Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Support our kids in return to school
Mum with autistic youngsters tells of anxiety heading back to class
With two children on the autism spectrum and a diagnosis pending for a third, parents Kirsteen and Gavin Allan have more reason than most to feel anxious about their kids returning to school after lockdown.
Next week, 12-year-old Haydn will make the transition from primary to secondary school, while his sister Kerin, 10, moves up to P7.
That’s a daunting prospect for any child after four months of being at home, during which the routine they had depended on to keep them calm and focused became a thing of the past.
But when you’re a child with autism like Haydn and Kerin, the prospect of something as simple as sunlight streaming in through a classroom window can send you into a meltdown.
It’s a time of real worry for Kirsteen and Gavin, who are backing calls from the National Autistic Society Scotland for schools and the Scottish Government to provide Scotland’s 6500 school-age autistic children with personalised transition plans.
Haydn was a toddler when his nursery teachers shared Kirsteen’s niggling doubts about her first child’s developmental progress.
“His speech was not very good and his understanding wasn’t great,” she explained.
“His obsession was dinosaurs. He could say Tyrannosaurus rex and Diplodocus, but he couldn’t utter a normal sentence.
“He did not take in information in the correct way. He had no sense of danger, no awareness at roads. He would talk to random strangers in the street.
“On Haydn’s first birthday, I was four months pregnant with Kerin. I worried that I had not given him enough time and attention.”
Haydn was 18 months old when Kerin came along – a little girl whose struggles presented numerous challenges even as a baby – from reflux, to sensory issues and constant crying.
Kerin settled well into the baby room at Ballerup Nursery Centre.
But when it came time for her to join the older children, that’s when alarm bells began to ring for her parents.
As home time approached, she’d cry, scream and lash out.
A frantic Kirsteen and Gavin sought help from their GP, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), speech and language therapists and social workers.
But when Kerin joined her brother at Greenhills Primary in East Kilbride, school life proved too much for her to handle.
“When she was in P1, it was awful,” continued Kirsteen, 36, whose son was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at the age of five.
“And in P2, things came to a head and I said enough is enough.
“She started self-harming at the age of six, running away from me and trashing her room. Because everyone turned me away, I genuinely thought it was parenting. My own mental health took a dip.”
The exasperated couple turned to the Lanarkshire Paediatric Autism Consultancy Team, which handles the most complex of cases, and appealed for an emergency appointment.
Six-year-old Kerin was referred for an ASD diagnosis the next day.
The couple paid for a year of play therapy – counselling that helped Kerin to verbalise what was distressing her.
“Through counselling for children, Kerin was able to tell us what was upsetting her, both socially and emotionally,” continued Kirsteen.
“She could not cope in school. She was struggling with things like sitting next to a radiator, or light coming in through the window.”
But it wasn’t long ago that the couple began to notice traits in their younger daughter, Hailey, now aged three, that made them suspect that she, too, may be on the autism spectrum.
Like her brother at the same age, Hailey is overly sociable and will talk to complete strangers.
She has now been referred for diagnosis.
In the grip of a health crisis and the prospect of lockdown looming, the couple decided to remove
They need to make sure that there are proper, personalised plans in place for children with additional support needs, and support for all children
Haydn and Kerin – both of whom have respiratory disorders – from class a week before schools were ordered to close.
For the family, the challenges of home schooling have been more acute than those faced by parents whose children do not have additional support needs.
Kirsteen said: “If we didn’t have a garden, it would have been horrific. We can’t get Kerin to do any kind of school work whatsoever.
“She has been making herself physically sick and pulling her hair out, all to do with her homework.
“The school’s advice is not to do anything, as her mental health is the most important thing.
“Mrs Murray at Greenhills
Primary has been my saviour during this lockdown.
“She has been on the phone to see if there’s anything they can do.
But there isn’t anything anyone can do. We need normality. We just need out of this house.
“We have not kept set bed times. What’s the point? We aren’t able to go anywhere or do anything. It’s been really hard.
“Kerin has been terrified to go out the door because of the virus.
And I feel completely isolated.
“Haydn’s so bored, he has hardly been out his room the whole time and has completely blocked everything out.”
When he arrives for his first day at Duncanrig Secondary, Haydn will be joined by friends he has made through charity Reach. But with the Scottish
Government still undecided about whether schools will return full or part time, his parents face the prospect of having three children at three different establishments on different days.
Kirsteen said: “When Haydn goes back to school, I will be sure to explain in fine detail what he needs.
“Kerin will go in the day before school starts back to see her classroom, her seat and her teacher.
“I think they need to make sure there are proper, personalised plans in place for children with additional support needs, and support for all children, for that matter. Because it’s pretty clear to me that they are all struggling.”