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’.

Would it occur to you that some children aren't made mentally ill by their phone use?

Their phone use is a self soothing technique?

When my anxiety is terrible (which it often is because I have a child with leukaemia) I find my phone use becomes really dysfunctional. Sometimes being in my phone is a huge escape from the incredibly difficult feelings I'm experiencing when my reality is so tough.

BTW - when a teen is severely isolated and oppositional, parents often feel helpless and eventually exhausted and demoralised. They're often the subject of violence at the hands of their children. When we were going through this with our 15 year old daughter (eventually diagnosed with BPD) and were BEGGING for help, CAMHS completely let us down. 'You should stop her using her phone' would have been met with disbelief.

You've clearly not bothered to read the thread, which I don't blame you as it's long, but the OPs second post says they're in a private school. The many many posts from teachers all talk about how the wealthier parents often make up the bigger problem. That's not my own opinion.
Inverted prejudice of course exists, and your assumption that my child is at a state school is probably part of that.
You've illustrated perfectly what money gets you- choice. It's not state Vs private. Also, the 1:1 the SEN school get, might well be the OP!

@Hikingonmonday "I realise that might come across judgemental" in fairness 10 minutes in a FB group for parents whose children are severely mentally ill and under CAMHS would show that most judge CAMHS as more neglectful, inadequate and ineffectual than you're judging struggling, desperate parents to be.

I agree with you and I do worry. Tbh for us the meds are just to get her through school. She would be dead without them, genuinely. And no, she doesn't have a smart phone. Our psychiatrist is lovely and also sees it as a means to an end to get her through this part of education in one piece. We're lucky that they've helped tremendously but I didn't agree to them until she overdosed and at that point you really chuck anything you hope will help at your kid.

Beware: I dropped to a 4 day week and found myself doing 5 days' work in the space of 4. A year later, my Heidie wouldn't let me drop to 3, so I quit. (I was 58 at the time and DH was in poor health.)

Out of interest - has anyone considered whether repeated Covid infections might have damaged children's cognition and development?

www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/news/covid-may-have-small-but-lasting-effects-on-cognition-and-memory

www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(23)00204-8

www.brainfacts.org/diseases-and-disorders/covid-19/2023/the-risks-of-even-mild-covid19-1-in-4-showing-cognitive-deficits-011723

I commented on the first page and have just come back to it.
I wasn't the one who brought up it being due to entitled MC parents, you did and you then went on to say that private schools are all full of entitled parents. I haven't RTFT no but entitled attitudes exist across all sectors and all I can say is that DDs private school isn't an example of this. We are rural NE England though so no uber wealthy, just parents invested in getting a decent education for our DC.

Parents no longer have the time or energy to 'parent' in the ways of old. They are too busy and exhausted from keeping a roof over their families head, food on the table and heating in the cold.

I never said it's all due to entitled MC parents, I also never said private schools are full of entitled parents. You can click on quote history if you need to see what I said, as I think you've misread my posts or are quoting someone else.

At 20.06 you wrote: If anything SEN kids are screwed over in private schools and they are full of entitled parents that are very difficult to deal with.

Considering you've quoted the poster who responded to my post, where I said we are seeking to medicate my DD I feel I need to interject.

She's 9 now, we were first offered medication the week after she turned 6 (I hadn't realised declining would get us discharged and cause this issue now).

My DD doesn't harm anyone but has fairly severe ADHD. She doesn't sit on screens all day because her ADHD means she physically can't. She can't sit still, at all. She can't focus and her executive functioning is poor. She has had 4 years of huge modifications to avoid medicating her. In school she has movement breaks regularly in and out of the class (at least once per hour), she routinely works out of the classroom on her own because she can't stand all the distractions, she has a rocking chair as her regular seat.

No one wants to medicate their child but if it's being considered, there must be fairly significant issues. The implications of medication is scary, they have to have 6 monthly ECGs and height/weight checks. It affects their appetite etc.

You say you could never have put them on medication, but unless you've watches your child whose mind goes so 100mph they can barely string a sentence together, and who desperately wants to achieve in school but just can't. Then you can't say you would never do something.

For us, it will be to get her through school. To improve her quality of life so she can be the person she wants to be, not the impulsive, jittery, overwhelmed ADHD version.

@karriecreamer
But hardly surprising when todays' kids are being brought up by parents who weren't "properly" brought up back 20/30 years ago.

Where on earth do you get that from? Any evidence at all?

Yes, as a snark remark towards you, in reply to your very entitled post where you didn't even realise the OP worked in a private school. You brought up the poorer state school kids yourself. For all you know OP might be working at your kids school. And for the record, my DD was in a private school. I had to remove her as they were so woeful and undertrained. The state school she's in is 1000x better and the SEN kids have their needs met.

@Mumma2024 I agree with you. We're under CAMHS now with medication too and we've never been asked to do ECGs on DD! Weight and height only. She lost lots of weight but thankfully back up now.

There are so many factors at play in this that it's hard to know where to start really.

I wish we could get the cars off the streets so kids could play out. That would solve the screen problem so quickly and take the edge of things, but how on earth would we do that?

In our street we have one day a year when we clear all the cars and close the road so the kids can play and they absolutely love it. It really feels awful when we have to reopen the road and the cars come back.

Also the little tiny toddlers who have just learned that they can kick a ball in the road have to be told that they can't do it again until next year. That really sucks.

What was the reason before covid then? I'm sure this won't help but this isn't a since covid issue.

Bring back the grammar schools and allow those who can operate in a strict academic environment to excell. Equally, provide an alternative school environment for those who need something different.

We're trying a one size-fits-all education system when different children respond to different approaches.

Depends on your area. Lots stil have grammar schools and the pitfalls they cause.

This is true for nhs workers too. Only job where you can be assaulted by another adult and no one really cares and nothing really gets done about it. It’s rotten but no idea how it could be changed.

Everyone wants different paths available for the less able children, but not the academic ones?

2 words:

Screen time.

Parents don't speak with their young offspring as much as they used to, they spend family time scrolling.

Young babies, toddlers, and older kids spend hours and hours on devices, watching, gaming. Often interacting with very age inappropriate content.

SCREEN TIME
parents are the worst for it.

I don't think this is strictly true. My son had terrible health problems as a baby and we couldn't get medical help for him, and I had to work round the clock for years. Pretty soon we were both on our knees and relying on screens. Nobody wants to plonk their kid in front of a screen. I think people have to be really struggling before it happens. That's how it happened to us.

I think you need to ask secondary school teachers how they would feel about teaching without screens too. I think you'd find it's quite a hard thing for them to contemplate and if you want kids away from screens, it has to happen at school too. The new "gamified" learning apps are terrible, I think and are driving dopamine addiction in schools.

In our house we are now on zero computer gaming, and DS has always chosen never to look at any social media. He has only very minimal time on youtube with a parent there talking to him and controlling the website. He read an article in the FT about it and basically gave up screentime.

The hardest thing was having to give up school, but it was all screentime. We're now home edding from books and he is recovering.

Sorry - I mean yes screentime is bad, but I'm not sure it's a choice to do without it for a lot of people.

Lol. Please. Gove has ensured the academic kids are catered for. The current curriculum is mainly only accessible by them. If by any small miracle schools have the money or staff to give functional skill or vocational provision, they're penalised in progress measure calculations.