How does your middle school help your teen with anxiety and depression?

[Anonymous]

Are there any special accommodations and if so what do they do to help your student? How responsive and understanding does your school seem to be towards your student who is struggling? I am particularly interested if you have a student who expresses their feelings externally. I think the students who internalize it all maybe harder to spot.

[Anonymous]

My child's school did little to nothing.

Hope someone has some better experiences and solutions to share.

[Anonymous]

We know a family in another state whose daughter ended up with a teacher visiting her home for instruction because her anxiety was so severe. But this was after a couple of hospitalizations. It was not a first line of defense, and not something that I have heard of in any of the large school districts in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

My kid is allowed to leave the classroom and go sit in the nurse’s room whenever needed. We have the option of doing 50 percent of the homework. (Don’t usually exercise the option but sometimes it is so much work to keep it together all day that the thought of an hour or two of homework is just too overwhelming.) We also have extra time to make up missed work due to absence (we have struggled with school refusal on and off for several years) and missed assignments do not count towards a disciplinary offense.

As far as treating the anxiety, we go to therapy every week or two and DC is on anti-anxiety meds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is allowed to leave the classroom and go sit in the nurse’s room whenever needed. We have the option of doing 50 percent of the homework. (Don’t usually exercise the option but sometimes it is so much work to keep it together all day that the thought of an hour or two of homework is just too overwhelming.) We also have extra time to make up missed work due to absence (we have struggled with school refusal on and off for several years) and missed assignments do not count towards a disciplinary offense.

As far as treating the anxiety, we go to therapy every week or two and DC is on anti-anxiety meds.

Is your child's school helpful in dealing with the school refusal? We struggle with that as well, and the school does not offer any helpful advice.

[Anonymous]

The middle school counselors and staff were amazing - I can't speak highly enough about them. They were caring, responsive and worked to develop a rapport with my DC even when my DC had walls up. High school has been completely different and, in many ways, worse than ES. They don't take a 'whole child' approach. Communication between staff is poor, there's little/no coordination even though all academic classes for my DC are team taught by a general educator and a special educator. I tried getting a mentor for my DC (one of DC's teachers ran the program) but couldn't get anyone to send me information on when they would be meeting - it was all after school and unless I pushed DC to do it, DC wouldn't go. Since I never knew about the meetings, DC never attended a single one. What's worse, is when DC tried out for a sports team. DC played this sport for years and was pretty good - not great but solidly middle of the pack. DC should have made the team but did not. It was crushing. Not every sport at that school has cuts. A number allow anyone who wants to play to join the team. If that school were truly as committed to reaching each student, being inclusive, supporting, nurturing and all those things they spew, they wouldn't cut kids from activities they want to pursue. There's something powerful about being on a team and, unfortunately, my DC has decided there's not point in trying any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The middle school counselors and staff were amazing - I can't speak highly enough about them. They were caring, responsive and worked to develop a rapport with my DC even when my DC had walls up. High school has been completely different and, in many ways, worse than ES. They don't take a 'whole child' approach. Communication between staff is poor, there's little/no coordination even though all academic classes for my DC are team taught by a general educator and a special educator. I tried getting a mentor for my DC (one of DC's teachers ran the program) but couldn't get anyone to send me information on when they would be meeting - it was all after school and unless I pushed DC to do it, DC wouldn't go. Since I never knew about the meetings, DC never attended a single one. What's worse, is when DC tried out for a sports team. DC played this sport for years and was pretty good - not great but solidly middle of the pack. DC should have made the team but did not. It was crushing. Not every sport at that school has cuts. A number allow anyone who wants to play to join the team. If that school were truly as committed to reaching each student, being inclusive, supporting, nurturing and all those things they spew, they wouldn't cut kids from activities they want to pursue. There's something powerful about being on a team and, unfortunately, my DC has decided there's not point in trying any more.

Oh no. That’s awful about your DC’s HS sport experience. Do you mind sharing which school? I have a middle school student and I’m trying to figure out the next step.

