Ben back at college

Ben with his Grandad Bond who celebrated his 88th birthday on January 11th.

Ben with his cousin, Max (left) and Uncle Rob. Max (17) has just begun a career in the army.

The first term at Coleg Elidyr was not easy for Ben, but he coped very well and everyone there is happy with the progress he has made. He was at home in Evesham for a month-long break for Christmas/New Year from December 21st to Saturday, January 19th.
As everyone had anticipated the long holiday was quite a testing time! Although Ben was naturally very happy to be at home, from the beginning any mention of college was greeted with 'No more' and 'Not going'. We (his parents) simply kept off the subject to begin with, but in the last couple of weeks it was obviously difficult to avoid. We tried various ways to persuade him that it was the best place for him to be, but Ben's brain is simply not up to evaluating the pros and cons of home and college life. (It's probably a bit like trying to persuade a very large 9-year-old to go to prep school, when they can't immediately see any reason to go and just wonder why their parents don't love them any more.) He fluctuated between happy acceptance that he would try hard and go back, to aggressive refusal to even consider the subject.
The confusion in his mind also seemed to spread to us; we starting wondering whether we were doing the right thing in trying to persuade him to go, and seriously contemplating alternatives. Ben, himself, kept suddenly switching from being fun to be with to being sad, aggressive and uncooperative. It was difficult to know what to do with him.
Things really came to a head on the Saturday morning of the day (Jan 19th) he was due to return: Ben shouted and stamped his feet, threw his suitcase downstairs and locked himself in his bedroom.
Fortunately, the pendulum in Ben's brain swung back after about an hour, and he got into the car quite happily. There was another downward swing just after lunch but, after a nap in the car, we arrived at college at about four o'clock with Ben in an accepting, if not ecstatic mood.
However, when he saw his house-mates he let out a cry of pleasure, rushed out of the car to see them, and excitedly showed them the laptop he had for Christmas. We left him joking and chatting away over a cup of tea in the kitchen. He paused briefly to ask when he would see us again, but seemed quite happy to hear it would be soon - actually it will be about four weeks.
Another important hurdle has been negotiated, and now all we can do is hope and pray that he will quickly settle back in to college life and continue to learn and have fun.