when no one at school, sees it, gets it or believes it...

Oh, sending you some cyber hugs, it is so hard. We spent many a parent's evening wondering whether the teachers had the right child's details in front of them as home life was so different to how they presented at school. We have also seen the switch from holding it together to letting it rip from the moment they get in the car.

Things can and will get better.

I know it is said so many times by lots of people on this site but look after yourselves, it is so important.

Mooster x

Hooray after a major crisis in the street with Tweedledee not getting in the car..seat belt etc (with no tied in reason why being discernible) I 'threw' her into the car and drove the few yards bAck to school, gates now open. The aim really to call on teacher...in leaving the carpark with children in it Tweedledee leaps out into the bushes hollering and screaming. I had gone around the corner...in that time her behaviours were witnessed by staff. Result, myself frowned on for desertion... but at last a few of my comments heard and now she will get positive play. A start at least and teacher had the nouse to say Tweedledee maybe didn't feel safe as she witnesses Moptop being violent to me so seeks to control the situation herself...bravo!
ThAnks for your heartfelt responses both. X

Oh Lankelly I have so much empathy. This all sounds so familiar and I know from other posts that our kids have similar issues. 

I once sat outside Monkey Boy's classroom for an hour in full view of the teacher and TA. I was trying to use every strategy in the book to get him to go in. I was in my work suit clearly about to be very late for important stuff. Not once did they come out to ask if or how they might be able to help. Eventually they ended up wrenching him off me as he clung to my leg which was awful. According to them I was obviously doing the morning routine wrong as he was fine with dad and the other adopted kids at the school (turns out they were not adopted from care) just don't have these problems - no insight into separation anxiety and primary attachment figures. Eventually our play therapist helped us persuade them that someone he liked needed to come out to meet us to support the transition but in our case we often found ourselves waiting and waiting as they had forgotten or it just wasn't possible to do it that day. Now his sleeping as you know is so bad that we are late everyday but he does then go in. Things shift but we find you get a new problem to replace the old one. At the moment he is just 20 minutes late so I face lots of parents walking back looking at me in a disapproving way tut tut you need to get up earlier I can feel them thinking. One of them said ah mornings chaos isn't it. I said yes I've been up since 5.30 getting everything in place to micro-manage the routine and I still get to enjoy the chaos. They looked stunned.

We have the car violence thing when they come out of after school club. It's not a very ordered environment and this makes the transition a nightmare. I've been sworn at had half a large puddle kicked all over me, rocks from the path thrown at me, and just randomly thrown near cars etc. After this kicks off both my two then climb on the roof of the car then if I get them in the car, they attack each other with whatever they can find in the car. I then have to remove the less violent one out of the car for safety and be alert in case the other one takes the handbrake off. All this is witnessed and all is assumed to be my inadequate parenting even though I am doing my four seven eight breathing, trying to get the calmer child to do the same, staying totally attuned, they can see my intensive parenting and my total calm in the face of chaos.

As far school not getting the complexity I could write a book. Apparently according to school our children are years behind their peers but this just because they have barriers to learning and don't you know we should only expect baby steps - so they set pathetic goals and the kids get further and further behind their peers and feel rubbish about themselves. However according to school MBs self esteem is great because he volunteers to take on really difficult tasks e.g. even though he cannot form letters so that you can read them, his reading/spelling at the level of a 4/5 year old 9he is 8) he wanted to write a chapter for a book - wow we were so thrilled they say. I on the other hand can see this as "scared kid super kid" because that same day he was a nightmare at home and announced why do I just get baby work why doesn't my brain work like the other kids, he then spent the evening being very dysregulated no doubt because he was not coping with the realisation that whilst he wanted to write the next chapter he could not even write a sentence.

Our PAS are offering the schools they are working with free training. I think this is important - the training has to come from adoption experts. Lots of schools just use general play therapy companies to do training around adoption if they use anything at all. I also think they don't really want to face the reality of 21st century adoption from care it's a pretty horrible world and better to bury your head.

Keep going Lankelly, keep pushing, and keep ranting here - it's great therapy as we really do get it and believe it!!!