To suggest they ban this child from the SEN session

[Heartofglass83]

DD3 attends a weekly SEN gymnastics session which she loves. It’s got a big inflatable assault course / slide which is obviously really popular. The average age of the kids is probably about 5/6. Occasionally there’s an older child but they would normally have two parents walking round holding their hands etc.

the last few weeks there’s been a boy probably about 12 or 13 with quite visable learning difficulties who is very excitable and climbs to the top of the slide and stops children from going down the slide the supervisor has a few times had to ask his parent/carer to get him down as he jumps about so much the whole inflatable knocks all the other kids down. The parent / carer sits away on their phone the whole time.

DD went into the assault course and I normally follow her down and as she climbs up the ladder I walk back down to the bottom of the slide. As I was walking the boy ran up the slide and sat at the top. DD said “excuse me please” and he grabbed her by the pigtails and yanked them really hard before dragging her by the hair to throw her down the slide. I bellowed at the adults who were with him (who were all slouched away on their phones) and one jumped up the slide to get him off her.
DD has spent the last few hours really shocked and upset. I’m really angry because this is one of her favourite spaces where she can be herself.

i want to flag this to management - am I being unreasonable to say they need to give a warning and then ban this child from attending the session? I don’t blame the child in anyway, I blame the complete lack of supervision and care from the adults in charge of him. He is too big, and too excitable to be playing with small children without an adult constantly being with him. I dread to think of what could have happened as he is already quite a big lad.

@Heartofglass83 that's excellent. I bet you're relieved. I hope dd isn't nervous about going?

Absolutely not unreasonable to make management aware of what's happened, and let them know how you feel and what you've seen.
It is unreasonable to tell them they need to give a warning or ban a child - they just need facts and can decide what's appropriate.

You're well within your rights to say things like 'I'd like to see...' or 'We won't feel safe returning until...' or to suggest 'perhaps a separate session for anyone over 10 would be helpful' but you can't say 'you need to ban this child' as its not your decision.

You could suggest an email to all parents or carers saying something like 'children must be directly supervised whilst using the equipment, as a guide, adults should be activity moving through the venue with their child and not sat on the sidelines watching.'
If you've been going a while, it might be that the owners could tell you when is particularly quiet for you to attend a different session, at least so you know your daughter can get comfortable with the venue again and definitely wouldn't see the boy.

YANBU. Escalate.

@Heartofglass83 I agree with @Sirzy- I don't think asking for the boy in this case to be banned is BU at all. I don't think this session sounds the right environment for him. At the end of the day he has really hurt and upset your daughter, so he might to the same to others. I would definitely have a word with management and inform them of your concerns.

And just because someone has SEN, it doesn't mean that every SEN thing will be definitely right for them.

@Baileyscream 'He thought he was helping the girl.'

What's wrong with you?

That's not help. That's assault. He grabbed her by the hair. It's not his fault, but it's still asssult and if he can't behave appropriately then he shouldn't attend.

@Baileyscream and you sound like you're blaming the OP's daughter. Whether she did or said something wrong or not, that's absolutely no excuse for what he did.

@Heartofglass83 I've just read your update- that's fantastic news! Well done to the manager for treating the matter with the seriousness it deserves. I hope your daughter is feeling better now ❤️

You have just restored my faith in parenting.

I am sick to the back teeth of SEN parents using their child’s diagnosis as an excuse for lazy parenting. It does make me judge the parents of these children, which I know is wrong, but when SEN is used time and time again as an excuse it becomes infuriating. I can’t even begin to imagine how it makes you feel, as the parent of an SEN child who is trying their best to raise a decent and compassionate human being.

I've two with sen ,there's always adults at these sessions ,who are so exhausted from caring for their child they just need to switch off.
Maybe the session needs another member of staff on duty and maybe different sessions for different ages ..
But most sen sessions ,are at times the company don't get much business ,so they are unlikely to have two different sen sessions as they will loose money.
I always got round this by sticking to my DC like glue

One of the reasons we love SEN sessions so much is that it does give parents the chance to do that - to have a chat with another adult or sit down and know their child can’t escape etc but they are still watched even if it’s from afar and there’s no judgement when there’s the occasional upset - we all get it. I think the issue here is that the child was too big, too hyper and not being remotely watched and is obviously known to have issues with no boundaries with touching. And it’s not a parent getting a much needed break - it was a carer being paid to look after him. It’s made for a little perfect storm.