Well Wednesday was a weird day for him as it was his birthday and he had an appointment with his psychologist in the morning and then with his psychiatrist in the afternoon-you would think that having his record that they would know when his birthday was! Well it rained on and off and I was ill but he was pretty much ok compared to last year, wow last year he was horrid and aggressive and well let's not go there! He seems to be more relaxed the past few days and I think that is due to knowing that finally he knows that he is going to the school he wanted. There is a different atmosphere in the house too, a more relaxed atmosphere. I think this is due to actually knowing what is now going to happen in the future, his future and our lives have pretty much been on hold the last few years-not knowing how he would get help or if it was available, not knowing which professional to trust and who to turn to when things got really scary. As a family we have suffered a lot and as a couple me and my hubby have had only one thing on our mind and that was him and him alone-our whole lives have been set around him and he has controlled every angle possible. His sister has had to deal with far too much already and the strain has started to show recently, we should have had help a long time ago but as the saying goes 'better late than never' but even that doesn't make up for her missing out on a proper family life, it's an easy excuse but a price that we won't let happen again. I hope by people reading my blog that they can find comfort in my words that no matter how life feels to be going no where, that all seems to be lost and the years of screaming out for help that it can actually be achieved and that sometimes when you want to give up, the solution is right there but you just can't reach it. You aren't alone now. I am here and we can help each other. In once sense I feel uplifted and glad the whole battle is over but in another I know that I still feel sorrow and anger for all those of you that are still suffering and it hinders me to think that our children have to practically kill themselves or others or go downhill to the point of no return before anyone really really notices that they should have taken in what the parents have been saying for so many years. I hope that I can help reduce your screams and make changes in your life that will help them listen to you by you just reading all this. I hope that I bring you the force to carry on and not to give up when you have already crossed so many milestones to get here. Together we can make changes and right now my son is a milestone that I and my family have crossed. I won't let it be for nothing in that I just think of us, I will try my best in keep blogging the daily issues or maybe it will be weekly issues and let others know I am here waiting for them to hear me. If I can do this-then together we can all do this and our children will start to be heard and you as parents will start to be listened to. x

Yippee!

Just a very quick update: Our son has got his place at the school we wanted! All confirmed today and we have a start date too! He will be going to a great school with heaps of support and on site therapy to help him! I am very happy with this out come even though it has taken us a long time to get here, finally we can move and we can see him grow and mature the way he is meant to. He has so much potential and now I can truely see that he has a chance to be himself and become a more happy and vibrant person! Break out the champayne and pop for us all! Have a great day no matter what you're doing as the sun is truelly shinning here!! x

The past 3 weeks my son has managed to get excluded from school 3 times-every week for the past 3 weeks without fail! The first time was 3 Mondays ago and it was just for one day, the second time was last Tuesday and that was until Thursday of last week and today his 3rd time and that is until next Monday! Wonder what will happen last week of term then? Today has been particularly bad, we picked him up and all he has done is be violent, abusive, foul mouthed and nasty to his sister especially. He has trashed his bedroom, threatened to kill us all and whined and cried like a little baby-can't really say a little baby because even our under 2 year old doesn't cry like he does! His sister has got really annoyed and upset as he has not left her alone and bugged her and deliberately got in her way to the point of her falling over, bumping herself etc. He then screams at her when she refuses to play with him-he has been darn right disgraceful today and after 6 hours you would think he would calm down! Well at 7.30pm he finally succumb and decided to stay in his room and go to bed and go to sleep-well that's what he told us but we shall see when it gets to 11pm and see if he rises from his room and slams the doors and knocks on our door and says 'I can't sleep'. He has medication to aid sleep but that isn't working and so the nights are very long and after days like this all yo want to do is rest and relax. I agree with exclusions but the one thing no one seems to be that bothered about is the fact that if the family are finding the usual life difficult then having a kid at home even longer is worse and where is the support....no where because legally unless a child is excluded for more than 5 days no one needs to do anything at all according to our local council! They told me today that if a child is excluded for more than 5 days then the school have provide full time support at home! So all you parents in the UK that's why they never send the kids home for more than 5 days and don't accept 'unofficial' exclusions as they are illegal and you don;t have to take your child out of school or even home for that matter. They say that as it not only goes on your child's record but it goes on the school's record and no school wants to answer as to why they can't cope with a child! Also a 'Back to School Interview' is not mandatory but it is recommended to have and you can request one for the day your child goes back to school! All of the above has been clarified by the Council across the UK so parents-stand up for your rights and if you're unsure ring your local council-the more they know what's going off behind closed doors at schools the more they can step in and do something! Well off for my well earned Chinese....thank goodness it's nearly bedtime!

