To think we need a "label' in addition to SEND?

I think you’re making sweeping statements here. I do agree with you up to a point, but a small minority of children are better off out of school, usually for reasons of ND plus serious MH difficulties.

I have a child who loves school and two school refusers. One we support to keep going in, I believe that is the best thing for him for the reasons you outlined.

The other, well, I’m not going into details here, but I can assure you insisting on school was not in his best interest.
Please do parents like me the courtesy of listening to us and not believing you always know best about other people’s children.

This.

It's such a hard conversation to have because blatantly there are children with completely insufficient boundaries at home, where it does not meet the criteria for neglect but is impacting them and their behaviour.

And yet, I think every parent with an SEN child will have a story where a professional made it very clear they thought it was a parenting problem. I only have one, because I'm married, articulate, educated and with a senior job in the public sector - and our kids are polite and well behaved. In general, we get fantastic support. Most of my friends have more, my autistic sister has letter stating it is all her fault for not modelling better behaviour.

My story is when my younger child was diagnosed with school based anxiety and suspected ASD. I was offered an optional parenting anxious children course, which I accepted. The course coordinator rang to offer me a place on a course during the day and so she was ringing to find out whether my husband worked. When I informed her that we both did, you could hear her shuffling her paperwork before replying "well, nothing I have here suggests YOU work ". When we eventually reached the top of the list for an evening course we had to fill in a parenting styles form which started "all children misbehave at times, whether throwing food, hitting people or running into the road... we want to understand how you respond to it." I couldn't answer half the questions like how many times a week do you shout or how many warnings do you give (1-10+) for poor behaviour. Again, my child was referred for school based anxiety and suspected ASD. I withdrew from the course.

Parenting SEN children is hard. Assumptions that it's down to bad parenting create barriers to support and actively harm people already under immense stress.

That doesn't make the concerns in the OP untrue just it cannot be a broad brush approach.

Disadvantaged is the term most schools use.

I thought Op was talking about NT kids? Sorry if I got that wrong.
Of course none of the 'wholesome' approaches in my post can be transferred to the situation of parenting a nd child, especially sleep for example. And boundaries need to be negotiated differently. Sometimes with a ND child, it\s simply better to let them read in bed for another half hour rather than insisting on lights off if it helps them regulate and relax.

All that certainly helps, but if you happen to be neurodivergent, anxiety is pretty well inevitable. I brought my DCs up petty much in the way you and I describe and yet DC2 has awful anxiety about all sorts of things eg if their best friend messages them in tbe morning and they forget to reply until the afternoon then they assume that their friend will hate them for being so slow to reply. DC2 is 21 and I have spent endless hours telling them that their friend clearly adores them and nobody would hate someone after such a small delay. I think it is rejection sensitivity dysphoria which is a common feature of ADHD. I can only assume DC2 would have been much much worse with a different type of upbringing.

Agree with this.

Good diet, healthy lifestyle (not sedentary or excessive screen times), no social media until late teens, a couple of hobbies they love, the required number of hours sleep per age, boundaries, fairness and bags of social intelligence and empathy without indulging them. This should do it. Talk to them so they are in a habit to share with you not just peers. A good dynamic between the parents helps too.

Get them outside climbing trees, running, cycling.

imo opinion anyways.

How are you going to help children who go to bed at 12 and check their massages all night?

I laughed at "virtual autism" too! WTF.

I always wonder why it’s always ND conditions that get called a label.

do you label someone diabetic? Or do they have a diagnosis.

from what you are describing it sounds as it would fall under neglect.

people do realise that in order to obtain an autism diagnosis you have to display a significant number of traits?

nobody gets a diagnosis because of a lack of speech. Nobody gets a diagnosis because of purely parental views.

it takes MONTHS of info gathering, observations, multi disciplinary team.

but yeah go ahead and call it a label and completely undermine the effects it has on the child and their wider family.

also wtf is virtual autism?! Doesn’t exist.

this is the problem, too many unqualified people talk on this subject. What on earth makes you think you know better than actual paediatricians!?

mind boggling.

While I agree that overprotective parenting could increase anxiety, I think being dismissive (your monsters example) could do the opposite.

i think being overly critical could make children anxious too (because they’d always be worried about stepping out of line). although I agree about structure and routine. and clear and consistent boundaries etc would lessen the chance of anxiety.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable to highlight the difference between children who have disability qualifying conditions requiring additional support and those who just need additional support but I think it’s unfeasible.

How do you know it’s just parenting without boundaries compared with undiagnosed SEN? With ridiculous waiting lists a child referred at age 7 for assessment is unlikely to be seen before 12 where I live so do they just get no suppprt because they have no label yet?

Also don’t most schools now call it additional support needs (ASN) which isn’t about having a disability, condition or label but having an additional support needs, which at my kids school at least, also included those who performed well above their peers and needed more challenging work.

The problem is that kids are expected
to force themselves into a one size fits all learning box when educators have know for decades that doesn’t work for large numbers of kids.

What Suzy Fandango said

Let's face it, up until age 16 it really should just be jam or marmalade

Everything else the parents decide

I know of a kid who is probably secondary school age but doesn’t seem to go. I think he’s in training to be a second generation drug dealer. He’s got the stupid little man bag. Outrageous.

thank you for saying this!

I have been doing it for years with small amounts of Coca Cola through the day. Still trying to get meds but the process is very unfriendly to ADHD 😒

Monster is a red herring. A lot of teens with undiagnosed ADHD self-medicate in this way. ADHD is caused by a dopamine deficiency. The caffeine acts as a simulant. Many people who have a Monster habit stop drinking it once they are effectively treated for their ADHD.

I think this would make the lives of children with SEN much harder and would likely delay diagnosis and support (why listen to parents if you can slap a label on their children that blames poor parenting?).

Surely the answer is to report signs of neglect and make sure early support is available long before they're 16 and asking for monster in exams?

A lot of professionals are expected to do the jobs of nurses I've noticed. Or even doctors. So those professionals are all expected to multi task into other areas. Often it's admin of course. That's everywhere.

Agree with this 5 pages in we have all got different perspectives on this but unless you have worked as a teacher you cant understand the pressure we are under. If indeed all these individual needs are to be met then schools will need to be provided with much more resources than teachers and support staff. Clearly we will need counsellors, play therapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and even psychologists within easy regular access. A lot of the problems and solutions suggested here are well beyond the realm of a teacher. And this is the problem. Other professionals eg. Nurses are not expected to do several other roles as well.. something is going to have to give here whether this is parental expectation or government support or educational standards but we cannot possibly meet everyone's ever expanding needs in a class of 30..we absolutely want the best of every child but this is so challenging.

But is this a proper role for schools?

Schools are there to educate. Support over and above that (certainly my school offers some) is a bonus, not part of the core purpose.

Some of what we are seeing socially is the result of austerity cutbacks for the last 15 years.

You are a teacher so have read KCSIE part 1 as we are all required to do each year, right? This has a label: neglect.

And it doesn't look to me like there's a massive disparity in rates of autism between UK and Sweden. This claims in Sweden it is 2.8% www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/04/autism-women-men-diagnosis-childhood-adulthood

Plus institutions.

France has a terrible track record with autism and it's rates are so low because of lack of knowledge paired with philosophical ideology.

I agree with this- I also worry that there is a push to medicalise things like exam anxiety into something bigger. I say this as someone with ADHD themselves, and with my own children having additional needs.