That neurodivergent children shouldn’t be reduced in such a binary way?

If they are capable of learning maths, history, english etc they are capable of learning not to say the N word. To socialise them is the most valuable lesson they can learn.

(Excluding a very very small number with verbal tics in tourettes etc)

I get it, been there myself and spent a fortune on solicitors fees and expert reports to get funding for mainstream only for my DS funding to be used for the shits who bully him. It is a very sad situation all around and I wish you the very best for the tribunal and 🙏 your LA will concede beforehand 💐

Anyway, our struggles aren’t the point of this thread. I just thought it would be useful to give the perspective of one SEN parent!

We are going to tribunal, hence the solicitors fees. It took 2 years for a school to offer him a place, and now we have an 18 month wait for tribunal. In the meantime I’ve been told that if I take him out of school I will be responsible for delivering the provision in his EHCP and if I don’t, they’ll take me to court.
There are a lot of parents in my position.

I agree and disagree with you.
Fundamentally too many asd/adhd kids in mainstream and its not working for either nt or nd.

Often though it literally is the adhd that causes the behaviour. Doesnt mean no consequences and doesnt mean they cant be told off or learn.
But you cant expect a asd or adhd kid to react to being bullied even verbslly in the way a NT kid would.
my audhd kid will kick them even if they were being verbally mean or hit them.
It is because they dont believe in telling teachers. But also ultimately sometimes it has stopped the bullying.

Also from reception age i asked for the kid to have more help in the playground- no sxhool couldnt be bothered. Yet thought we could magically stop the behaviour at home. It only ever escalated things.
In our case DD has a lack of logical thought and always says ‘favouritism’. Even if you explain why you or the teacher reacted that way. So ultimately dd hates everyone and the teachers and students dislike her

It obviously depends on the severity of need and the impact on overall cognitive ability, but I mostly agree.

I have ADHD (and likely undiagnosed ASD), and it doesn't take much to trigger my rejection sensitivity. Sometimes I struggle to turn take in conversation, and I'm very much known for blurting out random questions, or waffling. BUT I have and never would be racist, or deliberately mean. I would never blame anyone else for my own emotional dysregulation. Sometimes neurodiversity means it's harder to learn how to relate to others, and it's harder to regulate yourself, but most people are still absolutely capable of learning the difference between right and wrong. Hitting and shouting racist comments are not typically a product of neurodiversity, and we should not be using it as an excuse.

Obviously I'm not talking about 5 year olds having violent meltdowns due to sensory overload and that sort of thing, more just general behaviour.

Yes there are. They’re either full or they can’t meet his needs. Trust me we’ve tried everywhere. There is one school in our entire county that has said they can meet his needs and have a space for him, but the LA won’t fund it, hence the tribunal. There are 1000s of people in our position.

I am sorry and I hear you that you are frustrated by the lack of special school places. However my DS bullies were offered specialist but turned it down as the school is sought after and lo and behold siblings have joined who wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of getting in without the sibling policy. Parents are open about this and if the kids were not such horrors I would feel sorry for them
having parents who used them as sacrificial lambs to secure a sibling place. If your child has been offered a specialist independent placement why don’t you go to tribunal to try and secure it? Over 90% of cases are successful and having an offer of a place is decent evidence that needs can be met.

This is quite often the point I make on here.

So many posters attribute bad behaviour to being ND rather than just think, well actually it's the person and their personality, the way they've been brought up Etc.

It is quite often done on here with adults so will definitely be done with kids. No ADHD does not make you say a racist word. Yes it can make you impulsive but it does not act like another ND condition, Tourettes, where you have no control over what comes out of your mouth.

So yes, there should be consequences to any bad behaviour. It might be different consequences but there still should be some. Otherwise kids just grow up being little shites, thinking they can do and say what they like, ND or not.

Surely it should be seen as whether or not the child's behaviour is definitely due to their autism or just regular child-like nastiness, his autism definitely affects how the behaviour should be dealt with. Raising your voice / sending him to his room / putting him in detention won't give him the thinking time it gives others and therefore result in an apology so you just have to deal with it differently - allowing what he needs to calm down, clear explanations, social stories etc (I've only dealt with primary school aged SEN children so I'm not sure what works with autistic teens but I assume it is still a case of autism affects the aftermath of a behaviour incident even when it might not be the cause).

