Why as an expat I'm permanently stressed. Education and evicting tenants.

My youngest child doesn't want me to blog about him anymore I don't mention the name of hubbies company as I don't want to jeopardise his employment, but I will blog about how the company and my son's upcoming adventures affect me as a wife and mother as well as an expat on a continual loop of trying to adapt to my new life.

Due to quite a few things not being put into place by the company, our move to South Africa has not gone well. Two and a half years later we are still sorting issues out. With hindsight, i.e. 'what I know now' things would've been done differently, but I didn't know then what I know now. I also didn't know what questions to ask as I didn't know what to expect......are you still with me?

I'm currently in the UK for a variety of reasons. One being to evict tenants from our property after they ignored their two month notice of eviction. It's taken me three weeks to get the court order papers drawn up and issued (well I was told they'd be issued either Tuesday or Wednesday, today is Thursday, by the solicitor who took £775 off me, but I'm none the wiser still) I don't know yet when I'll fly home as the tenants have two weeks from receiving the order to vacate the property or it's back to the courts for me to make an application to have the bailiffs sent round. I will then have to submit costs and receipts for damages through the small claim courts. No my agent can't sort it, he's just as much to blame in my book for not letting me know about the difficulties until February this year.

The second reason for being in the UK is to sort out the youngest (he who can't be named and talked about) and his education.
The company (they who can't be named either) informed the school, to secure a place, that we would only be in South Africa for two years and didn't pass on the Special Educational Needs reports. To be honest, like the house, I trusted the professionals for the first year while we found a home, made friends, adjusted to life away from family, our adult children, dealt with the guilt of leaving etc, etc.

Our eldest child who is 18 is due to Matriculate the end of this year. The degree system in South Africa is very different from the UK and basically does not suit his future career, so he will remain in education until December 2014 to convert his Matric to A levels. He will turn 20 the following month, in the January and won't be able to start UK university until October 2015. He will be nearly 21 when he starts. He will have spent two additional years in school.

We don't want the youngest child to be in the same situation, especially if we have to move. He is severely affected with dyslexia and dysgraphia, his education has been adversely affected and he needs to do GCSE's.

I'm now sitting and waiting for the company to decide if they will pay school fees, I can't work in South Africa and if I could, I wouldn't earn anywhere near what I earned in the UK and bare in mind we afforded private boarding education in the UK prior to becoming expats. I'm also waiting for the tenants to decide when and if they move out, relying on the courts and their timescale to assist me getting my house back and finding new, more suitable tenants. I have issues with the insurance company that do not mention in their literature that 'unless you have a personal reference it's a waste of time having insurance as they won't pay out'

In fact I have quite a few issues with other people, supposedly professionals that I wrongly assumed would act accordingly, letting me down, causing me stress, valuable time away from my family and considerable expense.

I'm angry, upset and very sad. Sad I will be sending my youngest back to the UK for boarding (dependent on others, if they say no, we're stuffed) I'm putting my emotions in my suitcase and zipped them away for the time being. I'll have to deal with them at some point in time, but with everything else going on 'how I feel about my son leaving home' will just have to wait.

Special Needs in Main stream schooling in South Africa

I've spent the WHOLE morning googling, I've spent many mornings googling and phoning schools and tweeting and asking and requesting help for my son's education is South Africa.

He is Dyslexic. His school (private) are unable to support him, they even disreguarded his UK assesment forcing us to pay to another one done and guess what? It's the same assessment. They now request we have a new assessment done as the IEB (Independent Education Board) need evidence less than 3 months old.....Do they know something I don't? Has there been a cure since then?

Our most sensible option is to return to the UK. this morning I was chatting to another expat who did just that for their childrens education, but there is no job for hubby in the UK unless he wants to travel Europe Monday - Friday and we don't want a part time marriage. So we nned to explore boarding schools. Our son was at The Downs in Malvern prior to us relocating and the support he had was terrific, but he was at the stage where his next school, Malvern College, and the fees were moving out of our price range and I needed at least another year of my career to be able to fund approx £23,500 per year in fees.

