It was obvious to me as a mum that Charlie was having unusual learning difficulties from the moment he started school. He was reluctant to attend school; he often got tired to the extent that his body seized up completely; he made labour of reading, and his writing was illegible. It took four and a half years for the authorities to diagnose him as dislexic. Eventually it was proved by an independent test. He started "special English" lessons, but these were of little value as they made him feel conspicuous. He was teased, bullied, labelled "thick", and his eroding self-confidence soon stopped him performing on the sporting field. School was a REAL CHORE.
At age 14, after changing school several times, I realised GCSEs were approaching and I had to do something quickly if he was to achieve anything at all. I took him for an interview with Clive Lindley-Jones, not really knowing if the Sunflower Trust was the answer, but feeling desperate. Charlie is now 16 and has completed his school education. The Sunflower therapies have taught him to cope with his inabilities; his muscles now function properly so that he is rarely fatigued and he enjoys his natural energy. He believed in himself enough to gain an A, 6 Bs and a C at GCSE level, instead of the predicted Cs and Ds. He gained a place in the first school hockey, cricket and tennis teams and ran successfully in cross country teams. He is altogether a boy who is now ABLE to achieve.
The Sunflower Trust gave him the tools to move from a constantly struggling existence to an achieving existence. I can never be more thankful that I placed my faith in the Sunflower Trust.
"We just got his half term report and we're so pleased. He's come top in 3 subjects and doing very well in his others. Concentration is obviously improving hugely. His spelling is brilliant - he got 96% in his English spelling exam last term. Tables continue to be difficult as is extraction and use of them. But we live in hope that one day we'll crack 6 x 4, 7 x 4 and 8 x 7.
But the thing that David and I are most pleased about is his level of self-confidence. It's getting better and better and so too by extension is his self-esteem which was pretty bad last year. For me seeing him grow personally has been the best, most positive change in him.
Thank you so much for the key role you had in helping him to achieve this. It's been a terrific year for Harry and when I consider where he started from - virtually unable to write and thinking that he would never achieve the level his peers were at - the change has been tremendous."
The first consultation consisted largely of Heather marauding around the room in her usual uncontrollable manner, refusing to cooperate with even basic requests, and talking her own special brand of gibberish - whilst Clive tried to establish her medical background. It was a very stressful hour. Clive was not sure if he could help, but was willing to try. So were we.
After a one-hour break we embarked on our second session. Heather was feeling a little more at home and agreed to lie on the couch, but only on top of Mum. Amazingly, she allowed Clive to touch her. He proceeded to assess her cranium, spine and pelvis. Lots of things were ‘in the wrong place’. Clive manipulated her head, neck, spine and pelvis. She gradually began to look and feel more relaxed. Her eyes looked clearer and her face looked less stressed and happier. The journey home was quiet and calm, a novel experience for us.
A few days later Heather touched her forehead and the back of her neck and declared ‘the hurt is gone’. We did not know she had had ‘a hurt’ as she had never told us, but we did know she was calmer, sleeping better and speaking more clearly since her treatment. Her teachers had also noticed improvements in her attention span, level of cooperation and eye contact. This was after just one session. We decided to carry on and see where it might lead.
On subsequent visits Clive worked on her using osteopathy – which was still administered whilst lying on Mum. He also started treating her with homeopathy. Heather was unable to cooperate with him directly so Mum was used as a surrogate – a new approach, which was a learning curve for us all, but produced the desired results in finding the right treatments for Heather. She continued to improve over the ensuing months. It has been a long and bumpy road at times, but we have never doubted that the treatments were hugely beneficial to Heather, and therefore the rest of the family too. Today we have a very different daughter.
Heather is now 12 years old. She is physically very robust and well. Although still Statemented she is in a mainstream school, which she loves, and has been elected class vice captain. She is popular, friendly and outgoing, loves new experiences and learning new skills. She has been on a residential outward-bound course, where she tried abseiling, canoeing, gorge walking and orienteering. She has also been on a 4-day school trip to France. Her speech is clear and her reading has improved enormously. Family holidays are great now; she is very enthusiastic about travelling and is the first to whip out the suitcases and pack.
We still see Clive about 4 times a year, to keep Heather balanced. She tells us when she needs to see him. What does she think of him? She speaks as she finds and says, quite simply, ‘Clive has magic hands. He takes the hurt away and makes me feel better’.
