To think change is desperately needed in schools?

[GibberingPeck]

I work with young children. Today I was hit twice and scratched on the face so hard it drew blood. This has not happened to me before and I’ve worked in schools for many years. I was trying to stop a child hurting another child. The school’s stance seems to be that I shouldn’t have intervened or somehow dealt with the situation badly. I think they saw I was bleeding, but ignored it as they have so much to deal with. This year, I think I’ve seen more violent and aggressive behaviour from children than I’ve ever seen. And no way of dealing with it - it seems to have become acceptable or ‘the norm’.

LostBoys16 You say Grandparents etc feel no responsibility to the younger children of the family but you only have to read threads on here where many mothers hate anyone but themselves even holding their baby. Many mothers see themselves as the Madonna and won't allow any other adult to go near their child even fathers are treated like a threat. What are the rest of the "village" meant to do when they are frozen out?

Things definitely have to change. I think most parents are pretty good at discipline and boundaries but kids are really unhappy in school because they do not feel safe. Behaviour is a communication. Schools are not in the bloody real world and 21st century.

At secondary school the discipline is just off the scale and good kids are being treated like felons from the start, it's completely ridiculous and all wrong.

Read this and weep.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/naomi-fisher-psychologist_recently-i-talked-to-a-young-person-who-told-activity-7175462949703024640-3L5Z/

Lots of grandparents are just too busy. Mil emergrated when ds2 was born. In my case they all of them either too busy or living their best lives. Mil wants to be involved but she isn't present. Lots of times I have wanted advice or support or knowledge but when you say stuff like dd has been suspended 3 times, there's better grandkids doing well so it's easier to focus on the smart GC. Because there is little bond or understanding when your not present through the grind and the good times.

Even Mil says about how idilic dh grandparents was and ditto for hers but can't grasp that they was present where she is unwilling to be oresent.

Times change and if you live longer with more cash you don't want to engage in daily grind. You swoop in for the good bits only.

My mil threatened to report us to SS when we left our 16 old home alone. She'd die if she knew what my kids are struggling with at school. My late mum would just say "I'd smack them" in fact that's her answer to everything. It's just a rose tinted view

This just isn’t true. Random assessments that don’t fit NICE guidelines are broadly not accepted. In fact, the issue is more that we - as parents - can’t go private easily when the NHS waiting lists are 6 years long. Even the GPs aren’t clear about this. Ours had to phone the ND teams (one for ASD and one for ADHD) and not only got different answers from each but also can’t actually recommend any providers that do stick to NICE guidelines, so it’s all on the parents and if they get it wrong they risk removal from the excruciatingly long waiting list.

We parent differently due to the needs of our children. We still have strong boundaries and clear rules. The behaviour being caused by type of parenting, attachment issues or trauma has to be ruled out at diagnosis.

A lot of us are stuck doing our best every day, spending hours de-escalating, carefully framing every demand, sticking to rigid routines, prepping a sensory bag for whenever we leave the house, going into school when needed, filling out long paperwork, listing and recording everything we’ve tried and it’s failure or limited success, visiting the GP so these issues are recorded by someone other than just us, making referrals to multiple different services (assessment, sensory needs, sleep clinic, food clinics etc are all different referrals) and trying to make our children feel loved and appreciated.

Our children are stuck without diagnoses that give them access to medication and a way to explain their needs to adults who don’t get it. They’re put through the stress of having to try and explain these needs and often getting little to no help.

I’ll never forget how grateful I was when my ds started to near meltdown in a museum and a member of staff (who clearly had training/experience) came over and gave him a sunflower to wear, allowing us to queue to the side away from others and go into the exhibit early for him to calm down. This tiny act made the world of difference and if more people could be like that member of staff, I think we’d find our children with ND etc would have the space to develop their own techniques much more effectively. Equally, for ADHD medication is first line treatment now and cannot be received without diagnosis (or at least lots of assessment and ruling out other issues) which is obviously the way it should be, but also means when the pathway to assessment/diagnosis is years long and tough, that (sometimes vital) treatment is delayed and the child is the one who suffers.

We need early intervention and support - and less of the myths around falsifying these diagnoses.

I’ve never thought about this but you’re right. DD1 was looked after by grandparents four days a week until she started preschool at 3, and DD2 is 2.5 so still with them. They did/do no formal classes but spent/spend their days playing with books, baking, helping FIL in the garden, walking up to the village with MIL to have coffee and cake….just pottering really.

Obviously in an ideal world DH or I would be the ones at home (though then we woudn’t be able to afford to feed them!), but I fully credit this relaxed toddlerhood for their great behaviour, concentration and social skills.