Wow...just wow!

3RD JULY 2009 So read my previous note if this one just doesn't seem to make sense! lolIt's Friday, yep friday but not a normal friday as its the friday after the elevating thursday and today I think it has finally sunk in.I feel weird, giddy, nervous and a little bluddy odd!I have spent so much of my life fighting for kaine, so much effort and resources searching for something, a way of life for him, a system that so long has failed to fight against, a chance to make someone not only listen to me but actually, just actually hear me word for word and breathe for breathe.I feel sad too but for the simple reasons that I feel a little redundant now-what am I to do now when for the past at least 8 years I have begged, cried, screamed and felt lost in a system where no one gave kaine the right environment to learn and thrive, to see his potential, to put him in his place and tell him to stop...stop wasting this life and let's start a fresh, let's sort this little boy out before his life ends too many years before it should. I have given up my job and career and I have fought pretty much every authority going, I'm a dab hand at paperwork and been engulfed in it for far too long that now when all is done and my 'work' for kaine has prevailed... I feel a little lost.Who am I now if not the fighter for kaine, the management of kaine's daily life, the board he fights against at every turn?So my fight has ended ok well I got what I wanted for him-the chance, the right and the hope for him to now change his life to the little boy that once stood in front of me with smiles and I was so proud of-he has been given a last chance, the final episode because if this school can't fix him by joe no one can and the ironic thing here is that for once, once in his life I do truelly beleive that this outcome will be great.I usually see the negative of any given moment with kaine as I have learnt that I need to be ok with that and if good happens then that is a bonus. But after years of no's, it won't happen and at every turn being shunned and only half way helped I do, I finally feel as though this is it, this is kaine's time.HE will flourish and grow, HE can achieve his goals, HE will prevail and prove to everyone that this is what he needed, HE needed this environement and he can be a great individual and can be his true self.I have not had that before yes of course I knew he could do better, he could if he tried and wanted to but this school is no normal school, this enlightens him, he actually wants to go and he wants to get involved and this to me is the best out of what kaine has said, he is showing an interest for this school.So I feel alive for him, scared and nerous too for him but somewhat unusual, fighting for so long and then wham I can stop....I'm not selfish an I love him dearly but his life has been a struggle to live with and the strain on my life, my marriage and the relationships witht he outside world have somewhat been shredded.I am thinking what we can do, what Isabella will be able to do-we can all breathe. Isabella can get the attention and focus she so deserves but doesn't quite receive as I would have liked her to have. I want to take her swimming, to classes to experience new things and learn life!I want to be able to go to bed with my hubby and relax and sit in silence at 8.30pm. It's gone midnight before I feel like me cos he takes up so much of your life that you might get a 30 min window when all is quiet and then all hell breaks loose when he can't sleep or he refuses to go to bed!I'd like to have a honeymoon-something me and my hubby never got to have-nothing extravagent just a few days away maybe while kaine is at school.I want to be a wife, a mother to Isabella and I need to find me cos somewhere along the way I lost who I was. I just became the one that fought and struggled for kaine and took all he had and squashed it up inside until it burst and I flaked. Ironically I flaked again Tuesday monring, if only I had waited another 24 hours and maybe it wouldn't have been so bad.I have my life now and Kaine can start to relearn, to start to feel his in a positive way, to find himself and open up to know that it's ok to hurt and be angry and it's ok to have negative things happen and to leanr how to deal with all this but to a positive degree-kaine can now start to just live, to be, to feel and to think and at every step I will be there for him and he will begin to know and to relaise that I have always been there it's just that he never noticed me before!I will get my son back, we will prevail and get through this, he will smile at us and hug us and be so full of radiance at the simplest things in life.I am no fool, there will be troubles and ups and downs, there will be rows and consequences and teenage stuff going on and there will be tears too....but I have tissues, time and trained, talented therapist, teachers, specialist on hand every step of the way for the next 6 years!Some may think I am sending him off...but walk in my shoes for the past few years and your conclusion would be different I can guarantee that. I have not always done the right thing, I have made mistakes, my past has made it difficult for him and me too BUT at every step I have made up for all this 10 million times over. I didn't give up when believe me I wanted to and the last few months have been sheer hel when I truelly thought that was it-life was over it wasn't going to happen....but then it did-he starts his life in septemeber and apparently so do we!

