Violent children should be stopped regardless of other factors

Oh and here's the photo. Which I imagine you won't bother to look at.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2542154219395003

If you really believe this didn't happen in the UK you are, simply, dead wrong. And the tone of your comment about that is really, really dismissive and offensive.
Ely Hospital Scandal. Look it up. There's a film too.

So no link to the daft ‘you want them all tied to a radiator’ photo then? As I said, the only “infamous” radiator photo I’ve seen was from Romania but has been spread round the internet saying it was in U.K./US/wherever.

But, all that’s irrelevant. Nobody here has said they want SEND children tied to radiators. Such a silly leap makes it sound like you have no argument.

@ChunkyMonkey36 What you’re doing sounds great - well done! Something simple like that can work wonders. It’s time-consuming but it can work. It’s almost impossible to implement in a mainstream school though. That’s the issue. Some children need more support and less peers than other children. Not only to keep other children safe, but to help the SEND child themselves.

EasternStandard they shouldn't. I withdrew my DC due to an out of control child in primary, youngest came home black and blue. Teachers response "he can't help it" and no doubt they couldn't help him. I'm sure that 20 years on things are much worse.

My point though stands, public opinion is often like a blade of grass blown in the direction of the wind and a snowball on a steep hill. Opinion is also often reactionary and what starts as "these children need to be educated elsewhere" can lead to "lock em up" with each new iteration moving the arguement from what is rational and reasonable to eventual consensus that radical solutions must be found. Extremist ideas do not start with bold statements, but feeds on personal grievances and experiences to build critical mass and consensus to adopt radical solutions.

Its clear to me that ALL children are being failed by this obsession to educate all children in mainstream schools. However this is coupled with some other trends such as a rise in diagnosis and a more general trend towards challenging behaviour in children who do not meet the threshold for autism or ADHD. Even though the diagnostic criteria keeps changing to mop up more children. Inequality, impoverishment, lack of opportunity, immiseration and stress within famillies, and factors like DV combined with the narcisism, entilement, greed, laziness and and factors like maternal stress leading to attachment disorders not only in looked after children but even children from MC homes has created a crisis in childhood. That is without factors such as technology and SM. It isnt so much kids on SM as it is distracted short tempered parents, stressed and anxious, over worked and highly individuated lacking time, and forsight to invest their time in their DC. Disenfranchised poorly educated individuals who are interpellated into our social sysstem no longer question their own condition, but instead think tips from tictock and some lip filler will elevate them to being like some celeb.

Lastly, its a class issue. This rise in out of control kids, angry kids, diagnosed kids, mentally ill and dangerous, or self harming and suicidal kids can be linked to rising socio-ecomic inequality. Those who make policy are unaffected by your DC having their education blighted by their cost saving. But my point remains.....without critical mass in terms of public opinion changes just simply don't fly. And we know from history that locking children up is not moral. Dangerous children do not exist in some vacum and we know that Autism is not an excuse, and that not all feral children have SENd. We also need to consider changes to the world of work driven by technology and that it matters not to the ruling class to create a 100% docile cohort at the end of their education.

In the case of AR its as clear as day that he was a huge risk. Not sure if others have mentioned this, but schizophrenia is sometimes comorbid with autism with people with ASD having 6 or 7 times more probability of having schizophrenic disorders with up to 28% of people with ASD. It is poorly understood, and many psychiatrists hessitate from giving this Dx.

I dont think just tackling SENd provision will help in the abscence of a complete change in the socio-economic, and locking children and YP up or returning to an age of institutions and cruelty is not progress. Expanding the dx criteria to pathologise social problems eventually creates the conditions whereby people are "useless eaters" and can not be rehabilitated, and an ever increasing strain on services that prevents intervention into cases like AR. But again policy makers don't give a shit until the opinions of the many align to the overall aims of those at the top and their economic agenda.

Agree with pp the segue to radiator response isn’t what’s needed.

When you describe the violent behaviour here people would like dc not to be at the receiving end of it.

And why should they be?

I grew up in the era of it being common to be smacked at home, by your grand parents and at school, for bad behaviour. Like it or not it did work. I was never smacked for the same thing twice!

I was almost assaulted by a massive, obese 6'3 lad at a school and when I reported it to his head of year she hit me with the 'he has a bad home life' okay, you cow, me too. Now what? Very glad I left that shit school.

In the last few months we’ve seen a change in how he responds to being told off. He used to just look at you like you were a 3 headed alien, but it bothers him now.

He did something destructive about a month ago, and as soon as we said “No!” he put his head down, came over all quiet and wouldn’t even move his head towards us.

