AIBU to think holding children down for “educational” purposes is bad?

[MakingM2]

I watched “Don’t exclude me” last night and there were some interesting ideas but I’ll cut to the chase.

In one scene, if you haven’t seen it, the teacher is physically restraining a very young boy who clearly has additional needs. They are basically on the floor in the playground. She is holding him down. He is pulling her hair. It’s all fairly horrific. She claims this is “trauma informed practice”.

The deputy head said - it feels wrong when you do it and it feels wrong when someone else does it.

…and my thought is “Sir, that’s because it is wrong”. You are teaching this tiny child that a more powerful person can physically force them to submit to their will - and that this is something that is ok. You may as well get a cane out.

Having been a governor in two primaries and friends with teachers and teacher trainers, I personally can’t imagine many teachers would want to undertake this kind of “behaviour management” even if the children do become more compliant afterwards.

And it occurred to me, given we think that observing violence is bad for children, should we really be doing this type of thing?

So am I being unreasonable to think violence (of any kind, with any justification) has no place in an educational environment?

YABU - nah, this is fine, stop being so precious
YANBU - education should be violence free

I work with children with challenging behaviours, honestly before you judge maybe you should spend a day in a school like that? And not form your opinions based on a programme quite possibly edited to make it look a certain way.

Restraint is used as a last resort and unfortunately it is sometimes necessary.

I think if I saw a hold like that at my school I’d actually be obliged to report it; it’s outside what we are trained to do and the situation wasn’t dangerous enough to justify doing anything outside of our training (which it might be if you were eg having to prevent a child from jumping into a road, in which case you are permitted to essentially just grab them and pull them back).

Trauma Informed practice prevents a child from getting hurt. That restraint technique is just one; you could also restrain a child by hugging them. Honestly OP until you have seen a child with additional needs so worked up, so frustrated, that the only way they can make sense of things is by banging ten kinds of shit out of their heads then you can judge

Watching this now....Oscar is my ds 6 years ago...identical behaviour, my ds has a diagnosis of ADHD, ODD /conduct disorder, he was kicked out of 3 primary schools, his behaviour was even more extreme and dangerous and at times he had to be restrained to stop him getting out of a window/onto the school roof, this wasn't even always successful...as much as I hated him being restrained, it was definitely needed, he is 12 now, and though different, he is still unable to attend school, I know that if he was in the special school recommended, he would be restrained again and as he is much bigger/stronger and aggressive, this would end badly for everyone, currently not in school 😞

I worked in a residential school for difficult teenagers (some arsonists, some having sex with their parents, that level of problem) with learning issues. We were trained in appropriate restraint to protect the child, to protect other children and to protect staff. Don't judge until you have been in that situation.

@Stormsy

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010cx8/dont-exclude-me-series-1-episode-2 26 mins in

I am 99.9% sure they have cut this before placing it on Iplayer. She was restraining the child before he started pulling her hair, which we no longer see here. It appears it's been edited out since airing so it now looks like she only starts restraining him after he starts pulling her hair. The fact they've edited it after people have starting questioning how necessary the restraint was speaks for itself

It shows her restrain him before he pulls her hair when I view it.

@callingon

I think if I saw a hold like that at my school I’d actually be obliged to report it; it’s outside what we are trained to do and the situation wasn’t dangerous enough to justify doing anything outside of our training (which it might be if you were eg having to prevent a child from jumping into a road, in which case you are permitted to essentially just grab them and pull them back).

What would you do then? Presumably going by the programme his behaviour is often challenging hence why they have been brought in to support him. He legs it out of the classroom, starts grabbing and chucking stuff whilst another child is out there, presumably asking nicely won't help. What boundaries would you use?

some having sex with their parents, that level of problem i think you mean victims of sexual abuse.

I can’t comment on the specific situation you’re talking about, but at work a child has had to be restrained because they were threatening to stab someone with a weapon they were holding. So… not really sure what else you suggest was done there.

I did Teamteach training recently and they no longer teach the hold that was shown in that episode due to the risks to both the child and the restraining adult. They do teach safe holds after they have taught de-escalation techniques - restraint is absolutely a very last resort and it didn't seem like a last resort in that particular situation.

In the first episode, Oscar's mum said that he likes close physical contact and seeks it out. There are obviously some additional needs there which need to be assessed and supported properly - opportunities for that sensory input would definitely help there so weighted blanket or lap blanket, weighted vest etc.

I did feel the teachers seemed quite defeated - made me wonder where the support from SLT was because they seemed to have zero idea how to handle challenging behaviour without calling for backup which undermines them and makes it even harder next time. Olivia's teacher seemed totally disinterested in her at first but how much of that was lack of training/utter exhaustion at having to deal with the challenging behaviour without support?

@Upsielazy essentially wait for him to calm down. I don’t think holds are really supposed to be used to enforce boundaries in the sense of making sure classroom rules are followed. I’ll have to watch the whole thing though. To be clear I have been trained to hold children but haven’t had to do it much so I’m not against it in principle. I don’t think that particular scenario would be acceptable where I work though.

@Upsielazy also I’m literally meaning what I would do in that particular moment rather than that ‘wait for him to calm down’ is going to be a comprehensive approach to his behaviour. He presumably does need a lot of support but not having seen the whole thing I don’t know what that would be.

