22nd February 2007
One of our brood has special needs. He is at residential school. He hates it. During all the years we have delighted in him and been challenged by him, I have never felt quite so helpless as I do now.
He struggles to understand other people; to make emotional connections and empathise. It is hard when we sense his desolation and confusion. But we know that no matter how much we long to keep him safe and make things better for him, part of his current process is important, valuable and will, please God, help him engage, somehow, with the wider world and a greater variety of people - even if he also learns some very hard lessons about how harsh and cruel some children can be.
It is a complex agenda when we offer love and care. I sometimes find it hard, just as I do right now, to separate my own discomfort from my son's anxiety and an objective look at his current and future needs.
He feels he is being bullied and brutalised at his present school. He feels isolated and counter to the prevailing say it with your fists rather than with words culture. My husband and I are very clear that this cannot and will not continue. Something will have to give before he surrenders and gives up on himself.
But I worry that it is our discomfort rather than his on-going anxiety which is the dominant feeling. It is incredibly hard to watch another suffer and not be able to step in and, at the very least, transform the dynamic.
We are trying to give this placement time (but we both feel this is fast running out). We rehearse a belief that the processes of the school must be OK - it's a school for heaven's sake - it should meet standards, shouldn't it? We are trying to understand their procedures; and hardest of all, trust their judgement in the day to day matters of his life.
Everything in my head is screaming that we should be at the school - and scooping him up to whisk him home. Keep him safe. If we are not nurtured and valued for who we are we are significantly less than we could be.
We are worried that more damage will be caused than good achieved, but we are trying to trust the judgement of all the varied professionals involved. In a sense we are experiencing a child-like helplessness.
We know our son needs specialised educational provision - and we know such provision does not exist locally to where we live - but this is education in the school of hard knocks - literally. We should be able to do so much better for the most vulnerable young in our society, surely?
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