School rewarding 8 yr olds for bad behaviour

[Pugwash2005]

My ds and his friends have been complaining because the 4 'naughty' children in their class have a tea party every Friday afternoon if they get over 12 'smileys' in a week, 2 'good' children are also picked to go along. There was an incident in school with one of the challenging pupils but he was still allowed to the party. Ds & I along with other mums think this party is making other children feel they are not rewarded for their good behaviour along with the fact that even when naughty these 4 kids get rewarded. Your opinions on this would be great

The SENCo at our local secondary told me they wouldn't allow DS1 (ASD dx at 3 statemented since primary) to wear tracksuit bottoms instead of shorts for PE (sensory issues), and told me he knew another mother resolved her child's sensory issues by getting firm. It got a little worse from there!

Fortunately, we got one of the very few places at an ASD base in a mainstream secondary. The SENCo there said if he couldn't manage PE at all (quite likely) it really wasn't a problem.

And insanity, Family 2's single Mum did have the wherewithal, intelligence and understanding to realize what her ds's actual needs were except her concerns were somewhat muffled by the 'single mum, council house' assumptions - so clearly demonstrated by user above -that she had to wade through and overcome before she was taken seriously. Attempts to 'criminalize' ds from age 6 were shocking and yes, I've given up everything career-wise, phd, relationships, the lot, a lot, to ensure that my ds (diagnosed with ASD at age 8) was not going to follow some pre-laid path into a young offenders institution purely because that was his 'destiny' as being the child of a single-mum in a council house.

Mostly I hate Facebook shit but someone just posted a t shirt with the words and I thought of this thread.

"Sorry to disappoint you but I can't spank the Austism out of my child any more than I can slap the ignorance out of you"

On a different angle that this thread has explored, it's awful that kids are bullied - but shaming kids and punishing them is not always the best approach to solving the issue.....I can see how it makes the victim and their parent feel a bit better - is that the point? Because it really shouldn't be....stopping the bullying is the goal!

Plan

You misunderstand my (very poorly expressed, heavily sarcastic) point I think....

'Jaydon/Kyle' are the names that some people on this thread have used when talking about badly behaved kids.

I have mentioned it a few times in my posts on this thread as I think it illustrates the ingrained prejudice and implicit parent blaming that goes on during discussions of this type.

I am in total agreement with the point you are trying to make.... and have witnessed it first hand along with many other cliches (most commonly "he won't remember his experiences with his birth family therefore these experiences can't affect his behaviour today ergo you are just a bad parent")

Too true Bensyster stopping the bullying is, or should be, the goal. Teachers don't always deal well with bullying and asking the bullied child to be understanding isn't helping either side. In my daughter's case the teacher was part of the problem and seemed to relish what was dealt out to my daughter. I'm not anti teacher by the way, two of my kids are teachers.

granny thank you, it's hard to deal with but it was far harder for him. For me the hardest part was hearing him say "if i was dead i wouldn't be causing all these problems" he honestly believed everything was his fault.

It's years since he left the school but he still tells me things that were happening back then and i didn't know the half of it.

granny I'm too am sorry to hear about the way your DD was treated.

Zzz, I'm not sure if I can imagine an analagous situation for me in the scenarios you mention. But yes if I was probe to hitting others in my office, or my neighbours, for (to them) no reason I think i would prefer for them to know that i wasn't doing it deliberately, yes.

Plan not generalising at all sorry if you thought I was just telling how it was for J. J's mum and I were friendly because our names were mud in the playground tbh. She did recognise similarities between ds and J but didn't have the confidence to push for a second opinion and I think professionals were more willing to blame J's difficulties on J's mum's parenting tbh. Ds nearly broke me and he was number four and I had support so she had it really really awful on her own with J and him being her first tbh.

