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<blockquote data-quote="SRL" data-source="post: 116916" data-attributes="member: 701"><p>aeditha, my child had severe school anxiety in first grade and it was one of the worst experiences of my life--unless it's addressed the child very often goes into a fast downward spiral and recovery is slow going. It really needs to be addressed through an IEP so if she doesn't have one in place you need to get on that and make a formal request and in the mean time meet with the principal to see what supports could be put into place for her during the interim. If her school anxiety is this serious, it should help a lot to have a diagnosis of anxiety disorder to help with school side of things. Be sure and take a good hard look at what's going on when she enters school. When I did that I discovered difficult child was met with a sensory assault upon getting in line and that when he entered the classrooms he had to unload about 9 things from his backpack due to this teacher's organizational system and he was totally overwhelmed doing it while trying to transition to school.</p><p></p><p>You don't need to screech the van to a halt and drop off a screaming child. It's true that they do need the parent to leave the child at school and turn them over to the school staff, but there are ways to ease that which can be written into an IEP. I would bring him late (actually not by choice, due to his refusal) but that helped because he wasn't immediately confronted with the crowds. An aide would meet us in the front entry way and walk him into class and help him get situated. He had supports in place to help ease the anxiety through the school day: classroom breaks twice a day with an aide where they played, had a juice, went to the Occupational Therapist (OT) room, etc. He had a menu of cards to choose from to give to the teacher: I need a break, juice, exercise, and for worst case a call home card with my phone number on it. </p><p></p><p>You can put some supports in from the home side of things. A laminated card with a schedule for the morning and/or a list of where to put items. A note in the backpack or lunch bag reminding them her that you will be waiting for her in front of the school at 3pm. A note telling her what you will be doing that day so she doesn't feel so far away. One that really worked well here was for difficult child to pick out two of his little stuffed animals--one he gave me and one he hung on his backpack. When the day was over I would tell him what his animal and I had done together (I literally carried it with me). It made a very tangible connection for him between me at home and him at school. Trial some things and keep what helps.</p><p></p><p>Later as anxiety improved I would walk him to class at the beginning of the school year until he told me to get lost. It was a happy day this year when he didn't want his mom anywhere near him when he went into school. I've never been so happy to not be needed in my life!</p><p></p><p>As for the medications, this is a personal decision for every parent. When my difficult child hit the anxiety was seriously impacting functioning point we did trial medications--worked well at first then side effects set in. The second time was during the first grade situation and he had a serious rxn which made a bad situation worse. But I will say that I have heard from many parents that have reported great results--they were just luckier than us that the first medication trials were a good match for the child. Honestly during that bad year when he was in so much pain from something that came easy to other kids I would have been thrilled to have had a medication that worked simply to relieve his suffering. But we weren't willing to risk another bad reaction. </p><p></p><p>I would encourage you to check out the forum that fairlyoddparent gave you for parents with young Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) kids. I'm not one to jump on the medication ship quickly, but My gut level is that most kids with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) will eventually need medications to function unless some other interventions are found, but I could be way off on that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SRL, post: 116916, member: 701"] aeditha, my child had severe school anxiety in first grade and it was one of the worst experiences of my life--unless it's addressed the child very often goes into a fast downward spiral and recovery is slow going. It really needs to be addressed through an IEP so if she doesn't have one in place you need to get on that and make a formal request and in the mean time meet with the principal to see what supports could be put into place for her during the interim. If her school anxiety is this serious, it should help a lot to have a diagnosis of anxiety disorder to help with school side of things. Be sure and take a good hard look at what's going on when she enters school. When I did that I discovered difficult child was met with a sensory assault upon getting in line and that when he entered the classrooms he had to unload about 9 things from his backpack due to this teacher's organizational system and he was totally overwhelmed doing it while trying to transition to school. You don't need to screech the van to a halt and drop off a screaming child. It's true that they do need the parent to leave the child at school and turn them over to the school staff, but there are ways to ease that which can be written into an IEP. I would bring him late (actually not by choice, due to his refusal) but that helped because he wasn't immediately confronted with the crowds. An aide would meet us in the front entry way and walk him into class and help him get situated. He had supports in place to help ease the anxiety through the school day: classroom breaks twice a day with an aide where they played, had a juice, went to the Occupational Therapist (OT) room, etc. He had a menu of cards to choose from to give to the teacher: I need a break, juice, exercise, and for worst case a call home card with my phone number on it. You can put some supports in from the home side of things. A laminated card with a schedule for the morning and/or a list of where to put items. A note in the backpack or lunch bag reminding them her that you will be waiting for her in front of the school at 3pm. A note telling her what you will be doing that day so she doesn't feel so far away. One that really worked well here was for difficult child to pick out two of his little stuffed animals--one he gave me and one he hung on his backpack. When the day was over I would tell him what his animal and I had done together (I literally carried it with me). It made a very tangible connection for him between me at home and him at school. Trial some things and keep what helps. Later as anxiety improved I would walk him to class at the beginning of the school year until he told me to get lost. It was a happy day this year when he didn't want his mom anywhere near him when he went into school. I've never been so happy to not be needed in my life! As for the medications, this is a personal decision for every parent. When my difficult child hit the anxiety was seriously impacting functioning point we did trial medications--worked well at first then side effects set in. The second time was during the first grade situation and he had a serious rxn which made a bad situation worse. But I will say that I have heard from many parents that have reported great results--they were just luckier than us that the first medication trials were a good match for the child. Honestly during that bad year when he was in so much pain from something that came easy to other kids I would have been thrilled to have had a medication that worked simply to relieve his suffering. But we weren't willing to risk another bad reaction. I would encourage you to check out the forum that fairlyoddparent gave you for parents with young Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) kids. I'm not one to jump on the medication ship quickly, but My gut level is that most kids with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) will eventually need medications to function unless some other interventions are found, but I could be way off on that. [/QUOTE]
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