Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advocating for an Anxious Child

Is this a SST (Student Study Team if your in a US public school) meeting or just a meeting with the principal? Don't be scared of a SST, it just means the meeting with have more than just the principal and is often the first step needing to get a 504.

You certainly should go to this meeting with the idea that the principal didn't mean to react the way she did. The key her to talk as if you are ALL ON THE SAME team. Keep your animosity towards how she behaved as a minor point/example as to how not to react. It's hard because so many people see this type of behavior as defiant when it really the child just becoming overwhelmed and it's hard to get them to see it that way.

The first thing to do is get everyone to agree on what the problem. Using my son's anxiety attacks in 6th grade as my example. What I agreed with my son's principal & teacher was it was "inappropriate for my son to be throwing fits in class". It's important that you acknowledge that there is a problem but try and reframe it so you talk specifically about behavior that is the problem and defer labeling until you can get everyone to agree to this step. If you can do this it should help facilitate your introducing why you believe the behavior is happening. DON'T SKIP THIS STEP.. if the principal tries to move on too fast keep trying to bring her back to this until you agree on the problem first. If you can't agree on the problem you won't be able to agree on a solution.

Only after agreeing about the problem should you move on to discuss why it's happening, the anxiety, and the potential solutions. Break the solutions down to three important steps. 1) How to lower his anxiety thus prevent attacks in the future. 2) How a teacher can recognize and defuse the situation when he gets anxious. 3) What to do if he overreacts again, and this is where you can bring up the principals inappropriate reaction.

Part one is going to be the most complex and you still may need to do more testing understand it all. You will probably not come up with a full solution tomorrow but you might find short term things to try for #2 & #3. The anxiety needs to be address for your son to be overall successful at school and might end up needing at 504 or IEP.

While at the meeting in order to look like I was working with them. I wrote down all their suggestions even if I thought they wouldn't work and said I'd look into them. I did things to show that I was activity working on the problem at home. In DS's case I explained that I was hiring out outside psychologist to work on his anxiety with him. I also agreed to have DS work with the school social worker, I thought it unlikely to help but my son said he did get some useful techniques from her.

My DS was in 6th grade and just turned 12 when we had the biggest problems. What we did that spring was 1) had him work with a private psychologist, talk about the fact that much of the stress was because of that particular class, school & teacher and he would be moving to junior high in the fall. Teacher modified the amount of work on some assignments. 2) He learned from both the school social worker & his psychologists how to recognize an attack was happening. He learned how to putting his head on his desk, closing his eyes and counting would calm him down. This was also a sign to the teacher who wouldn't make a big deal about his doing this. My son & the teacher worked out a code between them so he could alert my son he was starting to lose it. (It's not uncommon for those having anxiety attack to not know they are having them.) 3) If he went into full mode, he was to be allowed to go somewhere quiet to calm down. If that didn't work I would get called and take him home for the rest of the day.

I had the most problem with implementing #3. The principal thought my son should be able to talk about what triggered his attack immediately afterwards. I came to pick him up once to find the rest of class taking recess early and the principal & aid had him cornered in the classroom trying to get him to talk about what happened and then they expected that he would just open up when I arrived. While both the principal & the teacher were trying they still a long way to go to understanding anxiety. Usually after an attack my son couldn't even remember why it happened.

What I didn't do then but should have was have a full neuropyc workup. When I finally did we found out DS has low working memory and processing speed and this probably aggravates his stress level.