Life in the fast lane might change to a steady pace now.....

29TH JUNE 2009 So for anyone new to reading my notes it might be a good idea to read all the one's before but here's the updated version:kaine has had a very up and down life and education, he has struggled emotionally and mentally to function with normal ways of life, he has had at least 15 professionals in his life trying to 'fix' him, therapy for the past 11 months has proved fruitless, social services have tried to some extent to help but caused a lot of upset too, respite was asked for and given but only happened for 1 day as kaine had to be investigated and while that happened repsite stopped-the awful thing was the investigation should not have taken place as my son never and we knew he would not do the things his so called mates had said he had done.The impact on our lives by what kaine has done to our family over the past few years has reached crisis point many times...even to the point when I truelly beleived he was better off without me.His bio-dad has made kaines attachement to him awkward and unstable and this has had a knock on effect with his and his step dads relationship.Kaine has a criminal record and we have tried all we can to show him how much he is loved and I have fought against all proessionals and against the odds to make someone hear his cries. Kaine however has not made my fight easy as his choices have been to blame over the past 2 years and not his diagnosises that were preveiously held repsonsible for his lack of judgement, life skills and his education.He has been excluded many times and it is now being a weekly occurence! Yep he was kicked out again today at dinner until Thursday morning.I have fought 3 times for him to get a Special Educational Needs Statement and was finally issued with one not for his education but due to his behaviour! That in itself said a lot.Our next fight was to get kaine into the right school and as the LEA beleived he could go to a mainstream school we knew we had to fight again but after several months and me reporting every incident that no one else would to the LEA they finally about 3 weeks ago realised that kaine had to go to a special school!It was a relief and so our LEA had asked another LEA to check their special schools-it was ironc that a day behavioural school said no as they thought kaine needed a therapeutic environement (something we had asked for since October 08!) and he school we would have been happy to send him to said yes but opps because it was asked for was too late...yep you guessed it..it was full but he was put on the waiting list!Last week all these results came back and all our papaers from the Tribunal to appeal we here and so we thought ok another battle-the paperwork already had mounted up over the years and I now have a 2 drawer filing cabinet just for kaine's stuff and that's only for the past 3 years!The school we had wanted back in April when we vistied them, it was amazing and could give the 'worst' kid a way to change with their life. They were a residential school set in the rural countryside and the facilities were fisrt class-it was like flying first class as a passenger on a plain with all the features and champayne on hand!The methods they used were strict but fair and very workable. The problem was that it is 2 hours drive away and not in our LEA's region but back in April the school said they would accept him and had seen all the relevant paperwork as I made sure they had everything before we went!As the weeks went past I worried that the place woul be gien to someone else and as Sept approached we still had no idea what was to happen.I rang the school and they said the place was still there but if the LEA didn't act quickly then that place could go so I told the LEA this as there was to be a meeting today to decide what they were going to do-risk asking another LEA to ask their schools if anyone could take kaine or see if they would consider my proposal.....I have had my hopes dashed for kaine many times and worried like hell all day and he goes and gets excluded which doesn't help and then at 2.31pm his social worker called and said he had been asked for information and that the LEA were considering the school we had asked for months ago-I wasn't aware of this so promptly rang the LEA to be told 'we are asking the school' I also asked who was going to pay for the residential side because they had had to be force into paying for respite and I was concerned that if they said no would that mean he cant go but the LEA said that they would sort this in house which basically means and she told me this that they had asked for a 38 week residential place term time only-exactly what we had asked for!So the paper work is on its way to us to confirm that this is what they are doing. let's just hope that the school or their LEA say yes that placed is still availble (it was last friday)So we shall sit and wait eagerly, nervously and with intenseness.What the hell they are going to do if they say no is beyond me!

Life in the fast lane but never going forward....

