What can you do as a teacher to help my children? Take the time to learn, I know you are experienced and may have taught many children with special needs but every child is unique, including my children. Read their notes, ask questions of us as parents, of the SENCO, Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists involved in their care. Most importantly get to know my child and how their needs affect them in a school day and remember their condition may vary from day to day or even within the same day. Once you do get to know them then you will spot the signs of tiredness and pain much more easily, putting the adaptations and rest breaks in place will become much easier too .

We don’t expect you to know it all, as parents we learn every day, since our children’s symptoms started, we have read extensively about their conditions, we keep up to date with any developments and network with other parents. We spend the most time them and are most definitely the experts in their care. Our knowledge and personal experiences may mean we appear over fussy and protective but we fully understand the impact that bad management in childhood can have in later life, both with their bodies autonomic system and with damage to their joints.

You must accept that your teaching style or classroom organisation may have to change. These may be simple things like; allowing them 5 minutes to stretch after a long assembly before they sit down in class to work, having their coat peg in a position where they won’t be knocked by other children or sitting down for 2 or 3 minutes while you give the instructions to the class in PE before the task begins.  However it may sometimes involve carefully pacing all their activities and planning in rest breaks to avoid them falling into a nasty cycle of fatigue.  Please do not underestimate the impact that these changes can have on a child.

You will need to think ahead when planning school trips, outings, lengthy rehearsals and sports day. You have to carefully consider the impact that it may have on them including what extra support they will need in order to fully participate. When everything is planned and considered the knock on affects for their health later that day or week can be greatly minimised. We will do our utmost to tell you if something different has happened at home or before school, if they have had an injury, are in a flare or are particularly fatigued. Please make this easy to do, don’t always tell us how bad their day has been at the end of a school day when they are listening. We try so hard as parents to give them a positive self image and to be positive about their condition. While we need to know what has happened please consider what will be the best way to communicate by email, link book, text or telephone call.

You will need to communicate with the other professionals that are involved with our children from the lunch time assistants to other teachers, teaching assistants, the school nurse, Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists.  We appreciate that you are all very busy but it is very difficult for us to become everyone’s PA, ensuring open lines of communication between all parties.  If you keep us regularly informed we will not keep bothering you for updates.

Please be flexible with homework, while our children are often competent enough for the tasks that you set, school is hard work for our children as they struggle to be ‘normal’ all day. This takes a lot of concentration and is very tiring. When our children get home from school, they are often exhausted and have to rest, it can be difficult to get them to do their homework. Remember that we often have Physiotherapy or Occupational Therapy to do with our children in the evenings and at the weekends and they may have attended appointments as well.  We value their school work, we do, after all our children will need to use their brains!  However we also value the importance of them being children, attending clubs such as ‘cubs’ and ‘swimming’ outside school is important too.  Keeping all the balls in the air can be hard work, requiring great skill.

It is common for children with health conditions to be affected emotionally. While my children are confident, don’t let that confidence fool you, they are fully aware of their differences. My older child chooses not to discuss this with his friends, he doesn’t want any undue attention but he understands that to manage this he has to communicate with the adults at school. This requires trust. My younger child is feeling left behind by the children in the playground, it bothers her. If these issues aren’t managed well they will become compounded and will affect their work in school. Involve the children, put the ‘child’ into a ‘child centred approach’, talk to them. We are trusting you with the most precious things in our lives to educate them and manage their care during school hours. As a teacher you are ‘responsible for the progress and development of all pupils’ and with this privilege comes great responsibility. For those 6 hours a day we rely on your knowledge of our children and your skill of being able to recognise the subtle cues about their health. If you act on what you see by pacing, simple classroom adaptations, chill out time, hydration and changing position regularly you will help them to manage their condition and ultimately improve their health. Rather than the alternative, to sink deeper into a flare, become more fatigued or to have more injuries. All that has to be better for their education?

So much time and effort is spent dealing with our children’s health it becomes important not to overlook their strengths, like all children they want to do well and they need your approval. There will be areas of the curriculum that they always find tricky, we know that, so when they are good at something please don’t forget to give them their chance to shine! In the words of Magic Johnson ‘All kids need is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them.’

Missed part 1 of this post? You can find it HERE

Join The Community

Chronically Empowered is a community of women who have chronic illness.

You may feel like no-one understands what it’s like living with your chronic illness or worrying everyday about your kids. That you are hanging on by a thread or the future may feel a little uncertain. In The Tribe we get that.

You value life and want to be the best version of you. To manage your symptoms effectively so that you can live your best life. 

We will be having real, open conversations about how you can do this. With my experience of living with multiple chronic illness’ and raising kids with CMT, EDS, PoTS and ME. I know that the struggle is real. I will be sharing guidance, challenges, my personal tips and real life stories to remind you of how this can become a reality now!

