meeting scheduled- Need advice

[lizanne2]

Hello and good afternoon everyone:

I now have a meeting scheduled and could use some advise on how to prepare. The school nurse has scheduled a meeting for me with the school counsellor and herself. She would like to know how to keep difficult child safe and healthy in school.

Background- difficult child is three weeks out of a one week inpatient stay. She went for sharing suicidal thoughts with psychiatrist. Staff there released saying she was not suicidal nor do they think she ever was. I tend to agree. They arrived at a better level of zoloft. Discharge plan was to continue with psychiatrist and counselling weekly. We have only been addressing the depression and anxiety for about 7 months maybe. She seems to be working the therapy and much improved.

Yestarday in school she saw the pair of sweatpants that were stolen from her the first week of school. Someone stole her bag that was brand new with brand new track shoes and clothes bought for her while on vacation with my family. I told her that she couldn't be sure they were HER sweatpants and she hung up very angry. Later that day she was so upset she scratched her own arm---not badly----because she was SOOO upset. Now the school nurse wants more info.


Here is the deal----- I don't know what to say--- The doctors and I think she is safe. This new development is troubling and I will talk to her counsellor tonight but----- really, this is part of the work of getting better. I encouraged the nurse to talk with the child study team. But I am going to keep the meeting. Perhaps they need to be able to ask me questions.


What am i Missing here? What should I be sharing with these folks? Should I just let the child study team handle this?

Any thogths would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DaisyFace]

Lizanne--

Just my opinion here....but if your daughter cut herself to demonstrate how upset she was (you said "scratched" but I assume it was bleeding enough to warrant the school nurse's attention?) , then the school will definitely want to meet with you and establish a 'policy' for handling any such incidents in the future.

Obviously, suicide attempts (even if only half-hearted) are supposed to be taken very seriously. If you and your daughter's therapists have decided they need not be taken that seriously--then this is something that will will definitely want to let the nurse know and also let them know how you would like the nurse or school counselor to handle it.

I think you need to go to the meeting with the idea of implementing a "plan".

What would you like school personnel to do?

Do you want them to ignore it? Probably not.

Do you want them to contact you? Send her home? Have her meet with the school counselor?

This might be a good opportunity to strategize a few different solutions for managing these kins of behaviors at school.

Good luck!

--DaisyFace

 

[klmno]

Yeah, I agree. Plus, the school is CYA'ing themselves by getting "direction" from you. The main thing- if she exhibits suicidal tendencies at school, they should contact you and a crisis counselor immediately. Other than that- if it's something that shows anxiety or whatever, maybe they call you or email or something- whatever you are comfortable with and that you think would help your difficult child. Then, put their fears to rest as much as possible- they are scared apparently.