Teacher said My child….

[Millymollymaisy]

So background of this is my son is sen and because of this he has access to a fidget spinner and a time out card to manage his day.

He became upset before bed last night and told me a teaching assistant had come up to him at school saying why did he have it and that he wasn’t allowed to use it. My son despite being under 8 is really good at expressing what he needs and informed her why he was using it ( he was feeling sad and frustrated and this calmed him)

This provision was agreed by the senco in writing and put into place last year. When I heard this I emailed in to remind them about the agreement and that any staff should know about his needs even at the minimum level

the teacher responded via email praising how fantastic the teaching assistant was ( I never questioned her abilities just relayed what was said to me ) and then proceeded to tell me he was told to put it away as ‘ he was using it to hit other children ‘

now and no I don’t think my child has sunshine radiating from him but I know him and he’s never ever done this to any child ever either inside or outside of school and I challenged this .

long story short I asked senco to step in and get to the bottom of it. Two children were spoken too about it and one confirmed my son hadn’t touched him and the other child said he had no clue what they were talking about. They then emailed me to say that my son ‘ was jabbing forward’ at some peers ( the same that confirmed the above)

i asked them if this actually took place that my son was taking a object and hitting children with it whether he’s sen or not it wouldn’t be okay and as a parent should I have not been called to be told so I could help facilitate it not happening again? I received no response to that

second of all the teacher put in writing alongside a lecture on the safe usage of a fidget tool that the reason he was told to put his managing aid away was ‘ because he was using it to hit other children ‘ I’m sorry but jabbing forward and hitting are very very different ( jabbing is still not okay but no physical contact was made )

when I asked my son this he obviously was upset and denied hitting anyone and he was telling the truth.

I really feel the teacher over stepped her mark in informing me of something that is serious but wasn’t actually true

was I unreasonable in the fact I emailed back the senco and copied the same teacher in quoting both of their feedbacks where it clearly shows my son never hit anyone and as a teacher they should be careful and clear when making allegations about any child including mine ?

A teacher making a false accusation of violence against a child is a huge deal and the OP is correct to call it out. This is even more important for SEN children.

My teachers lied about me and my sister. As an adult I am still angry about the lies and it has adversely affected my ability to trust others for life. I am autistic.

I think a lot of people underestimate just how traumatic mainstream schooling is for autistic children.

OP you are correct to defend your innocent son from lies.

Oh I comprehend. And I'm saying there's virtually nothing between hitting and jabbing aggressively AT other children. It's not really a false accusation is it? Getting extremely close to doing it versus doing it?

Either way, kid shouldn't have been doing it.

Nobody is intentionally lying and this isn't a conspiracy against your child.

They didn't do a forensic investigation when you first asked why it had been removed because most parents would just accept - probably not even question - that an aid would only be removed for a good reason.

When you came back, having investigated yourself, and very confident that he hadn't actually hit anyone, they realised what level of parent they were up against and looked into it properly - ok, jabbing at kids, essentially threatening to hit kids but stopping short of contact. You had an apology and an explanation.

Yet here you are still raging about the injustice.

Teach your kid that neurotypical people see little difference between hitting and threatening to hit. Both wrong, scary and have to be stopped.

Imagine if your child was on the receiving end of the 'jabbing'. You'd find it quite odd if the tool wasn't removed from the perpetrator wouldn't you.

Italianita
It's really depressing isn't it?

It was drilled into me when I trained to factually report things when incidents happened, nothing more, no embellishments, nothing emotive added in.

Either a child hit another child or they didn't. If they hit another child, say they hit and outline what you saw. If they didn't, don't make up that they did, stick with factually reporting the behaviour.

It doesn't mean that the non-hitting behaviour was ok, or that jabbing towards someone is ok, but it is not a child hitting another child.

@Millymollymaisy, I've been reading a few of your replies on here. You keep mentioning the fact that your annoyance comes from the teacher saying your DS hit another child but didn't actually make contact. This has since been corrected by the school so I think you need to let sleeping dogs lie.

As others have said, the TA relayed the incident to the teacher and the teacher passed that onto you. There has obviously been a miscommunication here but I don't think it warrants the attention you're giving it.

Put your effort into ensuring your son uses the finger toys safely in future to avoid any other incidents like this.

