I had my first child, Ollie, at the age of 18. He was my beautiful baby boy, all 10 pounds of him.
As a child he was so easy and content, I never a bad moment. When he first started kinder, Ollie liked to keep to himself. It was about six months in when the educators noticed he wasn’t really participating much socially and had a hard time expressing himself emotionally. I was referred to see a paediatrician to look into his behaviours further.
The first GP suggested he may have (ADHD) and . I cried like a baby. I thought ADHD was something only naughty kids had. As for Asperger’s, I thought of all the development milestones Ollie had already met, I didn’t think he could be on the spectrum.
It took me until Ollie was aged seven to get his official diagnosis. That meant he missed out on all the early intervention funding - and that’s really what made our lives within the education system so challenging. It’s a long, costly and lonely process for anyone that has a child with extra needs.
From one school to the next
The first primary school Ollie attended, teachers noted that he wasn’t paying attention or that he was refusing to do work. He would get overly emotional and leave the room. Slowly his behaviour issues increased and he began to leave the school grounds completely. Police would be called due to school policies and I would receive a call at work and would have to drive around town looking for him. I remember crying in the car as I searched, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do.
Over these primary school years we had multiple suspensions and both Ollie and I felt defeated and embarrassed. So I moved him to a different school.
Andy and her son, Ollie. Source: Supplied
The same behaviours continued and the teachers didn’t seem to know what to do with him. I couldn’t for the life of me get him to explain why he was doing what he was doing. We moved to a larger town and started at another school, his third. I hoped this time we could get the funding for extra support for him in school.
We finally succeeded in getting funding and the school employed a teacher’s aid. However, Ollie didn’t like feeling different to the other kids and being labelled. By this stage he was swearing at most teachers and was again leaving school grounds. He was getting regular suspensions and the police were getting called weekly.
It got to the point where I was told there was nothing more they could do for Ollie and if he kept going the way he was going he would end up expelled.
I felt useless. I was still aged in my 20s and at this point I started to wonder where I went wrong and what I could have done differently.
I managed to get Ollie through primary school – five schools later.
High school however was a very different game. The expectations and consequences are much stricter. It got to the point where I began to resent Ollie myself. I was forced to leave work all the time, or I had to quit altogether because I couldn’t juggle both. I missed events because I’ve had to drop everything to go to school. There were many times where I was just emotionally wrecked. I seriously thought Ollie would not finish school and would have no friends or social life.
Educating myself
As I dealt with these challenged I went and completed a cert IV in education support. I was interested in the industry and I felt with my own experiences with Ollie I’d be good at it. Knowledge turned out to be power for me.
In Ollie’s first year of high school there was an orientation camp. He was uninvited because they were worried his behaviour could go south. That was my last straw. I felt the school was already putting him down before they gave him a chance. I called the education department, lodged a complaint and he went on that camp. There was no bad behaviour and he had a ball. I was so happy.
Since I had been given the proper training I began to question the school’s policies and procedures with Ollie. I felt certain things weren’t being done properly. I was older and wiser and I contested everything they did. Yes my child was challenging, but he still deserved an education.
The school ended up threatening expulsion. I could have fought it but it was no longer an environment where I wanted my child anyway.
My world came crashing down. I didn’t know where to turn next. I’m a single parent, I couldn’t work, and at this point I was too embarrassed to talk to people about it.
Finally I found an alternative school in Wodonga. They offered small classes for disengaged youth. Finally Ollie found a school that worked for him. As of 2021 Ollie is now doing the Year 11 Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning - a 'hands-on' option for students in Years 11 and 12. It’s a credential awarded to high school students who successfully complete Year 11 and 12 in the Australian State of Victoria.
For the first time ever he actually loves school (most of the time) and he has made friends.
I also experienced a first when I got a call from the school. It was his teacher, and I was dreading the bad news I thought I was going to be told. Instead his teacher told me how well Ollie is going, what he’s working on and that he’s such a great kid. I was floored. I cried.
It’s been a long journey for both Ollie and I, and not a fun one. I know teachers are overworked and underpaid but I hope in the years to come the education system can find a better way to support students like Ollie, and their parents.
