If you have a child with autism that can be violent..

[Colouroutsidethelines]

How do you feel when you find out they have attacked school staff? How do you respond?

I am a teaching assistant. I was playing in the garden with another staff member and four children who all have an autism or ADHD diagnosis.

The child I was playing with in the construction area is in year 4 and very articulate. We were conversing nicely, talking about his favourite cars. He then got up and walked off and before I stood up, he had gone behind me, picked up a large wooden log and cracked me hard over the head with it.

It caught me completely off guard and I did cry with the pain as I ran inside to seek first aid.

Curious to how you would respond if this was your child.

Let's face it, permissive/gentle/whatever the fuck you want to call it parenting isn't helping.

There is thread after thread on here about little Timmy having ASD/ADHD/PDA who, because of his diagnosis, just has to hit other kids.

And because of his diagnosis, he's let off the hook.

Timmy knows this. He's only four, but he's knows he's untouchable, so he keeps on doing it.

Yes it was so much better for you when children with differences were locked in institutions and not given any education
Drugged to make them compliant

Why ever did we stop locking them up out of sight?

Maybe the issue is that needs aren't being met

Genuine question - how was SEN managed in the 1980's and 1990's? My secondary school had a Special Unit for 'slow' children, but they weren't randomly clubbing teachers with logs.

My brother was brain damaged due to being runover by a car and had a 1 to 1 classroom assistant in primary and secondary school.

Were these 'problem' children all in special schools? I doubt there was the budget for 2 on 1 staffing or adequate special schools back then, so how were things managed?

I am speaking from my experience and friends and colleagues in other schools that I’ve worked with. It was simply unheard of to witness violence in the school. We would have had maybe one child per year group back then that you would have called quirky but we now would know them to be autistic. ADHD/ PDA was unheard of too.

My Mum recalls the Dunce's hat and that a couple of the children were regularly tied to a chair at the front of the classroom...

But do you realise that's not what I'm saying??

Answers like yours are part of the problem.

There is happy medium between parenting your kid properly and a belt!

My brother is dyslexic and it was just assumed he was 'slow'. Teachers treat him like he was stupid and occasionally called him stupid.

But what about these children that apparently need 2 to 1 ratios? Children that you can't turn your back on or be lower than their level without being viscously attacked?

How were they managed? Where were they?

I would be devastated,very apologetic,concerned for your wellbeing and there would be lots of discussion and consquences at home.

But I would worry most for my child and what this means for them - and what steps I should take next as clearly the support currently being offered would not be enough.

My son has 2:1 TA support and I think back then, he'd be in a special school if he was lucky with probably less than adequate education and if not, I don't think he'd be in education at all. Certainly not mainstream education which he manages just fine with the support he gets.

It was only in 1981 that care in the community as opposed to institutions became more mainstream for people with disabilities and mental illness.

@Kirbert2 - so 8 year old children would have been kept in mental health institutions?

Lots of SEN kids are parented properly doesn't mean that school.meets their needs

Years ago children were beaten into submission or drugged to keep them quiet

Either we want a society where children are physically restrained, physically punished etc or we want a society that frowns on those types of things you can not have things both ways

They would have been in institutions yes.
Children with down syndrome were in institutions, children with CP were in institutions

Deaf children went to specialist deaf school(got a far better education historically until sign language was banned too but that's a whole other debate).

Blind children went to blind schools.

Inclusion has seen many specialist provisions closed which has been a tragedy in some areas but also seen some of the awful institutions closed which is a good thing but they didn't replace them with positive environments to meet needs

There was a thread a few months ago from a mother that was trapped in her bedroom with her violent adult SEN son attempting to demolish the wall to get to her.

Perhaps medication has a place if it prevents violence?

Yes, they would.

Before 1981? Yes. Discrimination against disabled and SEN children in schools wasn't even made illegal until 2001.

My first question asked how things were managed in the 1980's and 1990's. I don't remember these violent children at either my primary or secondary school.

But there are solutions here and there is a protocol that your school should be following. I can imagine that sticking your fingers in your ears, pretending every school is dangerous as yours and kicking the can down the road is the culture in your school. But it is untrue that all schools choose to put children at risk of harm rather than following the process put in place to safeguard and support all children.

I think the pupil referal units were set up in the 1990s so there was a demand!

Before that a lot of pupils just had a tutor at home or nothing if they were excluded.

In terms of sen, the 80s was when special schools still existed. The move to inclusion started but didn't really get going until the late 90s.

Maybe you're looking back with Rose tinted glasses. I was at school 25 years ago, there was a lot of violence. I remember chairs thrown across the room, a teacher being pushed, fights in the playground happened daily. Bullying was horrific and poorly managed. ADHD wasn't unheard of but it was only just becoming recognised in the UK, I know boys who were diagnosed when I was at school, some of them were moved on to special schools. One went to a young offenders institute. I'm sure many of the 'naughty kids' actually had undiagnosed ADHD.
I knew a boy who was severely autistic and violent, went straight to a special school, a girl with down syndrome and a girl with severe learning difficulties both lived on my street and went straight to special school. The backlog of assessments and early intervention along with a lack of spaces in special schools will mean more SEND children are entering mainstream school than in the past. That doesn't mean mainstream schools were perfect places with no violence, I do think there were a lot if undiagnosed children in schools back then too who were just labelled as naughty.

In my town we had a special school where autistic children went, along with other disabled children. I have no idea if they had a diagnosis then but these children still live in the town now as adults. Many of them live faily independently so I would imagine they are at a similar level to the DC fighting for support in schools now. The special school had lots of pupils, all from my local town. It is still open but is one of very few special schools in the area, so is now only for DC with very severe disabilities travelling miles to the school.

Oh, I do. Especially at secondary school.

A group of girls who would constantly fall out with each other and fight each other, not caring if they hurt teachers trying desperately to break it up
A boy everyone called 'the naughty boy' who would throw chairs and attack teachers
Not physical but a group of kids bullying the French teacher to the point she ran out of class in tears and we never saw her again

etc

Thanks. That makes sense.

I can't imagine the budgets/costs were anything like we're seeing now (e.g. the £100k per child that was quoted earlier in the thread).

How were they able to do things more cheaply and provide that system of special schools when the education budgets were much, much smaller than today? Why have costs spiralled out of control?

In Call the Midwife the little girl affected by thalidomide goes to a specialist school and 'just does plasticine" because the other children all have learning disabilities.
Once children with Down Syndrome started going to mainstream schools their life chances and education increased exponentially.
In Small Axe: Education the director tells what I believe is his own story: he was dyslexic and was sent to a school for the "educationally subnormal" where no attempt at all was made to teach him.
Specialist schools still exist (not sure who above thinks they don't) but they are not always a good idea and I'm fairly sure one of DS former school mates who's dyslexic and had some behaviour difficulties was sent to a learning disability school, where we were told to send DS as well. Who also doesn't have a learning disability.

I realise I should have put 'still existed in greater numbers'

I know special schools still exist, my son goes to one.