It can be necessary in certain situations as a last resort when the child or other people are at risk. It can also end up being used because a child is in the wrong setting and/or the staff don't have the skills to manage a child's behaviour or meet their needs. A friends child ended up being pretty much restrained daily in mainstream school with the staff and child being injured. In the 3 years they have been in an asd provision they have never had to be restrained.

Not able to comment on the specific situation in the programme, but there was a boy in my son's class for several years who had severe behavioural problems. He had to be restrained for the safety of others, and I think that was right. In one incident, he had just kicked out the front teeth of one child and was heading for another, and I am very pleased he was held down to stop this.

I work with this age group and thought it was strange that she choose to restrain him in that moment. He wasn't hurting himself or others.

But restraint is sometimes necessary. When you have a small child attacking adults, smashing a room up, throwing chairs and tipping tables you have to do it their own safety.

We would rather stop them before they do too much damage. So if a child is in crisis and is beginning to attack the adults and throw objects around restraint might be necessary. It's awful for their self-esteem when they calm down and realise what they have done.

However it's always a last resort.

@PutYourBackIntoit

This child clearly had SEN.

In the programme, there was not 1 mention of that, or what the school are doing to help support the family get a full assesment of his needs.

This is what they should be putting all their efforts into.

This.

This program, as a parent of a child with SEN made me really cross.

These children all clearly had additional needs, or at the very least, needed input from experts (in SEN) or proper assessment, diagnosis and support.

There was zero mention of SEN in the program. They were just like 'the naughty kids'.

If they'd have approached it from a 'how can we support children with potential SEN or diagnosed SEN to not be excluded?' then fine. But they glossed over it entirely and it was wrong.

In the part of the programme I saw, there seemed to be a lot of shouting and raised voices from staff and it didn't seem to be having the effect they wanted.

In theory, I totally agree with you and thought I would never do it. In practice, the logical part of the brain turns off when some traumatised childre go through stress and sometimes, gentle holding is necessary to keep the child from hurting themselves or others. Big caveat, I have done an entire course on how to restrain safely and effectively to calm the child as quickly as possible. It was a two day course. I still have only used it twice in several years. THAT is trauma informed practice.

twirlinginthesnow
These children all clearly had additional needs, or at the very least, needed input from experts (in SEN) or proper assessment, diagnosis and support.

All this takes time and doesn't make a difference to the day to day struggle of managing the behaviour in the classroom.

I also think people forget that the child that's the most extreme kicking off and screaming, isn't the only one with any issues. I very much doubt Oscar was the only child in that class with any behavioural difficulties or in need of additional support.

The teachers will be begging for support from outside services, it's not that easy. The demand massively outweighs the supply.

Teaching is exhausting.

That children who are a danger to themselves and others might need more adjustments to receive an education that meets their needs than a mainstream environment can offer them?

But what if the parents refuse the possibility of other options because they don't want their child to be seen as different?

What if there are no spaces on the non mainstream school

What if, like for us at the moment, the LA is saying they aren't allocating places currently as the issues may be down to covid lockdowns. See how it goes (the dc were violent long before covid)

What if, at 6, the process of assessment and allocation of a space at a special unit is still underway (again delayed due to covid)

Should the child just be left to run riot and not be restrained in any way causing harm to both themselves, the other pupils and the staff? All the above and more are what we are dealing with in our mainstream school just now. I've not watched the program so I don't know how extreme it was but yes, sometimes we have to restrain children. I had a 5 year old throw a chair at me this week, another banging his head off a table corner. Just let them get on with it?

@AllWaxedOut I have every sympathy with teachers. They're expected to do an almost impossible job. And I get that it takes time - my own child has a diagnosis and an EHCP, I've been through the (lengthy and frustrating!) process. She isn't actually violent in school at all, and she's very well supported (and coping, as a result) but I would accept appropriate and safe restraint if she was. I have been on a course myself to learn how to restrain her appropriately and safely when I need to at home (which as yet I haven't had to, but I'm sure it will come she is only small at the moment).

It's the programmes angle I objected to and they way they neglected to even mention SEN. To your average parent of NT children who has no experience with SEN I felt that it was a 'look at these awfully behaved children acting out in school' show rather than a 'look at what our teachers have to deal with when children have clear additional needs and require extra support and that support isn't actually there'. The lack of even a mention of SEN was appalling.

I also agree with the other posters about provision being available for children who need it for specialist places. It's just not there. There are several children in my child's primary class who, to be frank, clearly need more support and aren't getting it and one of them, who is violent, quite evidently can't cope with the classroom environment at all and will likely be excluded before Christmas. He would benefit from a specialist place - he'll likely never get it, or at least not until very late primary or early secondary age.

I'm all for inclusion, if it benefits the child. There is no benefit for a child to be in an environment that they cannot cope with. For them or the other children (or the teachers!).

It all comes down to money. Or lack of it!

Lots of parents don't want special provision settings for their children. Even if mainstream is completely unsuitable.

Primary schools in particular are expected to" wait it out" until secondary, there is little SEMH provision for primary aged children, certainly in my county, and what there is is oversubscribed. I was speaking to the director of education at a local multi academy special schools trust ( they have 17 schools in their trust) and they don't have a single primary place in schools across two counties.

The law is clear in this and it should only be used as a last resort with reasonable force and approved techniques. (unless life threatening!)

@AllWaxedOut

Lots of parents don't want special provision settings for their children. Even if mainstream is completely unsuitable.

Or cannot access them, there is a woeful lack of provision of appropriate settings.