20TH MAY 2009 So here's an update on my life!We are moving house in 2 weeks....yeah yeah I know 'wot again!' I hear you all shout!Yep well after 18 months and the boiler being condemned so many times now that we have lost count, its geting rather tedious with no hot water or heating!Isabella's room is the biggest bedroom and the radiator is the size of a pea-ok slight underexageration-but yeah it's not good enough and having to use another electric heater when we have yep when its working....gas central heating in this day and age is ridiculous..we have asked if another sized radiator can be fitted but the answer was a blunt no....I'd pay for the bluddy thing myself but still a flat no.Still no word on whether Kaine can go to the residential school eventhough the school have given us a verbal yes! The school has so much to offer and is absolutely packed with therapies and understanding staff but again we have to go through the whole set of motions.My Tribunal Appeal is pretty much ready and with the school that the LEA want him to go to saying a big no way can he come here and the psychologist saying if you send him there you will screw him up more....you'd kinda think someone with brains would say hmm maybe they have a point.So the appeal could tak us into November and yep school starts in September and yep we are sat here all thinking oh what do we do in September?? Yeah good point! Still working on that answer!If we loose the appeal well that will be it, no more fighting, no more asking for help, no more loud screams of 'oi lets change this little lad before it's too late', the end will be the here and now, there will be no more. That will be it and the fight will be done.Carrying on just isn't an option when all you see, feel and know is black, you can't fight when everyhing that is going down the toilet is your life, your daughters life and your family life, it is drifting so far away that all we do is for him and so when the end comes yo have to just say stop.The only thing that can help Kaine is this school, the only way his life can be turned around is this school, no amont of 1 hr per wk therapy is cutting it anymore and that comes from the man who gives it to him every wk!10 yrs is a long time to keep fighting and then for it all no to go the way you want to makes you feel like your fighting against the odds so screw them odds lets just do as they want, lets just say enough is enough and let be what is to be. I know what that means while half of you sit and wonder what I mean and maybe the few that know me know exactly what I mean and yep you few would be correct and the rest who think you know what I mean could be sat swearing your head off and saying you can't give up and just stop......watch me!I will allow whoever has control over Kaine to let them forsee his downward slope into hell and at least when judgement comes I can say 'I fought for 10 yrs and you can't change if it's supposed to be this way but I fought anyway and I lost'.So the next few months will be like they always are, rough, loud, aggressive, violent, depressive, lonely, hard work, frustrating, emotional, torture, annoying and well just for us we say 'normal'.I did however sit yesterday and watch my beautiful daughter fall asleep with her head titled to oneside and her smiling mouth dummyless. The face of an angel and with no care in the world and with every moment that she speaks, touches and holds your hand, with every joyous cheer and sweet giggle.....reality hits home like a thud that can be heard for miles around....her happiness, her home life,her childhood yrs will be spent being second, being verbally and aggressively betrayed by her brother, she will beleive and grow up to think that what she lives in is a normal world where hatred and resentment and remorse is just what should be......Could you truly live knowing that your daughter's life has to be that way? Would you sacrifice the younger sibling for the older one?Could you sit back and see another child feel alone, frightened and resentful towards her only brother as she grows up?Can you sit back and wonder what life she could have had if you just ahd the courage, the strength and the realisation that someimes, just sometimes a person can not be helped where they are and the only solution is to set them completely free....Judgement day is coming....let the 'god of god's' make the right choice and pay for that price dearly if it costs another young life.Eternal and always.The one that dares to speak, the one that dares to dream and the one that dares to do what others fear. I am me, me is different, I do not go by the norm and I do not abide by the rules that are forever broken and corrupt. The time will come when I will be issued the words but we shall see what those words will be-Am I a bad person or am I merely thinking outside the box???

It's a yippee, oh now what, yippee, oh now what-sort of week.....

2ND APRIL 2009 1-So we are still waiting for Kaine to get his Police Reprimand and to be spoken to by his PCSO about his Anti Social Behaviour-I have left them both a message today as it has been over a week now.2-We have just moved our belongings from one allotment site to another and the decking is done and the shed is up already at the new site-all in half a days work! The people on the site are so helpful and friendly and they really make you feel warm and welcome!3-Kaine's open evening went ok as we already know how he is doing and his rehersal SATS have gone well too-not that I agree with the amount of pressure these kids are put under when then results ould be done by marking their school and homework! Some kids are freeeting so bad that they are having knighmares about how bad they will do in the tests-another Government mess that lets kids feel the presure and the parents feel the pain from ther kids!4-Kaine decided yesterday to go pick-pocketing and went into his classmates coat which was in the cloakroom and steal £5.00 from her and then as he was caught with it he flushed it down the toilet-his attitude was carefree and defiant. he just simply said to us today after we confirmed who it belonged to....'give her a fiver then will ya'! the cheeky runt expecs us just to pay for every mistake he does! His teacher wasn't happy as she now can't trust him to even go to the toilet on his own!5-We have been told we have got the house we requested wih our estate agent-it's a very excecutive looking/feel house, a lot of money has been spent on the house and it's imaculate....we were reluctant due to Kaine but we decided that sometimes you just have to live your life for yourself and the other members of your family!6-We meet the Respite carer's in the morning-we know their names and jobs and that they have a daughter but other than that we don't know anything else or what we should be asking!So it's the usual up and down sort of week, some good news and some not so good news....hmmm pretty much a normal week then!