No, just someone not excusing poor behaviour by lauding the tiniest of margins.

If he had been hitting or trying to hit and not quite connecting, I would have expected someone to speak to a parent proactively not wait till asked why the aid was removed. It seems possible the teacher didn't even know anything happened until after OP first emailed. This makes me think whatever 'jabbing forward' was it wasn't hitting equivalent as some posters have imagined.

In your place OP, I'd ask DS what he was actually doing, believe him, and caution him about just playing quietly so it doesn't get taken away again. And leave it with school now unless there's a recurrence. I don't think you were unreasonable to make sure the teacher knows there was no hitting and hitting is not on his record.

I suspect it was the TA that said he was hitting others and the teacher , who had no reason to believe the TA was lying (who she praised in her first email) and emailed you the TA's account of the incident, lying by default.
When you and SENCO investigated further the TA changed their story and left the teacher in an awkward backtracking position.

I commend you on your advocacy for your son , if it'd been me I'd have taken the original email from the teacher as the correct version of events.

Thank you everyone for your feedback.

If he had been hitting or trying to hit and not quite connecting, I would have expected someone to speak to a parent proactively not wait till asked why the aid was removed. It seems possible the teacher didn't even know anything happened until after OP first emailed.
This makes me think whatever 'jabbing forward' was it wasn't hitting equivalent as some posters have imagined
I agree with this.
If I had a situation in any class where a fidget aid was removed due to it being persistently misused then I'd have contacted the parent myself to explain what happened, what my concerns were (eg were waving it around and someone might get hurt, was jabbing it towards people and whilst nobody was hurt it's not appropriate behaviour etc), and talk with the parents about next steps.

I'd be a little annoyed as a parent if my child had been behaving in a way that left staff concerned for other pupils' safety but they didn't mention anything to me until I asked about it.

I’ve always tended to side with teachers automatically, even with my own son, to make sure he did the right thing and that I’m biased etc. But in your case, clearly the teachers both lied. The one lied to cover up the fact she forgot (or worse was being malicious) your son is supposed to have a fidget aid, and then the other teacher propped up the lie. It is not ok to lie and say a student hit someone when the person(s) he supposedly hit said they weren’t touched and weren’t hit and no violence took place and no intent to cause violence took place. Yet the teachers doubled down when in fact they owe your son an apology in front of the class.

And Op, you’re trying to use reason and logic with some posters on here. It doesn’t work with them. They will side against you no matter what because they are not capable of separating a child they dislike and had a bad experience with from your child. They see your child as the child they dislike and it doesn’t matter what the truth is, what logic and reasoning you use, they will stick to their lies, insisting that your son hit when the children he supposedly hit said no he didn’t, just like the teachers.

I had great relationships with my son’s teachers because I respected them and they respected me, but a teacher lying and exaggerating about a child is outrageous. And then the other propping up the lie. And that’s what’s happened in your case. I think it’s a firing offense. The other students basically said it was a lie as they were not hit or anything even close to being hit. Your child has no history of violence, it is all ridiculous.

The fact is, Op, some teachers, and many people on this site, despise children and for proof go look at any of the threads and you will see it in all its grotesque frightening hate filled rants.

And it's "my perfect angel child!" parents like you, that make teachers jobs so impossible.

Exactly!

Impossible parents of "angel children", who just can't accept their little angel did something even vaguely wrong, and just keep on... and on... and on... until the teacher says "fine!" just to get them to shut up.

Thing is - I'm if anything overly paranoid about my kids doing awful stuff, BUT I know what sort of stuff they would do and what they wouldn't.

DS for example would retaliate out of proportion, but he would never initiate. When teacher said he'd hit someone I was perplexed - until I spoke to him and discovered that the someone in question had been getting in his face taunting him. He was still in trouble for hitting, but context makes a lot of difference to understanding what actually happened and how to prevent it happening again. He wasn't bullying, he was overreacting. Big difference.

Like OP is being realistic about her child fidgeting inappropriately but was perplexed when told he'd hit someone. Turned out he hadn't hit them at all, so OP was right.

I never said he did.

Love how you just can't help yourself replying every time though! Exactly proving my point.

Bye then!

No they’re not!