Constantly disruptive child in my daughter's class

[waitingforsainos]

DD is Y6 and this other child seems to be causing so much trouble in class every day, shouting at the teacher, slamming doors, flicking light switches on and off, randomly screaming in the middle of a lesson when they don't want to do the work, mouthing off if other kids get to do something different because they've behaved well. DD says it's every lesson.

On the whatsapp group, the child's mum has said it's not their fault, they've got an ehcp for semh (think that's mental health?) and has laughed at the teacher when she's been asked to go inside to talk at the end of the day.

From the parent chat, it sounds like the child has had a few suspensions but doesn't seem to have made any difference.

AIBU to expect more from school? What would happen in your child's school if someone behaved like that?

These threads depress me, but I do get why parents of children that are effected by our children feel the way the do.
But instead of the blame game we should all be working together to make it a fairer society for all children.

Also there is a lot of adults 30/40/50 + year olds who are getting dx with ASD/ADHD so it's not just something happening now.

Like you said @vinvertebrate most parents are just trying to do there best in an awful situation.

Err there are special school, my sons been going to one for the past 11 years we have four in my LA plus several PRU,s and autism hubs .

Was he in nursery long hours through baby and toddlerhood? I am no asking that in a judgmental way. I have noticed in my very small unscientific sample that full time nursery in under 3s seems to correlate with SEN later on.

Why thank you 😊 I'm talking about the bully kids who attack other children and disrupt the classroom all day every day. Btw not talking about special needs kids. Or even kids where the parents are despairing of their child's behaviour and trying to sort it.

But you ever come across a nasty child with a nasty parent/s who think it's funny? I'm just saying maybe taking a leaf out of Jessica kitchings books isn't such a bad idea. Other posters have mentioned homeschooling (why should we quit our jobs because of other people's crotch monkeys) and private school (why should we spend £18k a year because of other people's crotch monkeys)

I was joking but when you think about it we don't expect to be subjected to violent assaults by parents on the school run so why should our kids put up with it from other kids?

In my friends/family group we have 2 mental health nurses, 1 primary school teacher and 1 child psychologist in the private sector.

They are all fully in agreement of the following

-Children are over diagnosed
-Most behavior issues are due to parenting or lack of
-Parents take ZERO responsibility for their children's behavior and actively push for diagnoses to be used as excuses.

A huge majority of adult mental health is down to drug taking, and a large proportion is down to them just being absolute arseholes.

Interestingly enough within my close friendship group there is 2 that have children that are autistic & adhd ( diagnosed)

One mum has actively set boundaries and standards, she works on childs diet to ensure its healthy and balanced and the ipad usage is controlled, she has also put him into extra circular activities to keep him active - he is well behaved.

One mum blames adhd on all childs behaviors and child is wild, violent and uncontrolled, his diet is mainly sugar and his ipad usage is off the chart, he is now very overweight and inactive.

I honestly don’t know @Wildflowers99 and I share your concerns. I suspect (with no real evidence) that it’s a combination of things. Better diagnosis is likely part of it, but even as a parent of a ND child I wonder about overdiagnosis, or perhaps a failure by those doing the diagnosis to differentiate between behaviour/character and actual deficiencies in neurodevelopment.

Older parents (DH and I were 39 and 40) seem to be relevant. Perhaps autistic people are themselves more likely to become parents these days, and pass on the gene(s). I have read about a possible link with IVF, microplastics and diet - and it may be that these are as ridiculous as the “vaccines cause autism” theory, but haven’t been entirely disproved yet.

Whatever the answer, there is no way that every child with AuDHD can attend a specialist school like DS’s, because the money isn’t there. (That isn’t meant in an “I’m alright Jack” way at all, just an acknowledgement that the money is not, and never could be, available to all who appear to need something other than MS). It’s a huge worry. We save every penny towards DS’ future on the assumption that state resources will be limited and he will likely never live independently, but many can’t or won’t.

I think quality parental care is better than nursery, but nursery is better than parents who feed their kids nothing but beige freezer food and let them play on an iPad all day. I see many neglected toddlers around here, eating junk in their buggies with a phone propped up in front of them while the parent blows vape smoke everywhere. They’re definitely not better off at home.

Not really, I’m afraid! DS first went to nursery at 9 months for 3 mornings a week. They flagged a few developmental issues with us in the first few weeks/months e.g. he was not showing any separation anxiety or any emotion when DH or I left or arrived, disliked most finger foods, aversion to textures. We did not increase his nursery hours as planned.

By the time he was 2 he was kept back in the younger “room” because he was displaying certain distressed behaviours like pulling his own hair and headbutting the walls and floor. He would only play with toys relating to his special interest and would not engage with other children. His nursery place was withdrawn before he was 3 because the pushing, hitting, throwing sleep refusal and bids for freedom started. 🤷🏻‍♀️

So whatever is going on in DS’ brain (and I wonder myself sometimes!) it started long before nursery did.

I think a combination of things, including schools’ lack of provision of support, is causing a rise in SN.

I wonder if it correlates with the much wider mental health crisis that’s not just limited to schools.

That in itself is probably exacerbated by social media, UPF, cost of living, increased stress, much faster pace of living.

Living in an increasingly inflexible environment doesn’t help, and IME schools are becoming more and more rigid in an attempt to fix behaviours, but this is triggering an increase in the number of autistic/ADHD children not coping, who could previously fly under the radar, as there is an increase in demand avoidant behaviour, which is very typical in ND kids.