Not being able to work here has removed the option of boarding from us, we don't have rich relatives, nor does hubby as an expat earn the type of money that you hear about. It's a myth. So even if we did return to the UK, it will take me a few years to re establish my career, by which time he will have finished his GCSE's and I wouldn't have been around to provide the additional external support required.

One of his biggest problems is his lack of concentration after his inability to read, write and all the other issues, so all these additional lessons and therapies available out of school hours and at additional, considerable, costs are just not practical solutions.

If you have any experience of the South African education system or of Dyslexia, please let me know as I'm banging my head against the wall while my son continues to fail his school terms.

I cam across this website today. A parent's guide to schooling in South Africa, found a Question that I related to and wept as I read the response:


My daughter has special learning needs. Do regular schools have remedial programmes, or must she go to a special school?


It depends on the severity of the problem and on how well-resourced the school is. In 2010, there were 104 633 children in 423 public special needs schools. There are also private schools for children with severe remedial problems or disabilities.

South Africa has a policy of inclusive education, which includes various models to integrate special-needs children into ordinary schools. However, a lack of resources and infrastructure have meant that this policy has been slow to implement and children who have been mainstreamed don't always get the special education they need.

Some of the better-off schools, both state-aided and private, offer remedial education in one form or another. They employ remedial teachers and run small remedial classes alongside regular classes.

How do you move on when there are issues still to be resolved?

Last week I was told it was time for me to move on.
Who told me this and why?
HR at hubbies company.
Apparently I've been here 18 months and I need to let things drop and move on and that I should be used to things here by now and why don't I just google like everyone else does when they need things doing?

Well that's what I have been doing since the very day we arrived in South Africa. So why am I still complaining?

Many of you will know that from my blogs and tweets that despite promising to do stuff, hubbies company have failed and let us down big time. Yes, I've got on with things at either considerable expense, time or emotionally and we have moved 3 times in the past 18 months and received no help whatsoever with anything.

OK again, big deal you say, but the difference is there is a contract stating what help they will provide, it was agreed as part of the relocation package and sorry if I'm speaking out of turn, but I thought a signed contract was legally binding.

So why have we moved 3 times?
We started off in tempory accomodation, it was ideal, a 6 week lease and the promise of assistance to find a more permenant property. So trusting we would get the help, I got on with trying to open bank accounts, get a SIM card, buy a car, settle the kids into school, but all was impossible as I only had a visitor visa and no proof of residency as the apartment was in the company name and trust me I really had to scream and shout to get anything done.

Two weeks prior to us needing to leave the apartment there had been no sign of finding other accomodation. The owner arrived with the new tenants to show them around and the company hadn't requested to extend the lease or find us anywhere else to live. By this time after failing to get a mobile phone on contract I had obatained a PAYG SIM card after asking a stranger to buy and register the card for me and used a very old UK phone which had poor battery life and no internet connection.
I thought I'd visit the estate agents in the mall to discover that's not how things work here. I needed to find the agents name from one of their bill boards and call them. Emmmm bill boards inside security estates and without an invitation, no entry.
So I got in the car and drove to hubbies office, saw HR and said 'we have 2 weeks to find somewhere to live, I need to view some properties'. She dug deep in her bag and produced a battered leaflet, circled a name and walked off, using the office phone I called a few and was told that nothing was available with such short notice. Then I found an agent who showed me a couple, another agent failed to turn up at one address. Then I found a property available on the date we needed it, the rent was higher than the allowance but we had to move and and that point I was still being misled about obtaining a work visa, so thought we'd be out of pocket for a while but that it would be ok when I found a job.

So add to this we'd had no medical aid when we arrived, it was in the contract, we'd requested it and were out of pocket by 1000's of pounds after eldest child was rushed to hospital on day 8, neither had anyone thought of giving us any info on how and where to find doctors, dentists or even where the nearest hospital was. Our car loan has to re paid within 2 years, visa regulations and the borrowing costs were 14%, this was where the HSBC had let us down with misinformation.