Agreed. I just wish people would realise that it’s not the fault of the parent that their child is in a mainstream school. I fight every single day to get my child into a suitable educational setting. It has cost me £££ in solicitors fees and we still have a year to wait for the tribunal.
My son wouldn’t hurt a fly, he isn’t violent, he isn’t nasty. He is in an unsuitable school, where he is bullied. I wish there was a solution.

As the parent of an autistic child, I’m not particularly comfortable with it either. My son absolutely shouldn’t be in a mainstream school. However we’ve been waiting for 2 years now for a specialist school placement to become available, and have had not even a glimmer of hope. My son was offered a place in an independent specialist school, but the LA won’t fund it.
The child making a nest at the back of the classroom probably needs to be in a specialist setting. Their parents would probably prefer them to be in a specialist setting. Those settings aren’t available, and that’s not the fault of the child or the parent.
The hardest thing for me is having to take my child to mainstream school every day knowing a lot of the parents are judging me for doing so. They they think my child is taking resources away from their child. I have no choice, though, and it’s heartbreaking. I have to steel myself every day to walk in those school gates.
ETA and he has to put up with being bullied every day at school. Trust me it’s not ideal for anyone.

Absolutely agree OP.

I worked with kids in care and they tried to rush to make excuses for one of the kids we worked with who was Autistic as he had said something racist to a child in his (mainstream) school.

He was an otherwise very nice kid but I wasn’t having it and had a talk with him and it didn’t happen again afaik. The kid actually respected my approach, instead of everyone rushing around saying he can’t help it and being upset that the school were labelling him as a racist.

F that! What about the impact on the POC kid who was racially abused ?

Same for kids who are expected to tolerate violence from other children. It’s ridiculous.

I think a lot of adults can't tell the difference between a tantrum and a meltdown and that they just describe any old behaviour as a meltdown. It drives me mad as my son suffered so much having meltdowns and they lasted hours. It was manageable at home but truely horrific in a public place.

I get that, completely. My son is also tired and weary of being bullied and abused because of his disability. Actually that’s not entirely true, he doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to understand why he’s being bullied, he just knows that people are hurting him and in turn it causes him to self harm. Their parents don’t offer up any excuse for the bullying; I don’t know if that’s better or worse but the end result is the same. As I said, bullying is wrong, whoever the perpetrators.

Bullying is wrong whoever it comes from but my DS is tired and weary of being called a retard by a kid who apparently can’t help it as it’s down to his ADHD, the kid who is autistic who follows my DS around and wants to stab him and the autistic girl who can’t separate fantasy from reality and accuses my gentle boy of violence towards her sisters who he has never met. I will always defend SEN and will always treat bullying with contempt from any kid ND or NT but am sick of parents using ND as an excuse for bullying and holding schools to ransom.

I agree with the majority of this. My son is Autistic and when he was younger he had a really hard time self regulating and it would lead to a lot of aggressive behaviours. We never excused any aggression and helped him to find ways to manage his emotions better. He's very calm child now and able to voice when he feels overwhelmed.

Meltdowns are a bit different though. My son used to completely lose control over his own body and all we could do was move him to a quiet place and try to stop him from hurting himself and others. It was very frightening for him and us but thankfully he hasn't had any in a few years.

I'm really new to this as my son was diagnosed in June with adhd and asd at 15yrs.
Mainly what has been such an eye opener is two things...

1. People who know nothing about either whilst talking about them both with authority whilst not getting it.
2. Who your actual friends are or who they aren't.

My son can absolutely be a nasty piece of work but it does feel like we are already up against peoples opinions before we have started.

No it doesn’t. Bullying is wrong, whoever is the perpetrator. It happens that my autistic child, who has never said an unkind word to anyone, has been bullied and abused by many NT children (bullied specifically for his disability). That’s also wrong.