What a mother's day that turned out to be!

MOTHERS DAY 2009 Well Saturday was exciting and very good as I was given the news that a plot was available on an allotment site that I had put my name down on last year! The site is great and the people are very friendly and it has even got insurance and if I thought that wasn't the clincher then the fact that they have even rotivated the whole plot was!So Sunday came and I had cards and presents and a lovely meal cooked and it was a lazy day until...He decide he wanted to play out late afternoon and he knows the rules-he plays with 2 people only and if they are not in he is to come straight back, if he wants to go somewhere else he is to come home first and tell us.So off he toddles with his scooter and we think all is well until it starts to get dark and it's past the time when the other 2 people would go in. So Nick goes to both of their houses to find him not there and to be told he left them some time ago, panic starts to set in!Nick comes back and then starts a search of the estate only to find him with a spray can and a group of people that he shouldn't be with-most of them are in his class at school but one of them is a teenager!His scooter has been spray painted on, the climbing wall of our local park has his name sprayed on it and broken glass is outside an elderly person bungalow.....he admits in this avant gard way with no regard to anyone that he sprayed his name broke all the glass bottles onto the floor and doesn't give a hoot for anyone else's safety!I was wondering whether to call the police to report him awol but my thoughts then turned to a boy that has no respect for the law or for other people. he has spilled his behaviour straight onto the paths of the public and sprayed his 'I just don't give a shit attitude' all over someone else's property.His attitude was diabolic, disrespectful and he didn't care whether anyone would be hurt with all the glass over the public path where young children walk to school and older people access their homes. No amount of reasoning that night or the following morning was sinking into this boy that belongs to me!A boy who goes against everything I stand for and everything I have brought him up to be. I did not recognise this boy at all and resented him with intolerance and disgust that the boy that once made me smile with pride (yes a long time ago) had made me feel ashamed that he belonged to me.He was warned that we would be speaking to our local PCSO about the situation, he knows the PCSO as he comes into school and plays a vital role in our community and he has helped us try and keep Kaine on the straight and narrow path. I left a message on the Monday morning for him to ring me but on my way down into town we realised that a PCSO wouldn't be able to do what we had to do-press charges.Now some of you may say that informing the police of what you own child has done is really bad but for us it was the only thing we could do to be responsible parents and show him that breaking the law was not to be accepted. If we did nothing we would not be helping him but reinforcing that he is able to get away with anything and we have strived for at least the past 2 years with police matters to make him realise he has to take responsibility for his actions.I did not feel guilty as we spoke and informed them of what he had admitted to, I did not feel any betrayal towards this child that so freely thinks the world is his own to do with as he pleases. This child needed to learn and learn before he was commiting even worse crimes.We were told even though he had admitted to it, if there was no report when it actually happened then they may not be able to do anything unless his attitude was negative or he admitted to police when they arrived! This somewhat annoyed me as I thought the little sod is going to get away with this and think he is invincible so I raised my concerns and told them about the PCSO and they decided that he should be the one to contact me that afternoon.So when he did he asked me what I wanted to do and I plainly said throw the book, 3 police offers had already spoken to Kaine previously before he was 10 over the past 2 years and nothing had stuck and all we saw was a kid spiralling out of control. It was time to make a stand legally, it was time to show Kaine the law and what it meant and why we had rules in place.We hoped that this time maybe just this time it would work so to cut the story down-he was reported for Criminal Damage as the Community Centre wanted to press charges and we wanted them to as well. The braking of glass was classed as Anti-Social Behaviour and that cold be dealt with by the PCSO.My son has to report to the Police Station for his Reprimand, his photo to be taken along with finger prints and DNA.We also decided that he would publicly wash the spray paint off the wall and the floor and remove the glass and I hope that when we are informed of when this can happen that there is a very large crowd that will take notice, apparently this is used as a deterent for the child not to repeat the offence as the humiliation makes them feel guilty.My son now has a Criminal Record at the age of 10-me and Nick don't even have that!He has 2 bites of the cherry and if he screws up after that a court appearance will be next-depending on the severity of his next crime as sometimes if it is really bad they go straight to court.My son over the past 2 days has thought all of this is a joke so let's hope when the Sergant down the station gets a piece of him he will realise crimes aren't worth doing!