So moving forward to December 2011, we had to move, we simply couldn't afford it, so after all the hassle we'd had the company employed an agency to assist with a new move as they wouldn't up the rental allowance to cover our costs.

What a waste of time that was. We were shown 2 properties end of January 2012 and nothing else.

So last week I find myself back in the office, with the new HR, listening to excuses as to how she wasn't in post back then and what did I want? Bear in mind I was only there having sucessfully found new tenants for our old property, found a new house to rent, contacted and supervised removal firms and cleaners, negoiated the contract with the owner, transferred all the utilities. All at the same time as sorting out issues with youngest child afer discovering the company hadn't forwarded all the SEN info we'd provided them with, paid a fortune to have him reassesed. Arranged a reader and a scribe for his exams, at our expense after discovering the company had emailed the school to inform them we were only in the country for 2 years, so they'd not really bothered with him being Dyslexic and having dysgraphia.
And then to top it all off, the agency had invoiced the company for all the work I'd done, claiming it as their own, in regards to the move, some several thousand pounds. Dealt with an emergency trip back to the UK after my father had a heart attack and renewed our visa application.

So what was my point? What did I want?

An apology, an reply to my emails when I said I didn't know what to do and where to do it.

Whay did I get?

I got told it was time for me to move on and if I wanted an apology she could request one.

Where do you go after a diagnosis of Dyslexia and Dysgraphia?

I knew my son was dyslexic, despite never having a formal assessment in the UK. He went to Private School and the government wouldn't provide funding for support in school. So we paid the additional support fees until Grade 6.



He moved into state secondary in grade 7 and we started the formal procedure for testing. The school accepted he was dyslexic and provided the necessary support.



However within 3 months we moved to South Africa and with his school records having been passed on from the UK, we assumed the support continued, we were and still are getting invoices for additonal support.



Yes I know I said 'assumed' but he was happy, passed grade 6 to move into Junior Prep, but to be honest, having moved to the bottom of the earth, there were so many other things we were focused on.



At the start of grade 7 in January, it became obvious within a couple of weeks that my son was having problems, he was labelled a bully, a manipulator and generally an uncooperative child. We'd not had any of this mentioned to us in grade 6. After inital contact with the school it appeared our son was being discriminated about (I've written many blog posts about how our Englishness has caused issues here)



In February I contacted an Ed Psych who tested my son and asked questions about his early development, she was in total agreence that he is indeed dyslexic.



I attended the feed back session today and was informed that he also has Dysgraphia, an inability to write. His other fine motor skills are good, his verbal reasoning is that of a 16 year old, but his reading and spelling are that of a child half his age and his written words per minute is 9.



He will now qualify for additional support and a reader for his exams when he is older and he will be allowed to type all his class work.



However it appears it is my job to ensure the school follow the plans to support his education that were written by the Ed Psych and myself this morning. (I lecture in Special Education Needs).



The reason for this discussion is that I have little knowledge of Dysgraphia, other than his inability to write and it does explain some of the emotional issues we've been faced with over the years.



Is there anyone out there qualified in this field or is or has a child who has dysgraphia? I would love to hear from you.

Do labels help? Children with difficulties.

This morning someone I tweet with introduced me in a tweet to a lovely lady who has a child with SWAN.

SWAN means Syndrome Without A Name. It means that any person without a known disability involving a chromosone defect is called SWAN, lumped together into one category. We don't know what is wrong so we will diagnose you as SWAN.

But what does it mean? How does it help?

I have a problem with SWAN and it is something I've experienced. In fact I don't just have an issue with the label SWAN I have an issue with the label Learning Difficulties also.

My step daughter has been labelled SWAN, she has learning difficulties, as does my youngest child who isn't SWAN.

My son is dyslexic, my step daughter has a chromosone defect, she is unable to toilet, communicate (verbally, PECS, sign language, make eye contact) she requires 24hr supervision, she is a danger to herself and to others, has no awareness of something being sharp or hot, she will react if she touches the hob, but she will do it again next time as she does not recognise that it will be hot and it will burn. She is unable to tell you if her tummy hurts, if she is happy or sad, she will cry or laugh for both situations, she is agressive but it is not intentional. She has no long term health problems.

