A Rant about "America's Medicated Children"

I watched BBC2’s “America’s Medicated Kids” presented by Louis Theroux on the iPlayer last night and whilst I wasn’t unsurprised at what I saw, (Why make a programme about medicated kids if there isn’t what we as “normal people” would believe to be a problem?) I was enormously saddened by the fact that the very first thing parents and doctors in the USA turn to, if they have a child whom THEY perceive as being different or difficult, is medication.

I was, as I always am when watching his programmes, incredibly impressed by Louis Theroux’s ability to handle so vast a subject so sensitively and manage to condense it into a 59 minute programme. How he manages to speak to such stupid, stupid people and keep his cool, I will never know. The more I watched these selfish people, who find rearing children just a little bit too difficult, the more I wanted to hit them.

The most salient line of the programme was, for me, the gentle reminder Louis gave to the viewer about just how much power parents have over their children. Something I am ever conscious of as a mother. I have Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” pinned to the notice board in my office to remind me every single day not to mess around with my child’s head – because I could if I wanted to ... so can all parents – but why on earth would we?

How DARE these inadequate people place the calm-running of their own lives above what is actually best for their children. Is it the US culture that causes this? I suspect there are many parents in most countries who would take the easy option of having a drugged child to manipulate and mould to their own convenience, if they could – but we were only privy to US parents in Theroux’s programme.

I wonder what makes these people decide that a boisterous 6 year old, a pre-pubescent 11 year old boy and a girl of 15 who is patently full of hormones need MEDICATING. They need parents who will give them some time, who will listen to them and interact with them ... not pills.

Rant over. I probably need to have my blood pressure checked. It feels as if it’s sky high just now.

Thou Shalt Not Wear Crocs

The too, too long Easter holidays are over and I am learning that living within walking distance of son’s school brings with it new responsibilities and rules ... commandments that – according to son – I am breaking every day.

Son, it would be fair to say, has the road sense of a three toed sloth ... basically NO idea of left, right, roads, zebra crossings or anything at all that would aid his staying alive on the way to school or on the way back. For this reason, we decided that for this week and this week only, we would walk him to and from school – or at least walk with him until he could see the gates and that we could see him go through them (naturally, from a respectful distance).

It is absolutely verboten to kiss son on saying goodbye to him ... although this is a rule that HE forgets and lifts face up for a quick peck before zooming towards the school entrance to join his friends.

I’ve been using the short walk to meet him in the afternoon as an opportunity to take the dog out for a brief trot. It is on these occasions that I have learnt that the wearing of Crocs is a heinous crime and a cause of massive embarrassment to son who has worked out a way of walking directly in front of me so that none of his friends who happen to glance at the pavement will be able to see what I’m wearing on my feet. Of course, I trip over him and the dog and far more attention is drawn to us than would otherwise be the case.

I am also told WHAT to wear and precisely how much make up to put on my face. I am living in Essex. However much make up I may slap on, I’m never going to present any real competition to the other mothers. I can only hope to be a pale and ghostly imitation.

I give up. I asked son if he would also like me to imitate the other Mums’ accents. He decided against that one but I have been requested not to speak at all.

As of Monday he will be walking to and from school on his own. I will be able to wear my Crocs, speak how I usually do and even go out without two tubes of slap on my face. I can barely wait.

A Concise Crisis of Confidence

I’ve just glanced at my blog and realise that I’ve been spasmodically scribbling for 13 months now. I wonder why I thought I could write.

So much of what I’ve written seems trite, banal – even boring. Re-reading my self-conscious words, I wonder why I keep putting myself through this.

There are certain things I know I want to say and certain things that, to misquote Donald Rumsfeld, “I know that I know” but why on earth would I have the temerity to think that anyone would want to read about any of it?

I’ve had a too long break from writing “regularly” and my confidence seems to have completely deserted me ... not that there was much of it to start off with.

My son keeps telling my husband that I’m a writer. I’ll stick with it for a while longer. I would hate to disappoint him and, anyway, I don’t really know what else I would do in its place.

Our house is a very, very, very ... err ... NICE house?

