January/February 2018

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Ask Alison... Helpful advice for grandparents or guardians Alison Waterhouse has worked with children with Additional Educational Needs for the past 22 years in both mainstream and the private sector. Initially, she trained as a Special Needs Teacher and has worked in a variety of schools and educational settings. Alison now works as an Independent Educational Consultant for Special Educational Needs and Emotional Well being in both the Independent sector and mainstream. She is involved in staff training for Young Minds and Releasing Potential and she has an Educational Psychotherapy practice. For more information, please visit www.alisonwaterhouse.co.uk. In her regular “question and answer” page, Alison uses her experience to help readers & their children with educational concerns or problems. If there’s something you’d like to ask Alison, email your question to : alison@familybuzz.co.uk Dear Alison, I am writing as I am really worried about my son. He is in year 4 at school and is really struggling with friendships. He is in a small country primary school and there are only 10 boys in his class 5 of which are in Year 3 as he is in a mixed 3/4 class. I have watched him become more and more unhappy about going to school and he is now starting to say he is useless and that no one likes him. It is horrible watching our children struggle with friends at school when all we really want to do is take them away and put them in a place where they will be happy. Many of the letters I receive from parents are linked to the issue of friendships and their difficulties. Things are obviously difficult for your son however this could be a golden opportunity to develop some really positive and useful relationship and social skills that will benefit him throughout his whole life. It is also a time to develop his resilience and demonstrate to him that he can deal with difficult situations with the help of family and friends. You haven’t said what is specifically going on with the other boys so I can’t give you direct strategies. Firstly your son needs a boost, he needs to be reminded about how special he is and how well he can do a range of things. His confidence has been knocked. The best way to start is to just comment on all the things you observe him doing well. Aim for 10 positive comments each day. This can be simple things ‘You know I remember the days when you couldn’t read your book from school, but now you fly through them and you help your sister with her words.’ Your comments can be on anything from his work in school to the way he behaves or acts. It would be worth talking to your extended family and telling them what is going on so that they can also support and remind your son how much he is loved and appreciated. The other thing is to support his friendships with other children both those friends at school and outside. Clubs and societies are a good place to make new friends, this can be swimming or sports related or things like cubs or Scouts. Invite friends back to the house to play or have tea or organise trips out to do things at the weekends. This doesn’t need to cost a lot, it could be a trip to the museum focusing on something they are doing at school or to an art gallery or country trail. Get your son to help you make a picnic as this is a way to do something nice together as well as saving money. When your out support your son manage the relationship with his friend – coach him by verbalising what may be happening. ‘I think Tommy is fed up with that game now can you see how he is starting to look at other things or talk to me, can you help him ……’ ‘I think Tommy really likes it when you share the headsets that tell the story of the Battle of Hastings look how he is running to the next post.’ As to the difficulties at school, the best thing to do is listen, I know it’s hard when you just want to make things right but listening to what he says is what he really needs. If you are able to bear his unhappiness then the message you give him is that it is bearable and that together you can problem solve what to do. Help him to think about what is going on and why and then pose the question ‘What are the different things you could do?’ explore the different ways of dealing with things together. Try and be matter of fact as he will pick up on your anxiety. Give him positive feedback ‘That’s a good way of dealing with that situation I will be interested in seeing what happens.’ It would also be good to talk to his class teacher and join forces in dealing with the issue together. Listen to what they think is going on and ways they can help at school as I am sure they are also concerned and will want to support him and the other boys. Dear Alison, We have a son in year 3 who is struggling with his reading. His class teacher is concerned about his progress and has told us we need to hear him read each night. It has now 20 Find us online at www.goldentimes.co.uk