So what is the benefit of her being diagnosed as SWAN? None as far as I see. My sons diagnosis of dyslexia means he will get appropriate support at school, dispensation during exams and if we lived in the UK, funding for his needs in school.

My step daughters learning difficulties are obvious, her funding is secure, she's unable to do anything, she does not require support, she needs it doing for her. This was pointed out after a funding review, where the carers were PC and said 'she needs support chosing what she wants to eat' she will eat what is put in front of her and everyone elses on the table, she will grab a lemon, bread, a raw potato and eat that, she cannot open a cupboard to grab a bag of crisps, in fact if you give her a bag of crisps, they make a lovely sensory noise until the bag bursts over the floor.

We have many friends with children with learning difficulties similar to the level of care my step daughter has and similar to my son in regards to the level of support required and the costs involved.

My back ground has been teaching and support with adults and children with learning difficulties to main stream adults and children with additonal support required for their learning and with people who want to train to work with people with learning difficulties.

I have been told by a few people that as I'm not the birth mother, I don't know what it is like feel so isolated from everyone else having such a profoundly disabled child, it was easy for me to pack her off aged 12 into residential care. And they are right, NO I DO NOT KNOW HOW IT FEELS. HOW COULD I?

But I do know this and I can share it with you. Having a child with any kind of difficulty is hard, having a child without a difficulty is just as hard.

I have been at both ends of the stick,

'Do you think it was any easier to pack a disabled child off to residential school, as the wife of her father, as mother to all our children?' Which school? funding? dealing with other peoples attitudes?

'Do you think it is easy to get a diagnosis for a child with dyslexia, navigating your way through a sytem that wants to throw you out at every step?'

'Do you think it was easy to move to South Africa and leave my 18yo son behind in the UK, he'd only left home 4 days before we were asked to move here?'

'Do you think it is easy on the other siblings to spend their lives being told, we can't go on holiday/to the theme park/have friends round/have a party for new year? as it's not fair on your sister, she'll not sleep/will pull someones hair/will take food off people's plates in the restaurant.'

Many of our friends haven't sent their children away, they've not judged us, they've just said they can't do it. Many have and regretted it, many have waited till their child was older and regretted not doing it earlier.

I've been involved in placements for children with difficulties, I've supported parents through the process, I've prepared children for the move, with visits and flash cards and journals made together. I've worked in family support, as a foster carer providing respite for families, I am a mum.

The one thing I can tell you is that giving a child a label makes little difference, few people without any knowledge of learning difficulties won't understand and even if you do have a child that falls into this category, it makes very little difference to how people respond to you.

I don't believe in giving labels because every child/adult I've ever met is different, they have different needs, they have different family backgrounds. We have 5 kids, they lived with us. I gave up work to look after my step daughter, it didn't help. She went into care, it was not a decision made lightly. We all benefitted.

She can sleep though noise now. So we had friends with their kids over when she was at home on the weekends. We had New Year Eves parties that she was part of. We took her on holiday because she could now sit in a car on longer journeys without trying to get out of her seat belt and crawl into the front. We could go out for meals as she stopped grabbing food off other peoples plates. We enjoy every second of the time spent with her and are sad when she goes home.

Being labelled as SWAN has made no difference to her life or to ours. What made a difference was just accepting her as she is, the limits on ours and her life. Accepting that so called friends who found it difficult being around her were not worthy of being our friends. Acceptance that aged 24 she wouldn't be living at home any more and we'd have had a whole different set of issues like each one of our 4 boys has provided us with. Acceptance that she is our only child who's future we don't have to worry about. Who doesn't miss or need us since moving to South Africa, but is pleased to see us when we go home to visit her, 4 times a year. (We see the other two children 5 times a year and tha's only because they are capable of flying out to visit us).

Every person is an individual, every family is unique. Each situation is affected differently. There is no 'severe' difficulty there is just how each difficulty impacts on the individual, the family, society to various degrees and how you you and everyone around cope with it.