I think one of the links he’s finally making is “I don’t like it when they’re cross with me.”

Which to be honest, will be a godsend.

Completely agree.

That makes sense. So it is having an impact. He can relate the taking away to the act enough to see a link. Yes we found things took years to have an impact.

I dont think thats a shitty way to look at it. I think a lot of people dont do stuff because the consequence upsets them rather than they morally think its wrong to do it.

This, the guilt tripping of Autistic kids tied to a radiator is an infamous black and white photo of two children tied to a radiator in a hospital for "mentally handicapped children" Look it up. There is also a black and white film showing a day in the life of "subnormal children in long term hospital care" which is very chilling. I have seen it but I can't find a link on you tube.
why does that get trotted out when posters talk about their child regularly being assaulted at school, have any of those posters said they want the violent child chained to radiators?
or have they just said they want their child to be safe, but are just being shouted down and told how awful they are?

This may be a shitty way for us to look at it, but through us using those methods for a long time, he has began to learn.

He gets upset when he loses access to one of us, for example, so we do a lot of “if you hit, I’m leaving the room,” and then we do. He gets upset when his iPad is removed, not because he’s remorseful, but because he wants his iPad.

He doesn’t try and avoid things that are “wrong,” he doesn’t understand “wrong,” but he does try and avoid things that upset him, because that’s how he’s motivated.

At 6 years old he was tearing our house apart, I had to peel him off my partners back quite regularly. We haven’t had anything to that level for a long time, and his aggression levels generally are much lower.

It has taken about 3 years to get even to this point, but it isn’t because he’s discovered remorse, it’s because he doesn’t like being upset and very gradually has learned that I will upset him to stop him from biting people.

You know what happens if you are that ‘angel’? Everyone else fucks off and leaves you to deal with something that you have no treatment for and says oh MH services are dealing with it. This is why I have learnt the hard way not to involve myself in things that are not my remit and I cannot fix because all you will get is blamed.

I think the police are mainly to blame for AR and the people excusing his clearly criminal behaviour with a spurious MH label. It happens all the time that people who either are or claim to be mentally ill get away with behaviour that noone else would. It’s not the fault of overstretched services. It’s the fault of the person concerned in most cases and personal responsibility should be more of a thing.

Before anyone thinks I am mean and unkind I really enjoy treating mental illness and making people better but I do not enjoy being made responsible for all social ills that in fact have nothing to do with psychiatry in its narrow definition.

I don’t believe we should teach children not to hit people, by hitting them. We’ve never used it in our house and I’d throw my partner out if he did.

But I also think the challenge with that is eventually our children outgrow us, or are more strong.

I grew up in a working class area of the NE, my mum is a “smacker,” and was with all of us.

My brother has mental health needs, and between 18-22 was violent towards all us at points.

He’s a 6ft2 bloke who goes to the gym, my mum and stepdad stood absolutely no chance - and my sister and I even less.

Our only real course of action was to either leave the house or get him to, and call the police.

I agree with your sentiment that you have to deal with the aggressive behaviour. I have a child that was aggressive and now isnt because we focused on it and dealt with it. He is more able than your child.

We took a similar stance of picking him up from his special school if he was beginning to struggle as we felt it was setting him up to fail and it wasnt right to risk someone being injured. We got a huge amount of pushback from the LA on this as attendance is king but I really feel leaving a child in a situation which is triggering a meltdown is cruel all round.

But the bit im curious about is the punishments he doesnt understand. Are they having any impact on reducing volitile events if he doesn't know they relate to the volitile events and he isnt able to form intent? You say the effort is there but is it effort on the right thing. If he doesnt know the lack of ipad is because he did something agressive and if he doesnt think if i do this i wont get the ipad so i better not do it, im not sure how it works.

The fact remains that he did not have a mental health disorder. You cannot be ‘sectioned’ unless you have a diagnosed mental disorder and autism without LD or another MH disorder like psychosis which he didn’t have is a not a reason you can be detained.

I have no idea what mental health services are supposed to do with people who would not be helped in any way by being medicated because they don’t have a treatable mental disorder and nor would they engage in therapy.

Being admitted to a MH hospital for a condition for which there is no treatment is just short term containment. This is not comparable to the Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane who had a treatable disorder (schizophrenia) and services were rightly heavily criticised for not treating it. In this case I don’t know what people are expecting MH services to actually do here as there seem to be no viable treatment options.

His behaviour was criminal. It ought to have been treated as such and he ought not to have avoided prison (youth detention) for his prior acts because of his autism or whatever else. Why was he not locked up for the hockey stick attack and for carrying a weapon in public.

