To think lots of badly behaved children are getting passed as SEN

[Hometimeyet]

I am not judging anyone here but now 1 in every 4 children are diagnosed as SEN, while when I was growing up there were very few SEN children. I am in 30s.
Recently some of my friends DC were pushed and mistreated in School by children identified as SEN. I do understand that there are many children who are SEN and they need support but now I feel every new mum I have met in recent years, as soon as their toddler behaves like a normal toddler, they rush them to get them diagnosed as SEN and don't want to put effort to correct their bad behaviour and teach them discipline.
AIBU to think lots of badly behaved children are just termed as SEN and their parents are just not bothered to work with them to teach them value of discipline.

One of my friends wife recently visited and she casually said oh my toddler likes to walk and run a lot, probably he's ADHD, which is unreasonable as he has got no other concerns.

Where are you getting your stats of 1 in 4 from

Point of this thread isn't to minimise SEN children concerns but to think that people are too quick to explain their kids bad behaviour with SEN.

YANBU

So firstly the kids that hurt your friends’ kids at school may actually have SEN. That’s a separate conversation.

But yes I do think there is now a rush to pathologise entirely normal behaviour, in both children and adults. And then I see a lot of kids at work who are not particularly well behaved and their parents say ‘oh well they’re probably ADHD/PDA/ODD’ when there are no signs of this, and when actually getting to know the child well and disciplining in a relationships based way rather than just being punitive is really effective.

1 in 4 in my sons class are....

It's 1 in 5 mentioned on official parliament website
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07020/#:~:text=How%20many%20school%20pupils%20have,%2C%20Health%2C%20and%20Care%20plans.

I have a child with sen and I agree with you.

I think we are much better at recognising neurodivergence now than we were.

There will of course be children whose behaviour is simply normal for their age and development and some whose behaviour is more challenging than other children their age.

When we are challenged by something we try and explain it, we can also try and externalise it rather than turning inward to look for our role.

Resilience is very low for a lot of children these days, the reasons for that are endless.

Recognising challenging behaviour and working with the parent and child to try and understand it and support it is really important. Being on the SEND register does not mean necessarily a diagnosis, note a recognition of additional support needs.

Yanbu. We are giving medical names to normal variation in people basically, eg shyness must be wrong, being active must be wrong, being anything other than perfect

We're better at diagnosing it now. No one in my school was diagnosed as SEN, but I look back and I can think of loads of kids that either had adhd or ASD. So if the same knowledge we have now was applied then, the stats would be high.

there are lots of us with SEN kids who have had a lot of judgement from others who put it down to bad parenting. You are not qualified to decide whose child is or isn't a child with SEN. Though I understand your frustration with parents of undiagnosed children claiming it with no.evidence.
We need to be looking at why so many.children are being diagnosed imo. And trying to see if there is a way of mitigating the rise .

YANBU!

Im so tired of people trying to excuse rude/bad behaviour this way.

Yes, a hard agree with you OP

Yeah I agree.

Also being neurodivergent in itself isn't a special need.

This isn't to say that special needs don't exist or aren't increasing (and I do think they are) but being a bit different or lacking attention or anxious is not necessarily something that needs medicalising or certifying.

Agree with PPs that we have more tools and knowledge now than we did back then. I am same age group as you OP and I personally know people that struggled in school / got excluded / didn't go in to higher education as they didn't have the right support at the time. Perhaps if they had instead of being called naughty and disruptive, maybe they'd have fonder memories of school and had better education.

I do however have to agree with OP around jumping to diagnose kids for behaviour that may be entirely normal. I see it on MN all the time - 'does my kid have X Y Z' or when I speak with other mums every child seems to be getting assessments. I think as a society we love to label.

I agree with you.

Of course your friend's DC have never ever been pushed or mistreated by children who don't have SEN...?

Do you have an issue with the numbers of pupils identified by schools as needing SEN support or who have got EHCPs? Or do you have a problem with parents who claim their child has a special education need but the school and health care professionals don't support that, and the parents aren't interested in pushing for a diagnosis or support? Because they're very different things and you have described them both.

Another who agrees with you. There's a lot of lazy parenting going on and you see it mirrored in threads on here.

Better diagnosis/awareness
Less facilities for Sen children so more in mainstream
More Sen kids attending school
Harder being nd in todays society

Are there more people self diagnosing themselves and kids? Yes probably.

Is the assessment process inaccurate? No it's very thorough imo. Highly unlikely scores of children are being wrongly diagnosed

I agree with you OP. I work in a setting surrounded by children and I am constantly appalled at the amount of poor parenting and they excuse their children’s behaviour by describing them as SEN. It seems to have become fashionable!
Of course there are children who are SEN but many more who are labelled as such when they are simply displaying normal behavioural characteristics.
It is very worrying.

I'm cautiously agreeing with you, if your intentions are good here OP.

I work at a visitor attraction where we have upwards of 2000 children come and visit per year.

I have always found that the parents of kids with SEN generally do their upmost to keep their kids behaviour in check so that it doesn't negatively affect others, and if they can't they'll remove them from the situation.

However, there are many parents who will let their kids run riot and spoil everyone's enjoyment, whilst stating "They probably have (insert condition)" and shrug their shoulders without even attempting to handle the situation.

Some centres twice as likely to diagnose autism... Guardian article

This is about diagnosing adults.

Agree completely.

Private diagnosis is hugely to blame I think. Anyone can go to an ADHD assessment and churn out some stories of how they were as a child, and there they have a diagnosis. I have seen it a thousand times through my job.

With kids, I think even slight variances can cause people to suspect SEN. You see it on here all the time - someone’s kid is shy, bored in school, saying no when they ask them to have a shower. Well it must be SEN. And don’t force them because they’re overwhelmed. And don’t make them go to school if they say no.

Lazy parenting can also be a factor. People firing their kids in front of an iPad for 9h a day then wondering why their attention span to anything else is zero. Same with having no bedtime routine, they must need melatonin.

It’s honestly a bit of a gripe of mine (if you can’t tell!). Parents are often very quick to look for a medical reason to absolve them of any wrongdoing in bringing up their kids.

Now there are scores of study proving high screen time causing SEN and lots of negative impact on children but most parents still don't care and hand over tablets to very young kids to occupy them, there's a lack of attention, guidance and discipline in the new age parenting, causing rise in SEN
Source
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6214874/#:~:text=After%201%20h/day%20of,among%20adolescents%20than%20younger%20children.