I promised to let you know how James got on in his exams. His improvement has been remarkable. He came top in his year group in both Maths (96%) and Geography (92%), then French 86% Religious studies 83%, History 77% and Science 69% in all cases he came near the top. His English teacher is on paternity leave and so we still await the results. I don't say that the Sunflower therapy magically made him cleverer; he worked like a demon to get these results. But I do believe that the therapy enabled him to build up both his confidence and concentration to be able to achieve this.
James has always been quite mathematical, but his exam results have always been quite low as he struggled to keep up the pace, he found it extremely difficult to finish the paper leaving him with results around 68% (Christmas). A couple of months ago when we were at Clive Lindley -Jones' (Our Sunflower Therapist) Clive asked him to write on one side of a plank of wood what he really wanted to achieve in the future and on the other side, whom he wanted to do it for. Clive then asked Freddie to really think about it and when he was ready to punch through the plank. It broke on first impact. I still have that plank of wood.
On one side it said 'Get faster at my Maths and on the other side it said 'Dad'
We really feel we have our James back he has never been so happy!
Our son Jamie was a very happy sociable little boy and made friends easily. However around the age of 7 he slowly seemed to withdraw from the world around him. He became more and more interested in his play station and found less to be happy about with the rest of the world. He started to fall out with his friends.
When people came to our house he felt more comfortable when hidden away. He became neurotic about where everyone was in the house. We found ourselves sitting outside his bedroom until he fell asleep as he was scared of being alone. Throughout year 4 his class work took a nose dive and he was bullied at school. He didn't seem to be maturing with his peer group and came across as rather young and silly for his age. His concentration was appalling.
On the recommendation of an Educational Psychologist we got in touch with Clive. We knew little about the Sunflower Trust but on an instinct (and fairly desperate) we started taking Jamie along Jamie was uncomfortable with the close scrutiny at first and would be very silly. He found it hard to concentrate during the sessions. We kept coming once or twice a week to start with and then less. And things started to happen for Jamie. I can?t say when it happened but we look back now, six months on from that visit to the Ed. Psych. and realize our old happy Jamie is back. It started with him no longer worrying about being on his own in his bedroom, he started taking care of his homework and progressed from there. His grades have gone from the 50's (July) to the 70's, 80’s and 90's (January).
He has engaged with the world again. He used to respond to most requests with an angry "no". Now he is happy to help and please.
This last month, he has, for the first time really started reading for pleasure.
Clive told Jamie it was like having a MOT or the equivalent of a car service, like getting his body to function properly . To us it has seemed like magic.
"Sunflower has helped me because I have changed. It has helped me with my attitude to life and taught me that my problems are not all physical. It has helped me put things into perspective and shown me how much will-power I have."
- Nicola
Nicola moved to Junior School full of her usual enthusiasm for life and ready to put in 110% as she always had. Nicolas has always been a very sensitive, caring and active child. We had not been without any problems in previous years. Nicola had suffered frequently from ear infections as a child which subsequently affected her speech. We had spent 2 years undergoing speech therapy quite successfully. In hindsight, I can see that although the speech therapy tackled the specific issue of sound formation we were not addressing the emotional side.
Nicola has always been extremely aware of what is happening to her and very quick to put pressure on herself when she does not achieve as she knows she can. This has been very difficult to cope with as the pressure was from within. We have always supported our children to work to their own potential.
After not achieving in Year 3 we were concerned and sought help. The School were not particularly helpful, ruling out worries of Dyslexia and we were told Nicola’s problems were not bad enough to be tested by the Educational Psychologist. Birmingham LEA does not recognise/support Dyslexia. However, they did agree to give her support with her handwriting and we continued for nearly half an academic year seeing little improvement and Nicola felt increasingly frustrated.
During the Summer of Year 4 we paid privately for Nicola to be assessed by the Dyslexia Association. We were told that Nicola had a well above average IQ and was quite obviously dyslexic. We were advised to make her teachers aware of the fact that Nicola was extremely able but had specific problems with presentation and spelling inaccuracy. Another area of difficulty was auditory recall, which could present problems in holding to memory lengthy verbal instructions or information.
School took this information with little regard, the SENCO of that time not believing in Dyslexia. This was followed by an extremely hard time for us all and I can only liken it to stumbling around in a fog, which was not particularly helpful to Nicola. After a number of explored avenues which involved tests, workshops, one-to-ones, etc. we found a private tutor who went a long way to restoring Nicola’s self-esteem and she started to believe in herself again. By this time, we were in Year 6! This tutoring looked set to follow Nicola through Secondary School. However, sadly Nicola’s tutor became quite ill and had to give up her teaching. This was in Year 7. Nicola had built up quite a relationship with Hilary and we were all really upset. This again left us floundering with Nicola adamant that she did not want another tutor. By this time, we were receiving quite good support within her Secondary School and I decided to leave it alone for a while. However, Nicola was still not coping with a lot of aspects of school life.
