peers are looking at the integrative pathway rather than the purely person-centred and although I have little doubt that the latter is my choice I’m also not liking the idea of losing these people and having to start afresh. It would be the wrong reason to go integrative but it has sewn doubt in my mind.
There you are then. It’s a messy write up but I am in a messy place. I’ve been away for four nights and that seems an awful lot. 4son has gone to school. 3son has gone at least once and I’m struggling to get back into the swing of being at home. And we’ve run out of toilet roll.