Naughty Boy Syndrome

Rachel Hawley-Thomas

rachel.bitesizeblogs@gmail.com

I would like to introduce you all to my second born child "W", he is 16 and he has ADHD, Tourettes and Emotional Disregulation Disorder and this is his story...

He was born in 2010 and was a very healthy weight of 10lbs. Pregnancy and birth were all kind of straightforward and we started our lives as a family of four.

At the age of around two and a half years old I noticed some ADHD traits (his dad was diagnosed with ADHD as a child) and over the course of the next four years we had a fight on our hands to try and get people to see what we saw.

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is a common neurodevelopmental condition that affects a person’s ability to focus, manage impulses, and regulate energy levels. It is a lifelong condition that typically begins in childhood and continues into adulthood, altering how the brain processes information.

At around five years old, he started making some "weird" noises and wrongly we thought he was being annoying and kept telling him to stop.

At six years old we got an ADHD assessment and after being in the room for five minutes the doctor said that he had ADHD and Tourettes... Wait! What? What is Tourettes?

I will be doing another blog about Tourettes in detail very soon.

So off we went with this information and we had another fight on our hands to get "W" the help he needed.

Over the course of "W's" time at his primary school, they weren't much help and kept putting his behaviour down to him being "a naughty boy".

He would get into fights, he got expelled a couple of times and in my mind if they just looked at the bigger picture they would see why.

"W" went to a mainstream high-school and although they tried with part-time timetables and

a 1-2-1 they still struggled with him, so he moved schools. The next school was a SEN school in Bury St Edmunds and for years eight and nine he struggled there too, again a part-time timetable, refusing to go to school, being expelled a couple of times too.

Now I want to add here that SEN schools can work for kids with needs, this one just didn't work for "W".

At this time I had become friends with Stacey (one of our other lovely bloggers) and she works for an alternative provider called PushForward, so I did some research and thought it was ideal for "W", and after a few months he was in!

He has now been with PushForward for nearly two years and I will say it's been the best place for him. He wants to be an F1 mechanic and at PF he can learn mechanics along with other life skills, we have also applied for their post sixteen as well.

He is now a cheeky sixteen year old who is nearly six foot tall, lanky and can make you laugh until your sides hurt. He has been through it over the last ten years but finally he is in a place that wants to help and therefore he is growing into his ADHD. He is no longer medicated through his own choice and seems to be coping well.

We have had help along the way, one of the best was Annie Clements from www.autismandadhd.org, we had multiple meetings with her and her team and they talked us through it all and put us in the right direction for "W" and his needs, thank you Annie.

I am happy to talk to anyone who would like help and support with their children, it takes a village to raise a child and I will happily be a part of your village if you need an extra hand.