So, I have been very remiss over the past two weeks at updating this blog. I can only ascribe this to a need for routine. I fear I may have become slightly institutionalised since the birth of my fae, and now that she has started school, I find myself at a loose end and unable to cope with the hours of free time.
I am also not good at getting anything started, knowing full well that in a matter of a few short hours (well 6) I will need to be back at the collection point. So, by the time I have returned home I have lost half an hour; breakfast and a cuppa and another half hour has disappeared. It takes half an hour to return to the school… well, not really, but my brain operates in half hour intervals of time so I have to make sure I have at least this much to go get her. This isn’t helped by her often being out early (very early; school official finishes at 3:10 but she is often waiting with an LSA for me at 3). So an hour and half is already accounted for so I’m down to 4.5 hours.. which my brain tells me isn’t a day’s worth of time, and therefore it’s not worth starting anything.
I have recently started to enjoy going out on my bike (something that I never in a million years thought would happen) but this also eats another hour of time plus a half hour shower. So 3 hours left. By the time I have finished browsing the internet, completing a Spanish lesson and generally procrastinating, I have minutes to drag myself out the door to fetch her.
I don’t know what school dismissal in ‘normal’ schools is like… that’s a lie, actually, I worked long enough to know: it’s like the final scene in an epic jailbreak, complete with screaming and inmates clambering over each other in their attempts to scale the fences before they are brought down by the wardens. The only difference being that in school, the teachers are often desperately leading the charge rather than slowing it down.
At my daughter’s school, things are more organised, as a fleet of transport buses arrive as one, allowing members of staff to allocate the correct students, their accompanying adults, and equipment to each vehicle. It looks like chaos, but as every child seems to make it the correct destination, one assumes there is logic to it.
Children who are being met at the school by a guardian stand with a classroom attendant by one of the four numbered doors that lock automatically. I have seen prisons that would envy the security measures here. Her school is designated a special school: at the end of the day, I am assailed simultaneously by relief that she attends a place that will keep her safe, and dismay that it is necessary. I feel a touch of Imposter Syndrome, as other students have needs that physically significantly outweigh hers and I wonder if she is keeping a more worthy or more in need child from a place – I know they are over-subscribed.
Then I remember that she is not toilet trained, she barely speaks and couldn’t follow a rule to draw a straight line. I have to remind myself (or be reminded) that just because others’ needs may be more extreme, it doesn’t diminish what she needs as well.
The lack of places is not my fault. The fact that she has a place because I know who I need to talk with to make that happen, I have the time and determination to do it, and the ability to navigate the education and health care services successfully to get the support she needs.. is also not my fault. I am writing the blog to try and help those who don’t have those skills, but need them, do the same. It makes me cross that the game is rigged, regardless that I can play it well. Every child should get the support they need. It should not be down to the ability of parent to know the inside track through the maze of paperwork and agencies that you have to fight with to get that support.
I digress. The reason I haven’t updated is that our routine has been up in the air. Apparently I don’t function well without a stable routine. I may need to look into getting my own neuro-divergent behaviour assessed.
Raising the Modern Fae 