Had another round of appointments this week, trying to ascertain the nature of our son's behavioural patterns. How I wish that we did not have to keep going over the same stuff over and over and over again! Luckily my husband and I are at a point where we have got our heads into the right place about our children having special needs, but even so the whole process is incredibly frustrating and still at times upsetting. Had a last minute cancellation to see the mental health nurse this week to try and ascertain what help if any we could receive regarding our son's behaviours at home. Not much came of this really apart from the fact that she said that we needed a core person to coordinate the plethora of professionals that are involved in our son's life. She said that she could not really advise us on what to do regarding behaviours as it sounded to her that we were doing all the right things anyway. Although this was a great confidence boost, I was a bit disappointed in a way as I was sort of hoping that they would come up with something glaringly obvious that we had not thought of that would solve all our problems!

Three things however really irked me regarding this meeting. Firstly when we arrived she said that we did not need to have brought our son despite the fact that her secretary had said that we did. Another missed school morning for no reason. Secondly, despite being a so called professional, I could not believe how inappropriately she spoke to our son who she was aware has moderate learning difficulties. The blank look that she received when she asked our son whereabouts in France we are going on holiday said it all - we are lucky if he knows it is on the same planet let alone which district! Lastly, it really angers me, the number of times that we have to discuss our children and their problems in front of them. Talking about the level of cystine in his urine is just about acceptable although a bit weird. Discussing the frequency of aggressive acts that he commits or the fact that he cannot properly mix with his peers is certainly not. Even if our children do not understand what we are saying we should at least afford them the dignity of not being discussed as though they are not there. As a result, the meeting we attended was full of vagaries and innuendo which did not do anyone any favours.

Our second meeting was with the Autism consultant who was really nice. He needs to do a fully prescriptive assessment to make a diagnosis but the general thought was that our son has possible mild autism or may just be off the diagnostic scale. Whatever transpires, we should treat him as though he has ASD as he shows a range of the traits. Again though we were told that it did not really matter as a label is just a label and does not really mean anything. YES IT DOES!!! Not only does it mean that we can get our heads around things and respond appropriately, we can access support groups and the filling of the dreaded DLA form is much easier, but also when he is of an age when he can understand, it will make things a lot clearer for our son. Honestly, whilst I have a lot of respect for most of the professionals who have helped us, they do say some frustrating things sometimes! How I wish that they would try and put themselves in the place of the parent or child - our lives would be so much easier if they did.