Meeting the needs of children when a parent suffers from mental illness

Today was the first day back at school and despite significant spike in anxiety for both my darling and I last night this morning's school drop went quit well.

S1 has his first day at special school, while I thought I had got used to the idea it was still quite hard for me. And I mean no disrespect to the school or any of the higher needs little people at the special school it is more a case of as a parent wanting so much more for my child. Intellectually I know this is the right decision but emotionally it is hard. S1 however seems confident in his new enviornment.

While S2 initally had some resivations about his assigned teacher for this year, after meeting her last week (school has a meet the teacher afternoon prior to day 1 of semester) and discussing his needs I am confident that he will get along with her fine and she be supportive of him and his unique personality. in fact she mentioned she quite liked his sensitivity.

We are still deliberating what to do about S3 and kindy. The kindy we want to send him to he cant enroll untill May due to minimum age. We dont wanty to send him some where else and move him. I am just not sure how my darling will cope with him full time once I am back at Uni. Grand parents are an option but significant poitics attached.

We are waiting for confirmation to see if our application for taxi transport is accepted for S1 (Available where bust transport is not suitable and distance requirement is met). At the moment the 2 diffrent schools adds over 20 km (40km / day) to the school run as the 2 schools are at opposite sides of town.

I was very relieved this afternoon that both S1 and S2 have had a great start to the school year. S1 particually seems confident in his new school enviornment.

S2 is not saying much but seems happy.

I have come up with a solution to spend more time with S2 who often feels left out and not noticed. Not sure if I explained in this thread or another but this is due to S1s ID and bub requiring so much time and attention. S2 unfortunately feels left out.

Because S1 will be going to a different youth group this year and school pick up is at the opposite side of town it will give me an opportunity to pick up S2 from school and have afternoon tea together 1 on 1 before youth group begins (1 hour time slot) while my darling collects S1 from school. I am looking forward to spending this time with him and am really hoping it will make a difference for him.

We had a puzzle over when it was appropriate to start kinder of our oldest daughter. She was born just before the cutoff date for entry, so could have gone to kinder at 3 going on 4, but she was small for her age and a bit timid. I'd watch her at playgroup with the "boisterous boys" that would be starting kinder at that time, and she'd shrink against the wall when the play got vigorous. So we waited an extra year, but by then she was itching to learn to read an write. The school agreed to let her start prep midyear, but she had trouble fitting in with the other kids and wasn't catching up academically (even though prep allows for a very wide range of ability) so she ended up doing 1 1/2 years of prep. I'm not sure if it would have been any better waiting the extra six months, and no way of knowing "what might have been".

The biggest thing that makes the difference is possibly confidence? How is your S3 in that regard?

S3 would fit in fine @Smc, my concern is how my darling will go looking after him by herself. Short term probably wont be a problem but by end of semester I think she will struggle. I think she is also concerned.

I have already spoken with our preferred kindy last year and they cant take him until 2.5 yo unfortunately, has something to do with accreditation I think.

Last year I just took him to class with me at uni and even work on a couple of occasions but that was at an age where he was happy to sit at my feet and play, he is at a stage now where he wants to move around and get into everything, taking him to class or to work just would not work.

I'd suggest finding out if your university has a creche? I had major surgery while I was studying my ceramics diploma, and our youngest was about a year old at the time. When I started the course, Hubby was being "primary carer' and looking after the kids during my classes, but having to be a carer for me as well while I recovered was too exhausting. Putting her in a creche while I was in class gave him some respite time. Due to my recovery needs, I was only doing a PT load, so it was one or two mornings a week. "Tots" creche was mostly playtime/food/rest time, but the older kids' rooms had programs similar to a kindergarten program in addition to the "eat, rest and play" part of it.

I have seen positive results from S2 re a commitment to spend more time with him 1 on 1.

Firstly with home work, this is made easier as S1 no longer has homework so my time does not need to be divided. While I was out of town this afternoon for an appointment my Darling asked if she could help, he just wanted to do something fun with mummy and save home work for me. (That is lovely as my darling is really tied up in knots about his homework so a big load off her)

Asked him what activities he would like to do together between school and youth group as again S1 will not be with us due to going to an older age group youth group. He just wants to do homework wow. He really sees it as something meaningful to do together.

After stupidly initally posting this in the wrong thread I will try again 😰

Sort of off track for this thread but involves meeting the needs of our children.

The dreaded time of having the discussion with S1 about puberty has arrived, problem is for our poor S1 is it will be like explaining it to a 4 or 5 year old 🤔

Personal information or 'secrets' are concepts that are foreign to him.

It just occured to me while writing this that the school may have some advice in this regard. Being a special school I sure we are not the first with this dilemma.

@Determined, that is a tricky one. I hope the school is helpful. We had a hard enough time with our MI daughter. She's more or less normal IQ (maybe slightly below, but hard to be sure because anxiety has a negative influence on the tests) but she has trouble understanding appropriate context sometimes. At the same time, she thinks she understands perfectly, so that's led to a few fraught discussions/arguments.