[Anonymous]

She should be able to get a 504 for accommodations. If you’re unsure what might go into it I suggest google “understood.org anxiety” Although how useful a 504 is seems to vary by school from what I’ve read on DCUM (I only have experience with one school).

Hugs! This is hard.

[Anonymous]

It's fair to say that my DD's ms did not understand how depression and anxiety affected her day-to-day performance in the classroom. For us, the biggest problem was the one-size-fits-all approach to disciplinary policies at the school. If you have a kid who leaves the classroom when overwhelmed, you get into disciplinary territory pretty darn quickly. Even when a flash pass/take-a-break accommodation was written into the 504, teachers would still punish first, ask questions later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is allowed to leave the classroom and go sit in the nurse’s room whenever needed. We have the option of doing 50 percent of the homework. (Don’t usually exercise the option but sometimes it is so much work to keep it together all day that the thought of an hour or two of homework is just too overwhelming.) We also have extra time to make up missed work due to absence (we have struggled with school refusal on and off for several years) and missed assignments do not count towards a disciplinary offense.

As far as treating the anxiety, we go to therapy every week or two and DC is on anti-anxiety meds.

Is your child's school helpful in dealing with the school refusal? We struggle with that as well, and the school does not offer any helpful advice.

Our therapist takes the lead on that but the school is cooperative with her suggestions. (Which have been various, but things like shorter days, back work forgiveness, when DC was younger, her teacher kept a chart of how many time DC left the classroom to go to the nurse so we could see progress and set goals.) The school itself has no resources to lead this though. Do you have a therapist?

[Anonymous]

Yeah, no. Everyone we’ve dealt with in the school environment has had no clue about mental health, LDs and kids. Hell, we even had a school counselor who actively fought against our DC getting an IEP.

[Anonymous]

So far we have had a very good experience at my kid's fcps middle school for anxiety.

[Anonymous]

HS parent here. My son Fell apart at the start of high school. I was able to get an IEP due to anxiety and depression. The IEP addresses learning disabilities as well. The IEP includes the typical flash pass, use of earbuds/music to get through anxiety, co-taught classes, safe spaces, special counselor and teacher assignments, etc. we are just getting started on Home instruction (offered by the school - I didn’t even think to ask for it) due to absences for hospitalizations and school refusal. In summer school he got a one on one and ability to do all school work at home (which involved some cost to us - maybe $40 plus the cost of summer school for books and movies).

Honestly, I can’t imagine what more the school could do to support my son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The middle school counselors and staff were amazing - I can't speak highly enough about them. They were caring, responsive and worked to develop a rapport with my DC even when my DC had walls up. High school has been completely different and, in many ways, worse than ES. They don't take a 'whole child' approach. Communication between staff is poor, there's little/no coordination even though all academic classes for my DC are team taught by a general educator and a special educator. I tried getting a mentor for my DC (one of DC's teachers ran the program) but couldn't get anyone to send me information on when they would be meeting - it was all after school and unless I pushed DC to do it, DC wouldn't go. Since I never knew about the meetings, DC never attended a single one. What's worse, is when DC tried out for a sports team. DC played this sport for years and was pretty good - not great but solidly middle of the pack. DC should have made the team but did not. It was crushing. Not every sport at that school has cuts. A number allow anyone who wants to play to join the team. If that school were truly as committed to reaching each student, being inclusive, supporting, nurturing and all those things they spew, they wouldn't cut kids from activities they want to pursue. There's something powerful about being on a team and, unfortunately, my DC has decided there's not point in trying any more.

Oh no. That’s awful about your DC’s HS sport experience. Do you mind sharing which school? I have a middle school student and I’m trying to figure out the next step.

It's Edison HS in FCPS. For my NT kid, Edison is fabulous. Not so much for my kid with the IEP.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. My child goes to Key MS, which has been very good so far but I’m concerned about high school. The rating for our middle school has gone up but the rating for our high school has gone down. I’m not sure why since the middle school is the only one that feeds into the high school. If the middle school students go on to the “base” high school, why aren’t the ratings similar for both schools?