Last well thank God it won't ever happen that all and sundry will have access to other people's personal information.My advice would be that if a child is displaying difficult behaviour or having adjustments made then it's safe to assume that there is a legitimate reason for it and the correct response would be to show kindness and compassion and foster those traits in your children too.Far better to be kind and compassionate even when the circumstances might not warrant it than to be unkind and judgemental in error when the circumstances do IMO.

Hi user0000,etc,000 - thanks for that explanation and a bit sorry my end for getting it a bit wrong but your explanation is very clear and refreshing.

Ds and I are nearly at the end of the educationalists explanations (good, great, bad and ugly) of who we both actually are and whilst I can be critical of a lot of what we have dealt with, this isn't a blanket criticism of all teachers because some have been great. Likewise - blanket explanations don't apply in every case - eg: plenty of 2-parent families are dysfunctional as well as middle-class professional ones - LP or not.

The greatest dependent of how assumptions are assimilated is life-experience, followed by teacher self-interest. It was completely obvious to the more life-experienced teachers that I didn't fit the assumptive 'single-parent, council house, 'Kyle :)' explanations'; however this became unimportant when either the inexperienced or self-interested were 'in charge'; obviously the disastrous combo was inexperience plus self-interest.

We are near the end now, soon life will be of our own making, in my case again and for ds it's his first bite at the cherry/oyster.

For colour and all the other parents out there who have to deal with the judgements and assumptions as well as the day-to-day, find YOUR way of dealing with it. Others may criticize and let them, they don't live your family's life, you do. Whatever it takes to keep it stable and happy as possible - lie on the sofa for an hour beven if the hoovering, etc needs doing.....hardly anyone pops in to visit now anyway do they?!

It does get better, Love from Plan x

Forgot to mention the career and phd I gave up involved the academic errors involved in academic writing and that [certain specific] assumptions became 'truths', even though they could be proven incorrect. Still waiting for someone else to get an MRes, etc to explain this obvious fault. I had to give it up - taking care of autistic ds, taking on the 'system' and keeping working left little time to do this. At age 54 any spare money goes to clearing the mortgage. Another assumption blown - don't live in a council house any more - a bit of inheritance and continual work ethic changed that.

Add message | Report | Message poster LastnightaDJ Sun 19-Mar-17 19:59:51
Zzz, I'm not sure if I can imagine an analagous situation for me in the scenarios you mention. But yes if I was probe to hitting others in my office, or my neighbours, for (to them) no reason I think i would prefer for them to know that i wasn't doing it deliberately, yes.

Why not just bring up your children to give people the benefit of the doubt and respect that everyone has their own struggles? One thing I've learned from DS's issues is that teachers should respond to the need/behaviour irrespective of dx or lack thereof. If the professionals dealing with these children day on day don't need a label to attempt appropriate interventions for the child, why should classmates or classmates' parents need, or have any sort of right, to one? Some children aren't even aware of their own diagnosis, yet you think their classmates' parents should be told?

Teach your child to give people the benefit of the doubt but also advocate for them and don't expect them to put up with being hit. If someone is hurting them, that is the adults' job to sort out. Don't teach them they have to put up with it if the other child has a particular label that you think justifies it.

I can only assume you want to know the label so you can help your children grow into tolerant adults who show respect for everyone. Everything I've learned in the last year says that is better achieved by NOT slapping labels on people. You just need slightly different words - "some people find it extra difficult to do xyz".

"he won't remember his experiences with his birth family therefore these experiences can't affect his behaviour today ergo you are just a bad parent"

Snap!

Well not quite but close enough! I have even had professionals make the "but he can't remember it" speech.

Right-o so the smash on the head you had when you fell off your bike at speed that you can't remember won't affect you because you can't remember it

If you ever get the chance to see Kate Cairns speak, do go, she's inspirational and gives a good explanation of the effects of early life trauma on the developing brain and the theories about pre-conscious memories being stored in the nervous system. The fast that under 2 brains have not yet developed the ability to store and retrieve memories effectively does not mean nothing happened or that the development of the brain was nt impacted.