After about 6 months, I saw an advert of the Sunflower Trust in a family magazine and followed this up. We made our first trip to Clive in the summer holidays, the theory being that most of the treatment would be able to happen during this time. It has taken a lot longer than originally though but I do not regret our decision to follow this road.
Nicola was very wary of seeing someone else. However, Clive put her at ease and had her laughing through the initial tests. Clive had always explained every step of the way to Nicola and has helped her rebuild her self-image. It has not always been easy. When we discovered Nicola’s intolerance to dairy, we had to give up milk and chocolate (this was hard for the whole family) but Nicola did it.
Nicola is now a much calmer, more focused person, she is able to cope at school with the problems that she has. We have just achieved Level 5 in German, which is a higher level than she should be. As her SENCO told us at her last parents’ evening, “I think Nicola is flying now” and we need to move her up an English group. We are really proud of Nicola and only wish we had found Sunflower and Clive earlier.
Tom started school with the teachers unable to understand him and no friends as he couldn’t interact with other children despite having an older bother and younger sister. After a few weeks the school identified his problems as the result of Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.
A friend showed me the article in The Times about The Sunflower Trust and I now had to get Tom on the programme so I booked an appointment with Clive in Oxford. He said that he thought that he could help him. Tom started a programme which is a course of ten different sessions which act like building blocks to create a happier child, from “bone crunching”, as Tom called it, to cranial osteopathy and watch as Tom’s body would go weak and floppy when holding a pen and paper and through Applied Kinesiology to strong and confident after the treatment holding the same pen and paper...
Tom has his own ‘Mantra’, which he calls his ‘magic spell’ which gives him strength, calmness, confidence and happiness and he says it to himself in times of need.
I can never thank Clive and The Sunflower Trust enough for giving me my son back. I took Tom and my other two children to an Art Gallery Workshop last week. We (children and adults) were invited to look around the gallery and then come back and share our thoughts. The exhibition was of paintings of different sizes of circles going around and around on each other.
Tom’s hand was the first go up – in a loud confident voice Tom said “I think it is a young boy on his bike going round and round and the circles are the stories of his life”. The whole room was amazed by an eight year olds perception of life.
William’s mother writes. . .
‘I am writing to thank you most sincerely for giving my son William a bursary to enable him to receive treatment with the Sunflower programme'.
‘Prior to attending, William displayed a range of difficulties, which became more apparent when he started school. He had a marked lack of concentration, even at times seeming to be in a complete ‘world of his own’. He needed constant prompting to stay on task in both school and homework.
He had problems in socialising with his peers and he found it difficult to maintain eye contact with anyone other than close family. From the first session William enjoyed going to Helix House and very quickly built up trust and rapport with Clive. Clive always explained exactly what he was doing and why on a level that William easily understood.’
‘I started to see changes in William quite quickly. William today is a different boy. He has found new confidence, plays with other children well, maintains eye contact, volunteers conversation with adults and is generally a lot calmer. There have been improvements at school. His concentration is improving; he is above average in reading and spelling and all other subjects is comparable with his peers. I feel that the Sunflower treatment has really unlocked his potential and I am now looking forward to seeing his achievements.’
‘I cannot thank you enough, because without the bursary we could not have had this wonderful opportunity. My heartfelt thanks to all at the Sunflower Trust for all your kindness and support.’
William’s mother writes. . .
William had suffered from a mild Asperger syndrome since childhood and had had various therapies to help him.
He started the Sunflower treatment in early adolescence. As we traveled from Brussels, Clive organized sessions over 2-day treatment periods.
For William improvements were widespread: eye contact, concentration, coordination and confidence are really better. Social interaction is not easy but at school William has a few good friends and is known for his great sense of humour…
William is now 18 and enjoying life. He is looking forward to university life as he is going to England to study Chemistry.
This would definitely not been possible without Clive and the Sunflower treatment.
On a more personal note, as a mother, I really appreciated the time and attention Clive gave me to discuss my concerns and worries. His advice were precious and helped me to help William.
Thank you from William and merci from me.
01865 243351
info@helixhouse.co.uk