got to the stage where he really doesn’t want to read at home as he feels he is ‘useless’. I am finding it really hard hearing him talk about himself in this way. What can I do to help him? Reading is a complex process which uses a range of strategies. Children use the pictures within the story to understand what is happening, and then they tend to learn by memory the words of simple stories. They then learn sight words and to these they add their phonic knowledge and start to sound out words as they read. It would be really helpful if you could have a conversation with your son’s class teacher to discuss which aspects your son is finding difficult. If it is his sight vocabulary then you could concentrate on that using a variety of games at home and not just reading his book. If it is his phonics then this is the area you can concentrate on. Reading is something that you want your son to enjoy again. Choose a book and share it together with you reading some and him reading a bit. Write him notes and put them on his bed or on the fridge. Do some cooking together and read the recipe together. There are many ways to engage him in reading in different ways just use your imagination. If you need to support his sight vocabulary then chose 5 words a week and work on those. You can hide the words around the room and if he can find them and read them then he gets them. Put them on the stairs so that you read them together as you walk up and down. Write them in the air whilst waiting or going to school, make them out of magnetic letters on the fridge or when he is in the bath use the foam letters. Most importantly HAVE FUN. If your son is struggling with phonics then there are many phonics games on the internet you can find and play, or you can make up your own. Sound out a word if he can blend it together then he wins a point. He then sounds out one for you. You can make cards together and then use those to help you. Give him a picture of a CVC word (Consonant Vowel Consonant like cat, dog, pan etc) and then ask him to segment it into sounds for you to listen to and give the word. Dear Alison My daughter is in year 3 and is really struggling with her handwriting. She finds cursive writing difficult and says her hand aches after just a few words. Her teacher has told me that I need to make her practice at home but she hates it and we just end up having a row which spoils our evening. Handwriting is such an interesting area. For some children who have poor muscle tone it does make their hands ache and so part of the work is to strengthen their muscles and develop their fine motor skills. You can do this in a variety of ways and there are some lovely apps for the ipad that help children practice letter formation. There are a variety of fine motor skills activities that you can Google to support her so that you are not just doing handwriting every night. You can therefore do handwriting one night, fine motor skills activities another night, then tracing and colouring – both good fine motor skills work and then finally use the app on the ipad. The other area that you can work on is to teach her to touch type – BBC Dance mat is a good programme to use and is free. By working on all areas you will find that it becomes a bit more fun and she will become confident and competent in writing and also typing. For parents or grandparents whose children are struggling at school, stuck in their learning, anxious or depressed, who have stopped thriving or are acting out, life can become overwhelming, full of worry and confusion as they try to find help for their children. Educational Psychotherapy is a powerful approach to addressing these issues. It is a way of meeting the child’s individual learning needs, which in turn positively affects their ability to cope within the classroom. Educational Psychotherapy is a way of working with children which combines teaching with therapeutic exploration of the emotional factors triggered by learning. It is recommended for children and young people who have become ‘stuck’ due to complex emotional barriers to learning and development. Barriers to learning and development may manifest themselves as: Poor attitudes to learning based on attachment patterns, • Failure to learn, • Withdrawal, • Difficult behaviour, • Difficulty with social interactions and friendships, • Violence or aggressive outbursts, • Physical symptoms, • Anxiety, • Difficulties with transitions, • Restlessness and an inability to focus, • An inability to make good use of the learning environment or the teacher. Educational Psychotherapy produces real benefits in children’s What is Educational Psychotherapy? emotional well being and their capacity to learn and engage with schools. By helping children and young people overcome these emotional barriers to learning, their self esteem, resilience and skills for learning are strengthened and engagement, positive relationships and sense of well being are promoted. For more information, contact Alison on: 01580 881 271 or alison@alisonwaterhouse.co.uk Educational Psychotherapist Qualified Teacher and S.E.N.C.O Is your child struggling at school? Are they ‘stuck’ in their learning? Behaviour causing concern? Educational Psychotherapy is a specialised educational and therapeutic intervention recommended for children and young people with complex emotional barriers to learning and social development. Phone: 01580 881 271 E-mail: alison@alisonwaterhouse.co.uk www.alisonwaterhouse.co.uk To advertise in Golden Times call Debby on 01424 429139 or email debby@goldentimes.co.uk 21
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