In fact I was once driven to say to someone who did the "he can't remember it" speech -

"What had your child learnt by the time he was 1? To walk maybe, a few words, that you would take care of him, that the park was fun, that he likes dogs, to point and say "MORE" when he saw cake" something along those lines? Well my child had learnt that life was scary and everybody leaves. Sooner or later EVERYBODY leaves."

simply trying to make the point that not telling other children or parents anything can make it harder for them to understand and empathise

You are probably too nice to realise this, but bitter experience says that sharing sensitive information with the hard-of-understanding doesn't help them empathise. It does give a weapon to nasty reactions though. So really you are asking the school to judge which parents are going to be empathic and understanding... and even if the school get that right are you expecting those chosen few to keep it to themselves or to tell others who they judge to be empathic and understanding too? And where does that turn into spreading it round the gossip network? The end results of well intentioned sharing of sensitive information can turn very ugly indeed.

Anyway, the solution to your immediate problem doesn't require that you know anything about the other kid. You can't solve the world. Compassion doesn't mean continuing to let yourself or your child get hurt. If another child hurts your DS then your DS doesn't have to play with him, whether he has SN or not, and you have the right to ask the school to protect your DS from him, whether he has SN or not. So leaving out the SN red herring that's basically what you tell your DS. If the other kid hurts him he doesn't have to play with him and he can tell the playground helper or teacher. And if he is still getting hurt then you will go and talk to the school about it. It's not your business whether they discipline the other boy or get him assessed for SN. It's your business that they keep your DS safe.

Last, The only person affected when other children or their parents are told specific details of a child's medical information is the child concerned. We gave permission for 1 parent to be told of 1 of DS' disabilities, she was reminded that it was confidential medical information and was asked not to discuss it with any other parents, we all thought we could trust that parent, How fucking wrong we were, by the end of the next day there were a few parents who were abusive to me about it and then after a few days the school wanted us to tell our son about his disabilities regardless of the fact that he was not ready for such a discussion. By the end of that week there were enough parents openly discussing my son and how they wanted him out of the school for me to overhear them at pick up time talking about making a concerted effort to complain about him.

So you still think that you should have the right to the CONFIDENTIAL MEDICAL INFORMATION of another child's SEND so you still think that the child's right to CONFIDENTIALITY should not exist because he/she has SEND. So you obviously believe that disability discrimination is ok.

I had no interest in knowing the medical details of the girls who bullied my daughter. To me it was irrelevant, my daughter had a right to feel safe at school and someone having a diagnosis or unhappy homelife or whatever didn't give them any right to use her as a punchbag and their rights didn't trump hers.

I think the bullies had a right to feel safe as well but that wasn't anything that should impact on my daughter or any other child.

People do not understand and empathise when they know all your business. It doesn't work like that.

Absolutely Grannytomine. That was a failure to deal with the bullying. Of course your DD had the right to feel safe at school and it's awful that she didn't. Hopefully things have come a long way since.

I have to say it's quite terrifying hearing some of these stories. Maybe I've been naive in sharing my ASD concerns about DS with my friends.

EineKleine, I hope so to although I have seen bullying being badly dealt with at the school where I volunteer. The starting point always seems to be it is six of one and half a dozen of the other and that isn't always the case. Using SEN as an excuse is horrible, lots, probably most, SEN kids are no more likely to be hurting other kids than anyone else.

Bullying is unusual in children with sn such as asd.
Hitting out when distressed or unable to communicate or occasionally out of habit is more common but that is different from bullying. It's also usually stopped by adequate supervision.

From my experience children with SN and particularly ASD are far more likely to be on the receiving end of bullying particularly as they lack social awareness and might present as odd or different which seems to attract bullies.
Dd herself has received unwanted attention, one girl would pick her up which dd found distressing and another girl kept hugging her. I don't doubt for a minute that they were aware that dd is very uncomfortable with physical contact and chose two ways of doing this that didn't appear to observers that they were being unkind. Thankfully her school had a sound grasp on dd's needs and it was quickly stopped.