It’s a shame that this can’t be the norm for early childhood.

Timeturnerplease This is the perfect upbringing for your children and it is such a shame the majority of children in our country will never have this, too many of our children spend more hours in a childcare setting than they do with their family and unfortunately for some children when they do spend time with their parents, their parents are too busy with their heads in a phone. I think many parents need to be honest with themselves and track their usage, my Daughter was on her phone more than 5 hours a day when she was at home with her baby, she was really shocked when she realised and it shocked her enough to put her phone down. 2000 hours of her daughters life she will never get back, 2000 hours when her baby didn't see her Mummy's face only the back of a phone ! And we wonder why some children can't make eye contact.

Like some others on here, I don’t think there is any one reason for the decline in behaviour. There are a number of factors that impact schools, most of which have already been mentioned. I don’t think blaming parents or blaming teachers is particularly helpful.

I also think it’s a reflection on society as a whole. People seem to be less tolerant and more interested in their own personal wants than ever before.

Some children do act completely feral but some adults seem incapable of acting any better. I’ve seen a fair few people who put their own entitlement above everything else. Parking where they want, expecting everyone else to get out of their way in shops, whining because someone else might have something that they don’t. If we’re going in this direction as a society then you can’t expect children to behave any better.

I feel for graduate employers and I know that we’re not doing students or you any favours with the relentless focus on student voice and student experience.

They’re learning to devalue expert knowledge whether that’s academic or professional because we keep asking them ‘what do you think’, which implicitly elevates student experience to the status of knowledge.

Of course they ought to have a say, but it would be helpful to acknowledge that it’s not the voice of professional or pedagogical knowledge and experience. Again though, govt encouraging students and parents to view HE through a highly commodified and instrumental lens. It’s only natural that they start thinking this.

Agreed. In the same day, two young women were injured in two separate incidents in my school. (I’m on supply.)

One was badly bruised and simply requested that the culprit be removed from her class for a couple of days. HT refused.

The other woman was pregnant. Thankfully, the baby is okay.

20 yrs ago, I wasn’t so lucky. I keep myself sane by telling my I would probably have lost it anyway - I was in my 40s. Didn’t know for certain that I was pregnant until I lost it the next day - very early on and I thought it was possibly menopause. No medical record of a pregnancy, so I couldn’t prove anything.

Police ‘lost’ the statements.

@thebillcollector there are plenty of Sure Starts in my area. I used several of them regularly when my children were small. It was the same families, week in and week out.
Some parents just don't care or can't be bothered, whatever is available to them. They never came to the stay and plays or the sports sessions.
Parents are responsible for the behaviour of their children, not schools, and certainly not the State as a whole.

@ChaosAndCrumbs Whilst some of what you say isn't wrong, you're preaching to the wrong choir. My DD has an EHCP, more diagnosis than you can throw a stick at, through NHS and Private, so I am well aware of the pitfalls of the system. I am not saying it is easy and I am not saying parents aren't trying.
However, I am also aware of what money gets you and the attitudes parents are passing onto their kids.

I think one thing that is forgotten when comparing pupil behaviour to "the old days" is how many more pupils with significant SEN are taught in mainstream schools, and how significant the needs of children in specialist schools are. In the old days many of these most high needs pupils would not have been in school but in an institution.

I am not advocating for a return to this but there are undoubtedly pupils whose needs are so significant it is pretty much impossible for them to be in a school environment without posing a risk to staff.

School staff generally aren't expected to use physical restraint and even if they are trained to do so it is strongly discouraged. So what are they supposed to do when a teenager with the understanding of a pre-schooler lashes out?

I think as well that if you went back to having separate schools for SEN not so many parents would be keen to have their children diagnosed.

One little girl my dd is friends with parents think she has ADHD whereas a lot of her behaviour in my opinion is because they don’t enforce any boundaries, they don’t chastise her if she doesn’t listen to them or follow their instructions and they never say no to her. She’s a lovely little girl and she can follow instructions when I tell her to do something, but they’d rather blame it on something outside of their control.

As governor in a SEN school we don't have enough places for even the most profound needs. We are so, so short on places that getting to a point where parents are scared of a diagnosis is as likely as finding a cure to death.

A lot of children would cope fine with mainstream secondary school if there were smaller class sizes and individual needs were met.

A lot of children would cope fine with mainstream secondary school if schools were even like how they were 15 years ago and not full of draconian rules and a one size fits all approach. People don't realise how much schools have changed in a short time and how bad they are now - most/lots of them.

