We had concerns about Megan’s anxiety. She has been diagnosed with anxiety by Dr Kriel, a paediatrician. When she was in grade 3, it was 2020 and they almost never went to school. We did work on Google Classroom, but it was the minimum. Megan started to struggle with concentration. She also started feeling anxious that she would not be able to perform as she should. While she used to be a very outgoing extrovert, she started questioning everything she did, and was scared that she would not be able to answer correctly. She was also anxious about the fact that she was not sure we were doing what the teacher was expecting. During the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, her concentration became a problem. She struggled to stay focused on what we were busy doing. I was diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2020, and this just made her anxiety and concentration issues worse.

She almost seemed to stop caring about her work, just doing it as fast as she could. Her writing used to be neat, but that also changed. She started showing signs of OCD, washing her hands all the time, and having rituals before going to bed. She puts a lot of pressure on herself and has a need to please others.

Her grades started dropping, especially in maths, making her believe she didn’t understand it. Being a very sensitive child, she started crying at school and even at night when she was struggling to go to sleep.

We blamed it on the fact that it was an emotional time for her, but we decided to have her assessed by a professional to be sure. Dr Talita Veldsman, an educational psychologist, assessed her and recommended we see Dr Kriel regarding her anxiety and OCD tendencies. Dr Kriel found that Megan might have ADD but said that we should first try to work on the anxiety. She put her on a very low dose of Serdep. She also found that Megan struggles to fall asleep at night because of a lack of melatonin (her older sister also suffers from this). She prescribed half a tablet of Circadin. This seemed to help with the excessive rituals, and she fell asleep much more easily. Her grades, however, did not improve, and her concentration got even worse. This might be because of the after-effects of Covid, but we felt the need to help her overcome these issues. 

We enrolled her in extra math classes. She dreaded going to extra classes and, in the process, started hating maths while still struggling and losing confidence that she could do it.

I saw an ad on Facebook that Louise Nell had placed regarding Edublox. I know her from when my older child was in her class, and I knew she was an amazing teacher. I spoke to her at a school function, and what she said made a lot of sense to me. I decided to have my twins assessed. For the first time, I felt that someone saw my kids for who they really are. She saw potential and understood the difficulties that they had faced in the last couple of years. We decided to enrol them in the Edublox program (our last hope). We stopped the extra math classes. Both of them love going to Edublox and it is the first time they actually look forward to extra classes. Edublox also makes them believe in themselves. They have only been there for a short time – they started in July – but I can see a big difference especially in Megan’s confidence. Her concentration and pride in her work also improved.

Her marks improved in almost every subject, in some subjects by as much as 25%. This is amazing.  Not only is she proud of her work again, but it is also much neater and her anxiety levels have stabilized. I am so thankful that my twins are enrolled in Edublox. I can truly see a difference, even if it has only been a few months.

Esté Botha

Impressive improvements on her school report!