Jake, along with his older sisters Martha and Beth, is back at school in the morning. He is going into the Reception class at the local Catholic primary – it’s at the other end of the big room where he was at Nursery last year, so hopefully that will keep his anxiety levels down.
When Jake is worried or afraid, he will either have a meltdown and yell, or he will go into a rapid monologue, peppered with various phrases from TV programmes, normally Paw Patrol at present (nicely lined up backwards earlier today):
It’s very good that both Sally and I work for ourselves from home as we can both take him to school. We’ve been laying the groundwork for the last few weeks, usually being met by ‘er, it’s very kind of you but no’ (from the Gruffalo) whenever we’ve mentioned school. We did however get Jake to try on his new uniform a few days ago, and it went relatively smoothly. Fingers crossed we will all be OK tomorrow.
School have been great. As with everything, it’s been a slow process but before the summer break, Jake was assessed by the local education authority and a full-time teaching assistant has been put in place to help him and try to keep him focused.
He’s normally fairly oblivious to the other kids and will play with a few farm animals or some bricks, happily ignoring everyone else. Now and again, he will need to run up and down the classroom, probably repeating some lines from a TV programme and possibly holding up his right hand with his palm towards him, and opening and closing it.
The big flashpoint we have is when he gets frustrated or feels crowded by other kids, especially if he thinks they’re after his toys. He will push them out of the way unless he’s watched, so we are very happy that he’s got someone watching out for him. She will however have biceps like Rambo and the steely determination of Hannibal by the end of the year.
Watched the TV movie about Temple Grandin this afternoon. Claire Danes is excellent and it’s an amazing and inspirational story. It’s easy to concentrate on the stress and the worries of our day-to-day life with Jake, but it’s really exciting to watch him grow and to continue to surprise us with new words all of a sudden. Can’t wait to see how he’s going to develop over the next year.
Jake and his dad 
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