A lot of children with ADHD/ASD are not badly behaved - not disruptive in class or naughty. School not meeting needs does not mean they have been disruptive in school. I wish (ignorant) people would stop equating one with the other.

@IncessantNameChanger you have to have a bit of sympathy for today's grandparents,(grandmas, let's face it) who have probably only just finished or are still working fulltime for themselves and I can't blame grandmas for then wanting a break after having caring duties probably for their own kids, been expected to work all the time upto 60+ (they are the 'women can have it all' generation that ended up doing everything), probably had caring duties for their own parents and then to be expected to be heavily involved in looking after their grandchildren as well....give the grandmas a break!

Sorry I'm going to put links to what I said about steroid use in pregnancy. Sorry if it upsets anyone. Thays not my intention. Obviously its risks versus benefits:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766162
Plus this is from bmj:
https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/new-studies-shed-more-light-on-potential-risks-of-antenatal-steroids/

Hi I've put on a link pls see above.

This rhetoric about working parents and grandparents is just a hugely ridiculous generalisation.

I didn't have any grandparents involved when I was a child and yet I was incredibly well behaved at school. My children sadly don't have grandparents as they are dead and we work FT but my children are well behaved!

My neighbour was childminder to her grandchild FT until she started school. She's now started school and can't cope because she's not used to being in such a setting! Another friend is a SAHM (in fact the only SAHM in my friendship circle) with fantastic support and input from grandparents and yet she's been repeatedly called into school regarding her child's awful behaviour.

I think there are two issues: (1) SEN - and that is a whole different issue and (2) bad parenting - and that has nothing to do with working FT or grandparents not being involved.

I've always found younger people in the workplace set a far better example generally than their elders and are seriously impressive. The worst behaviour I've seen has been from partners in a law firm. Lazy and disorganised at work, unsupportive of others in the team or downright nasty, taking credit for others' work, bullying, dropping other team members in it, causing a large turnover of junior employees, drunken fighting at events and inappropriate sexual behaviour towards colleagues. All of it tolerated by their peers if they are seen to bring in the money.

The more male, senior and over remunerated people are the worse they behave and the more they get away with.

It's no wonder some children are badly behaved when they have that sort of example across the board in society from Gen X and boomers. Where you do you think they spring from?

I used to do kids parties at one time when my own kids were small and most groups were lovely. The worst behaved, messiest and rudest group by far were a bunch of ten year olds who all went to an expensive private school.

There is nothing in either of those links to discounts whatever it was that triggered the intervention with steroids from being the cause of the mental and behavioural disorders, ie that steroids are merely a confounding variable.

yes, agree to this. Some teens especially appear, to be totally dependent on their phones for all their social and emotional needs. Teenagers are still developing empathy at this age, I read that the brain does not properly develop empathy until early 20s. I wonder what effect long term use of phone addictions will play out when these teens are adults.

I'm sure there are lots of reasons, but it is so easy now to avoid interaction and go through the day not talking to people, in shops, transport, work so little kids are missing out on these bits of interaction and so many times (tired) parents have their head in a phone rather than talking to the children. Even watching tv seems to be too much and people get their phones out, rather than watching something together and discussing. I think we are all so much more isolated and the hours pass away without actively choosing to do something, just tired browsing
(hypocritically this is typed on my phone as my toddler waits for me 🫣, just a quick break, honest)

I don't think teens are half as dependent on or addicted to their phones as grown adults TBH. They really use them for messaging more than anything. In my day I would ring my best friend up on the landline as soon as we got home from school. Same thing. Whereas adults spend hours on Mumsnet/Facebook etc and have their whole lives on there - banking apps, email, dating etc, fall into internet rabbit holes and so on. Teenagers are mostly using them for more traditionally social reasons.

Yes that is true. However I can see the merit in their conclusion which I quote:

Despite the limitations of these papers, some tentative conclusions can still be drawn that may influence clinical practice, say specialist neonatal doctors in a linked editorial.

For example, they say reducing the frequency of mistimed antenatal corticosteroid administration should remain a focus for all health professionals working in this area, and emphasise the need for further high quality data investigating longer term outcomes in children who were exposed to mistimed antenatal corticosteroids.

They also point out their professional duty to fully counsel parents about the benefits as well as potential harms of any proposed treatment that could affect their offspring.

Finally, they say these studies “highlight the challenge of preventive treatments in fetal and neonatal medicine and should remind clinicians and parents that there is no such thing as a risk-free drug.”

This is from the JAMA who should know about this stuff?