Well, after three months in the rented London Dungeon (a teeny, tiny flat that was more suited as a “pulling pad” for a single 35 year old male than it was for a family) and what has, for reasons many and varied, seemed to be the longest completion of a purchase EVER, we are – once again – installed in our own home. We are now, of course, noticing everything that’s wrong with the place. I don’t even know where to start to describe the ever-growing list of priorities that aren’t just frivolous desires but urgent imperatives.

I’ve always thought I had the ability to see past other people’s ideas of décor when I view houses. I walk around thinking “yes, a loo can go in the cupboard under the stairs” and “I can fit an en suite in there” or “let me just rip this kitchen out and start again”. Not so much “Grand Designs” as “logical enhancements”. My viewing of this house was no exception ... but what I should have been doing was asking whether there was a combi-boiler, whether there were any leaks and if the shed at the bottom of the garden was lined with asbestos. I didn’t do any of that. So desperate was I to be away from the London Dungeon and so exhausted was I from driving 50 miles each day in rush hour traffic to get my son to and from his new school, I thought – THIS house is a 3 minute walk from the school and THIS is obviously where we must be.

The house – in “estate agency speak” – is “inter-war”. It was built (or possibly propped up by the two houses either side of it, in its mid-terrace position) in 1929. It has, without doubt been “ahem” modernised ... I reckon probably sometime in the 1960s but – since then – only cosmetic changes have been made.

Coat after coat of paint has been applied to each and every inside door – without ever a thought given to planing any of the wood off prior to repainting hence, apart from the door to the only toilet – which is upstairs, NONE of the other doors in the house actually close. At least two of us can be found most mornings going cross-eyed on the landing waiting for the third to exit the toilet. And ... when one of us is lucky enough to gain access to the toilet – these are what we get to look at!

And we can look at them in the separate bathroom, too – wherein they cover the walls AND the ceiling!

I like luxury as much as the next person – but REALLY is a downstairs loo “a luxury”? Not when you’re 53 years old, you’ve had your first child at the age of 41 and you completely forgot to do your pelvic floor exercises thereafter, it isn’t ... a downstairs loo is an absolute bl**dy necessity!

The master bedroom isn’t a bad size and has elements of – if I lived in North West London – what I would call “Golders Green Gothic” about it ... but I don’t. I now live in Essex, so I believe the house’s current state of decoration could be termed “Barkingside Byzantine”.

Oh yes ... every bedroom should have its very own chandelier ...

and – naturally – covered radiators are the ultimate in good taste!

My son has opted for the smallest bedroom ... he likes “cosy”. He certainly HAS cosy. And only about a third of his treasured possessions actually fit into the cosy little room. Never mind. He has overflowed into the spare room which has melamine-clad fitted wardrobes and very useful they are, too – they’re just not quite as “attractive” as the ones in the master bedroom which have the benefit of fake antique gold “stuff” stuck all over the place.

But – that said – the master bedroom doesn’t have the benefit of an electric shower strategically placed in its corner which the spare room does have.

Of course, what would only improve both the master bedroom and the spare room would be some of these:

... very Barkingside Byzantine and scattered liberally throughout the through sitting and dining room!

I avoid looking at them too much because they make me itch to rip them off the walls.

Where do I start? And – in describing – for fear of boring you ... where do I stop?

Outside, we have a thingy that is corroded and leaks.

I don’t know what sort of a thingy it is but it looks most ominous and I think something ought to be done about it very quickly.

We also have one of these ...

... which is open to the elements at both ends and I would dearly like to pull it off the wall (and then hit the vendor and the estate agent with it ... after I’ve hit myself – of course – for having been completely STUPID).

I desperately need a job to supplement the income from our business in order to start putting into action the many, many, MANY things that need doing to this silly little house – and that’s not going to be easily achievable!

And of course, there are sadnesses ... our darling German Shepherd (who was too large and too bouncy to live in a size-challenged house that the sale of a property in Catatonia deemed was all we could afford in the outskirts of the capital) is no longer with us but having a whale of a time in 3 acres of land in Kent.

For all of the sadnesses and inconveniences, I am once again sitting on my own comfy sofa rather than the concrete couch that nearly broke my back in the London Dungeon. I have a fat Westie snuggled up to my right and an aging black cat snuggled up to my left. That HAS to be fine ... poor old moggy was used to living in the shed in our old house and is now able to spend his twilight years inside as a lapcat.