There are a number of similar cases of autistic young men with violent ideas and behaviours fuelled by the internet and society need to figure out a way to stop this happening again. See also Jonny Braverman who threw a child off the Tate and Nicholas Prosper who killed his family and planned a school shooting.

But you sound responsible, doing the best for your boy in difficult circumstances.

I wish voices like yours were louder, more listened to and drowned out those who think that violent children must be accommodated, no matter the cost to other children and staff.

It’s not lost on me that this surge of violent behaviour has started since we made smacking illegal.

Disclaimer: I have never smacked my kids, and don’t see it as the first line of discipline. But in the same way violent men won’t attack bigger even more violent men, I doubt kids would continue to knock 10 bells out of their parents if they did the same back in vigorous self defence.

In truth, I think there’s something in that.

My is autistic, and attends a SENd school. He is non verbal and has severe cognitive impairment; so doesn’t necessarily have “intent,” but when in crisis he can be volatile. Mainly with known adults rather than children.

He is taught, actively, that aggression is an absolute non-negotiable and there are consequences. Loss of iPad time, trampolining cancelled, etc etc. It’s difficult because he doesn’t fully understand consequences, but the effort is there.

When we’ve had a rough weekend, we tell school that any suggestion of the same behaviour there and we’ll come and collect him. I’ve heard others say the same.

The kids I’m referring to are at maybe the other end of the “scale” in terms of autism/need (AR isn’t non-verbal for a start), but I don’t use my sons disability as an excuse for aggressive behaviour and do at least put the effort into preventing others from dealing with it, so it’s not unreasonable to expect others to do the same.

I have some personal experience of being a parent of a violent child with ASD. It was absolutely hideous. The shame and embarrassment I felt at my child's behaviour was huge. There were times that I was scared for myself and for my other children. He was excluded from multiple schools for his behaviour, although none of it was at the level of AR.

I knew that my child's behaviour was a result of his very complex needs not being met, but this is not an excuse. His behaviour was unacceptable.

He spent long periods out of school and once a school was found for him it was not really suitable, but it was the only option.

There were times I feared he may end up in prison.

Fortunately for my child, and for us, we were able to support him. We did not have financial worries. We spoke English as a first language. We were able to engage with services (although they were frequently useless). We have a supportive wider family. We limited access to the internet. It has been incredibly hard work but we were in a privileged position to be able to put on that work.

My son is now settled, doing A Levels, hoping to go to university. He is no longer violent. This is in no thanks to the education system which let him down massively, or the social workers that refused to help us.

AR's parents should have stepped in, as we did, to manage their son's behaviour. But they were probably very vulnerable themselves, refugees from a war torn country, probably not speaking English as a first language, etc.

Incidentally I have also been the parent of another child who has suffered at the hands of aggressive children in primary school for whom every excuse was made and the behaviour was not dealt with.

I attend Adult Safeguarding meetings, so not children, but I can see where some of these issues arise.

There's a massive issue, with NHS mental health teams in particular, where no one wants to take responsibility for something because they are all over stretched. So no one will take on the task of making a referral to something "because that's not my remit" etc and you just end up going around in circles.

It normally takes one angel in a service to stand up and say "yeah I'll do that even though I'm not really supposed to because we don't cover that area / line of work".

It's really frustrating.

Yes. Completely frustrating as a mum of a “good kid” who was given strong boundaries at home over behaviour then saw kids getting away with severe bullying, assault and worse at school. Its ridiculous.

Of course, that's right. But there are plenty of stopping off places between bully and murder--- anti-social behaviour, assault, threats, stalking, domestic violence, robber, rape, GBH and plenty of others.

I think the bottom line is that it has to be accepted that neuro diversity is not an excuse for violent behaviour in schools. If one child is being violent in class then he is the one out of step and 30 other children should not be in fear and in danger because of it.

Some posters get excited and shout do you want them chained to a radiator?

No. Once again, there are plenty of stopping off places between doing nothing and chaining him to a radiator-corporal punishment (this often works-like it or not-) special school, taking him off the school register and leaving him in the home; police involvement and youth detention

Society cannot continue to leave children and staff at risk because some kid is neuro diverse. It should only come into play for his educational needs and never ever be cited as an excuse for disruptive or violent behaviour.

At the very least, this attitude should be tried because the attitude we have at the moment only benefits the culprit.

I was bullied out of a club by someone with mental health problems. I was told "you know what he's like". I didn't because no one warned me. I was blamed for him being sectioned. I got to the stage where I couldn't care less about him because he couldn't grasp how I was affected. I was having my own struggles.

I was then informed he'd left because of how other people were reacting to his behaviour

He was treated like a victim and it was everyone else's fault