It’s a perfect storm. At the moment we seem to be trying to fix it by doing the same things over and over again (was it Einstein who described this as a sign of insanity?), we’re at a point where many apparently otherwise decent people are suggesting that these children don’t deserve a place in school, when what really needs to happen is for schools to change and meet the needs of 21st century children. No one’s doing well. At this rate it’ll be interesting to see the % of SN children in 5/10 years time.

I don’t personally think the actual rate of SN has gone up. I think society/school has become a place where fewer children can thrive.

I agree with this, I don’t think it’s nursery.

By comparison, mine were in nursery basically full time from 12 months, but they’re both very confident and regulated kids with no difficulties so far (only saying as relevant). Their class teacher told me at parents evening the kids in DD’s class who do better (socially and academically) are usually the ones who went to nursery. It isn’t actually normal in the order of things for a baby to spend 4 years at home with just one adult solely focussing on them, this is a relatively modern thing - in the before times, it was normal for toddlers to be looked after by a wider community or family circle.

I’m the parent of one of these children. He has a diagnosis of AuDHD, demand avoidant profile (as per his paperwork, in reality full blown PDA), Sensory processing disorder. We knew there would be problems from pre school- he was regularly excluded at pre school, had an EHCP at 4 and still sent to mainstream. He went to two mainstreams, one with an SRP before I refused to send him altogether. He had never attended a full day, regularly excluded and him being there was unfair on him, the other children and the staff.

He’s now in an independent (and very expensive) specialist, but it’s cost us over £15k to get him there. The LA were insistent on mainstream and we needed lawyers, private reports and assessments to convince them to concede before tribunal.

It took 3 years, our house deposit (so we still rent), my career and destroyed my mental health and utterly utterly ruined my baby boy.

For children with SEN who display in this way, they are being just as failed as the children sharing a classroom with them. My son has many faults, but he is not at fault for being forced into an environment he can’t cope with because it’s cheaper. I can’t out parent his complex needs, no amount of sanction will make a difference. He needs targeted, intensive support and strategies to make baby steps of progress. Which we’re now getting but only because we could afford to do it and also had the ability to understand a process designed to put parents off.

I also feel it’s really important to stress that there are lots of children with SEN who don’t display this way, plenty who do and plenty of children who behave poorly with no SEN. It’s not all the same.

I don't think schools are more rigid at all, when I was in Reception we sat at desks almost all day and did work, now they are set up like nurseries. The rules and routines were very rigid and you were expected to follow them.

This is my experience as well.

I feel like if we suddenly announced we would return to old fashioned schooling methods, that would be met with resistance as well.

This. Although I haven’t read past this post, maybe I will be pleasantly surprised
Apparently it’s ok if other children are collateral damage if one kid with high needs is in an environment absolutely not suited to them.

There was a thread the other week about a kid literally sexually assaulting the other kids in the class and people jumped on to defend the kid. It beggars belief

When were you in reception?
Because I was in reception in 1978 and remember communal table ,colouring tracing ,letters and a lot of play.

And finding a suitable one is nigh on impossible, especially if the child is intelligent (most seem to cater for SEN = not very able).

You can try private special schools if you have the money, but they are more expensive and now there’s VAT on top as well.

Regular privates work for some if not too severe, but again, VAT. We were considering it for DD2 but those extra thousands are a reach too far.

And as people have mentioned - state schools can’t easily get rid. Which, since non school based learning is a dire lottery in this country, the SEN child has at least some chance of an education if you can get them into state.

1988 for me and we had a massive pretend play area, water tables, a sand pit, lots of colouring in, carpet time to be read stories…

It’s absolutely not okay. But it’s not the fault of the high-needs child (or their parents, in 99% of cases). Nobody wants their child to be disruptive or disrupted, and all parents want their child in the most appropriate learning environment. The cards are stacked against all parents in this scenario. It’s because funding does not (and possibly never will) meet demand.

It’s also not okay to call disabled children “demons” (from another post, not the one quoted above) in my book.

Genuinely what is the distinction between ‘disabled’ and ‘acting out’?

Full-time nursery does not cause autism or ADHD, for god’s sake.

Seriously?

It's usually a hereditary SEN. We have dyslexia and ADHD on both sides of the family. Lo and behold, the recent generation have them both too.

You don't cause SEN by anything anyone does.

Next, you'll be linking autism to the MMR vaccination.

This is such outdated thinking. A very very brief Google would have evidenced this.

It's just back to the lack of thought and the old fashioned, judgemental basic of 'Blame the Parents'.

A disabled child is not choosing to behave in a particular way. They may have poor impulse control, sensory overwhelm, be unable to follow social cues or inability to cope in particular environments. You can give them the bollocking of their lives and it changes nothing.

FWIW my disabled child is also capable of acting out. They’re not mutually exclusive.

Rigid in terms of how education operates, not in boundaries and strictness. Sorry, I should have been clearer.

Equally the science behind most neurodiversity theory is quite shaky. There’s no ‘accepted facts’ because nothings been proved.

It is a variety of factors. I previously posted a few reasons on this thread. These are just some to consider, I am sure there are much more.

• Compulsory education. SEN needs haven’t risen, they have been recognised. Many of these children left school early years ago and it wasn’t compulsory for them to attend.
• Demographics- a poorer area will see a higher number of behaviourally challenged children.
• Two parents working and not having as much time in the home.
• CoL- this naturally creates more stress in the home.
• Screens and social media, including parents.
• Overworked teachers having less patience to deal with a disruptive class.
• School funding.
• Closure of youth clubs and affordable after school activities.
• More pressure from schools on younger children.
• No prospects- This is what young people have personally told me. I work in a deprived area and they are aware that that due to their circumstances they won’t be able to get a career earning a decent wage. So they have a lack of motivation in school.