I like living in Essex! I never thought I would, but after three months of living in the environs of where the London Dungeon was situated, I find Essex friendly ... and it’s wonderful to be within walking distance of a very cosmopolitan High Street. We're quite close to BNP heartland so, I have great pleasure in thumbing my nose at Nick Griffin because I LIKE THE MIX!

I’m enjoying using my own cooking utensils again – now crammed into a too, too small kitchen, and the smell of the first home-made chicken soup bubbling on the hob ready for Friday night in three months is a plus! There are some things that are absolutely okay about my world – and, of course, the very best okay bit is the fact that I have a happy kid. His education and the way he talks about his new school make every single inconvenience pale into total insignificance.

We are HOME.

Please bear with me ... I'm getting there!

I’m very conscious of the fact that it has been a very long time since I last wrote a blog. I’ve WANTED to write a blog ... it’s not like I haven’t got anything to say – I have and that’s the problem! I have rather too much to say and - due to the ongoing, rather strange and very stressful circumstances that I’m living through at the moment - it’s probably wiser that I don’t say ANY of it!

How does the expression “a still tongue in a wise head” translate to blogging in the 21st Century? It doesn’t – easily – and as the word “wise” never really sits comfortably in the same sentence as the word “me”, the premise isn’t too relevant just now anyway! “Sensibly still fingertips at the end of madly gyrating arms belonging to a body with a very puzzled head on its shoulders” is awkward terminology and makes me sound like a human windmill but it’s probably a more accurate description of the rather dark and miserable place that I’m occupying just now.

So, for the moment, please forgive me but I’m keeping rather quiet. I shall return and I will write what I really do have to say.

NEW YEAR - ALL CHANGE!

Well, here we are in London ... well in the outskirts of the capital at any rate. My son’s first day at his new school was last Tuesday – rapidly followed by two days off due to the inclement weather conditions (which didn’t actually stop US from getting there but “Health & Safety issues” made it necessary to close the school for fear that children may have thrown a few snowballs at each other).

He was rather circumspect after his first day ... he’d been off school since I removed him from the Arts & Media College in Bournemouth in November 2009 and, to be honest, I think ANY school would have been anathema after that length of time. He’s been partaking of private maths tuition and his Ma’s slightly deranged take on home education since I withdrew him from the Bournemouth school. I’m not exactly sure how much he’s learnt over the past couple of months but he’s now not quite as fearful of dealing with all things numeric as he used to be, he knows all about The Goon Show and can sing “The Ying Tong Song” very well indeed.

I was VERY edgy about his reticence after his first day and you can only imagine how relieved I was when I collected him on his second day (which turned out to be last Friday) when he was grinning from ear to ear and telling me how much he’d enjoyed himself, how great the teachers were and how puzzled he was that two young ladies had asked him out. I am blessed with a son who’s neither aware of how handsome he is, nor how cool. He was very bemused indeed that anyone of the opposite sex would be interested in a “nerd” such as he thinks he is!

He had homework to do over the weekend and even set about that with gusto. I expect the novelty will wear off soon and we will settle into a less excited routine but how very good it is to have a kid who can’t wait to get to school each day.

The house is all but sold in Bournemouth – we’re due to complete by the end of this month and, not being a great one for “hanging around”, we’ve already found a house very close to his new school indeed and have had our offer accepted on it. Hopefully we should be installed therein by the end of February which will be marvellous ... the house is truly nothing special – just a three bedroomed, solid, terraced family home – but how good it will be to move out of the tiny rented flat we’ve been in since the first day of the year and once again be able to have our “own” stuff around us. It will also be very good not to have to travel 48 miles each day on 2 school runs!

My last blog "The Lunatics Are Running The Asylum" attracted a great deal of publicity thanks to that ever-delightful and kindest of Tweeters, Stephen Fry, but - inspite of hearing responses to it from the Headmaster of my son's previous school and a representative of a large teaching union on the BBC's "South Today" and on Radio Solent - I still have had not ONE word of explanation nor an apology for the mismanagement of my son's education at that school ... other than the Union representative stating during his interview that my blog had not been "helpful" to the "professionals". Oh, I am SO very sorry ... would that these "professionals" had have been "helpful" to my son!