You can’t see the brace that they wear under their uniform to keep their shoulder in place but you may notice that they aren’t as strong on their dominant side when they throw a ball because of their weakness after a dislocation. You won’t see the knee supports they wear under their school trousers just to stop them aching so much by the end of a school day but you may notice them fidgeting in their seat more as the day goes on or as they try to change position when everything hurts.

You can’t see that they become dizzy on standing (sometimes even sitting), you can’t see that their blood pressure doesn’t regulate correctly, particularly after lunch when their blood is needed to digest their food. You may notice that they need to drink more or they don’t concentrate so much at certain times of the day. You can’t see their fatigue, it in itself has many different forms; where they wake up tired even though they are getting a good nights sleep, where their muscles don’t have the energy to do a simple job, or when they can’t think straight and their brain is ‘foggy’. You won’t really see my children be so physically exhausted that they are nauseous or vomit, we try hard to manage them so that it does not reach this extreme, but sometimes it does.

More often you may see them leaning on a chair, a doorway, a table because they find it hard to stand. You may see them slump over their desk for support because their body finds it tricky holding them in an upright sitting position. You may notice the dark, dark circles beneath their eyes even though they were in bed early every night this week. You might notice them get left behind when running in the playground because they can’t keep up no matter how hard they try or them choosing to play positions on the football pitch where they don’t have to run so much. When the fatigue is particularly bad you may even see a child choose not to join in with their friends because they are so tired, to choose to rest at playtime on their own.

You can’t see pain, but you may see a fidgety child who can’t seem to get comfortable in any position who rubs their joints or struggles getting up from the carpet. Or you may see them fall because their legs give way or their jaw get stuck momentarily as they yawn and it pop back into place. While all of these things are invisible at first glance, for a good teacher, one who is in tune with the needs of the children in their class, if you look closely, you will see. My children are confident, they are bright. They won’t be the ones struggling with the work in class, they are switched on to the job that needs to be done. They will be making progress on the data sheets, but it is important that their condition is never allowed to get in the way of this.

My children have developed many coping strategies and on the most part do not admit that they are in pain, they accept it as normality. One of my children, the one with the most needs, is super independent and determined. A quality I admire and would never like to change but I know it may seem that she doesn’t need your help. She does.

What you may be unaware of is what goes on at home for my children. The fatigue is the trickiest thing to balance the meltdowns after school, the falls. Even when the fatigue is relentless getting to sleep can be really tricky because people with hEDS or hypermobility make extra adrenaline. Once they get to sleep pain and cramp can disturb them at night adding to the fatigue the next day.

You won’t know that we still have to use a buggy for our 5 year old or a scooter so that when she is tired she can be pulled. At home we do endless physio, this is really hard when everyone is tired at the end of a school day but so important to build stamina and stay strong. You won’t see the gators tucked under the bed for stretching, the numerous gym balls dotted around the house or the designated drawer in the kitchen for therobands and hand putty. You won’t realise all of the hospital appointments that the children attend both before and after school adding to the length of their day. In half a term one of my children attended 8 hospital, GP or Physio appointments and I have had 7 lengthy phone calls with different professional involved in their care. You may not be aware how important stamina is for our children, taking part in sports crucial. Please don’t think that because they worked hard and got man of the match playing football for the school team that they are better now. What you don’t see is the pay off for that reward, two days of severe pain and a week off of school recovering because symptoms have flared up. Is it all worth it? Yes. They are children and these memories are important. Will we stop them attending a party at the weekend, playing football or even climbing trees at Go Ape? No. We plan, pace, limit the risks, brace where we need to and not relax for a minute but we will let them be children, have a go, sometimes fail and get up and try again and be prepared for the pay off later.

What you may not know is that as these conditions are genetic one of the parents will be affected. Usually painting on their smile and pretending that the pain, fatigue and autonomic dysfunction as well as daily dislocations and subluxations just aren’t happening. After all there isn’t time for all of that!  Living with the conditions ourselves we understand the struggle to be ‘normal’ and we know that what they are experiencing is real.  Remember, the most powerful thing you can say to a child with an invisible illness is… ‘I believe you’.

Want to read part two of this post? You can find it HERE

Join The Community

Chronically Empowered is a community of women who have chronic illness.

You may feel like no-one understands what it’s like living with your chronic illness or worrying everyday about your kids. That you are hanging on by a thread or the future may feel a little uncertain. In The Tribe we get that.

You value life and want to be the best version of you. To manage your symptoms effectively so that you can live your best life. 

We will be having real, open conversations about how you can do this. With my experience of living with multiple chronic illness’ and raising kids with CMT, EDS, PoTS and ME. I know that the struggle is real. I will be sharing guidance, challenges, my personal tips and real life stories to remind you of how this can become a reality now!