So, we’ve had a tumultuous few months – an emotional roller coaster during which there have been many occasions when I’ve questioned the logic of the decisions I’ve made and the decisions following the “big decision” haven’t been easy at all. We’ve sadly had to have our much loved big dog re-homed as it just wasn’t feasible to bring her with to London; we’ve had to up sticks and move from a very comfortable home indeed firstly to a rented, furnished flat; we’re still coming to terms with the implications that moving may have for our business and a lot of time is spent HOPING that trade will be as good as or better for us in London than it was in Bournemouth – but the main thing is we have a son who is now enjoying going to school and is getting the sort of education that every kid deserves to have. And THAT is worth all the doubts, fears, uncertainties and soul-searching.

THE LUNATICS ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM

There is a school in Bournemouth which was, until a few years ago, a “Boys’ School”. It didn’t have a very good reputation – and deservedly so.

Then it changed its name. It became an Arts and Media College – and some of us “fell for it”. I am the proud mother of a hugely artistic son. I’m not proud for pride’s sake. My boy is very talented and has been published. He lives, eats, drinks and breathes art – it is quite simply “who he is”.

When the time came, a couple of years ago, for us to choose his secondary school, his father and I scratched our heads and worried a great deal. Bournemouth is rather better known for catering to an aged population than it is for its merits in either primary or secondary education. It would have been a “nice thought” to have my son crammed for the Grammar School entrance examination. He isn’t very good at Maths. The thought crossed our minds but I worried about what would happen when the “cramming” ended – and, to be honest, the Grammar School isn’t “grounded” in the Arts and our son needed a place that would help him to channel his talents.

I “did” the Open Day circuit and ultimately decided that the school that had the best facilities for an artistic kid was the one called an “Arts and Media College”. Everything that a child with a leaning towards the arts would need was PHYSICALLY there. I couldn’t fault the Arts studios, the state of the art drama and stage equipment nor, indeed, did the Radio studio seem to be too out of date.

My son started at the Arts and Media College at the beginning of Year 7 in September 2008. And the dream ended.

He was SO excited on the morning of his first day. The occasion was special enough for both his father and I to take him there – he was just a bit nervous ... but so was I on my first day at “big school” and who wouldn’t be? It wouldn’t seem to be quite right walking into a new environment cocksure and brimming with abundant confidence, would it? But some kids did. His father and I sat in our car watching what seemed to be a very vulnerable little boy walk in – thankfully – with a friend from primary school who’d arrived at the same time – but other boys hurtled in, charged in, blustered in and barged in – were they older children? No – the first day of each school year is for Year 7 children alone.

When I collected him in the afternoon, my son was quiet. I asked how the day had gone and he told me that he was in a class with only one other boy he’d known from primary school and most of the other boys in the class seemed rough, unfriendly and “bullish”. Some of them had older brothers at the school – they, apparently, were the ones who were the roughest.

Day 2 was less “special” than day 1 and on collecting him when school finished, I have to say that I actually felt quite intimidated by the raw, pubescent aggression that tumbled out of the building at 3 o’clock. My son, when he got into the car, was even quieter than he had been the day before.

Fast forward 18 months.

Every school day for the past academic year and a half my son has PLEADED with me to be allowed to stay at home. And every morning, I felt as if I was being the worst mother on earth by insisting that he WAS, indeed, going to school. If only I could have been just slightly reassured on collecting him each afternoon – but I wasn’t. Each day, it seemed that worse things were happening to him. He is a child who likes to learn. He is eager for knowledge. Each day, his “legal right” to a decent education seemed to be a completely alien concept for the members of staff at the Arts & Media College to get to grips with.

I am not, by nature, a molly-coddler. I know EXACTLY who my son is. He’s an artistic kid but no angel – quite capable of naughtiness and there are bits of me that punch the air in glee about that. I was no “angel” at school, myself ... fortunately I had an “air of innocence” that got me out of many a scrape.

He is an artistic child – not a wimpish one. He has a tendency to be a “thinker” and one who tries to rationalise the actions of those around him. I can’t blame him for doing that ... I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong, but I do it myself.

He has spent the last 18 months trying to rationalise the actions of lunatics – and for his efforts in so doing, he – as one of the more studious children at his school, was shouted at by his teachers when he required explanation about a lesson because his “teachers” – who often weren’t teachers at all, but teaching assistants, were so busy trying to keep the levels of aggression down in their classes and the “easiest” kids to shout at were the ones who wouldn’t shout back.

In 18 months, my son had 5 pieces of homework. Not 5 pieces of homework per night or per week. No; just 5 pieces of homework during his ENTIRE time at the school. There were some subjects in which he never had the same teacher for two consecutive lessons. The school appeared to be staffed by supply teachers and under-qualified teaching assistants. How wrong of me, I am leaving out members of staff who seem to have strange titles such as “Achievement Coordinators”. Their role, it would seem, is to smooth things over when the crowd control of the supply teachers and the teaching assistants fails to work properly. They don’t actually seem to do much about “achievement” at all. And I mustn’t forget the congenial Acting Headmaster whom, if a parent writes to him, fails to respond unless nagged ... rather a lot. On the last occasion when I wrote to him, I did – after many enquiries about whether I was going to get a reply – actually receive a ‘phone call from him.

He told me that the two days I’d requested for my son to be absent from school were authorised and that he’d had a very amiable chat with him about the various and very real grievances that I had written about. He also told me that he intended “consulting” my son on a frequent and regular basis because it was very useful for him to know what was happening in Year 8. I pinched myself quite hard and, with as much dignity as I could muster, asked him if it was not HIS job to know what was going on in his school with the help of the teaching staff rather than relying on a pupil to tell him of such. The fact that the pupil was my son is neither here nor there but the “legal right of a child to a good education” should not, in my opinion, include being a “lookout” for the Acting Headmaster.

Well, at least I was safe in the knowledge that the two days that my son would be absent from school had been authorised by the “man (not very) in charge”. I was stunned to receive a letter from one of the “Achievement Coordinators” a few weeks later asking me to justify why my son had been absent as his absence had NOT been authorised. I responded in writing, citing my conversation with the Acting Headmaster and expressing disbelief at the communication between the various staffing departments within the school. I delivered the letter by hand to the school one morning after dropping my son off. I saw (with my own eyes as opposed to borrowed ones) the School Receptionist open my letter. I heard no more until 10 days ago when I received a curtly worded text from the school DEMANDING that I give them an explanation for my son’s UNAUTHORISED absences. I blew.

During his 18 months at the Arts & Media College with really very excellent facilities for an artistic child, my son has been subjected to physical bullying and appalling mental intimidation. I do not believe he has learnt anything at all. I drove – with my husband – to the school and exercised my right as a parent to take him out of there. I asked to see the Acting Headmaster but he was apparently in a Disciplinary Meeting. Why wasn’t I, in the least, surprised? Instead, I was apologised to by two “Achievement Coordinators” who sent a timid looking boy (whose education appeared to comprise being at the beck and call of the School Receptionist) to get my son. My son arrived in Reception and I asked him to go and collect his PE kit. He did – and WE TOOK HIM HOME.

I am home educating him until the end of this term and next term he starts at a new school in London. It doesn’t have “Arts” or “Media” in its name – it doesn’t have to ... it has a reputation for absolutely no bullying at all, an ethos of celebration of children’s achievements and very close ties to Chelsea Art School. Well done, LEA – we are selling up and taking a severe downgrading in housing and monetary well-being because you are unable to provide our child with his legal right to a decent education.

A few weeks ago, I read in the Bournemouth Echo that a great deal of money had been allocated to refurbish schools in the Dorset area. Hello! LEA – are you listening? Get a load of this:

You do not need to refurbish school buildings. You need to spend every available penny that you have on employing some decent teachers who aren’t afraid to take charge of the children in your care, provide those who need discipline with it and impart your knowledge to those children who want to learn rather than shout at them, because they’re the kids who you know very well “won’t answer back”. You need to be in charge of the asylum – because currently, the lunatics are running the show and you are NOT – repeat NOT – providing the children in your care with their legal right to a decent education. You do, dear LEA need to get your act together.