SIL Teaching criticism

[Teachingquestion]

I love my SIL . We grew up together. Her and my brother have 2 sons with autism. One hasn't been back to school since Covid and they can't get him out of his room really, he's nocturnal etc. Very difficult to get help for him too due to system failures. Youngest is currently in y9, attending 50% ish
I'm a teacher, previously in SEND , now in a mainstream core subject.
My SIL is struggling and as time goes on, it's clear she is autistic also.
The problem I've got is she regularly slags off everything to do with school. Even perfectly normal things are met with "well that's fucking stupid"
The problem is, I'm often involved in similar things at my school. A recent example would be the year 8 reward disco. In order to attend, students had to have had no demerits for poor behaviour, this is part of our behaviour improvement plan and has been working well.
My problem is not what she thinks , she can think whatever, and her personal circumstances mean she is more angry obviously. However she gives NO thought to how I might feel having my job picked apart and criticised all the time. It doesn't help that I'm tired and peri menopausal but it's really upsetting me. How can I broach it?

Do you agree with/support everything that’s going on in education/in your school?

Her view is clouded by being the parent of two ND children who (I assume) either struggle at best in the system or have been completely failed by it. She won’t see the positives (if any) for the other pupils or staff .

But you’re not seeing her hurt? She understandably has seen her children be failed and now sees you supporting policies she knows will set other children up to fail - surely you can see why that hurts her?

your complaining about her not considering your feelings you your posts show your not willing to consider hers. You will never agree so you need to find a middle ground

Based on the one example you’ve given then I completely agree with her, maybe you should listen and learn about how to better support ND and troubled students.

my DSD was raped and abused by her stepdad at 13 and diagnosed with anorexia, school knew about both. Due to one poor behaviour incident that wouldn’t have happened the year when she wasn’t struggling before she was banned from the end of year trip. She knew that she would be 2 months in advance and all it did was make her more depressed, fall deeper into her ED and go on to have several other behavioural incidents because what’s the point. You’ll defend that?

When she says "Teachers are stupid" or similar you could ask her how she would feel if you were ranting about the difficulties of dealing with parents, who are naturally focused on their own child, when you are trying to meet the needs of every child in your class.

You have to say it in a straightforward way. Hints aren’t going to work. Tell her it hurts your feelings.

Then maybe point that out ? Gently

Ofc she's not going to defend that, but as one person how much control do you think she has over school policies?
I can imagine the OP is very sympathetic but over time being indirectly criticised would tire any of us out

It's in person at family stuff.

I do see her hurt. We have all been on the journey with her .

Did you not say you suspect she has autism so isnt this part of the reason she likely doesnt connect what shes saying with how it might hurt you?

Also cant you just spend less time with her? From you posts it seems like you spend a huge amount of time together if shes annoying you this much or you're speaking to her every week. Just dont.

I do think that teachers take a lot of criticism but I also have a lot of friends who are teachers and really dont get how bad the system is for children or say "we can only do so much" etc. And to parents and children who are failed by one thing or another it just sounds very meaningless. The example you used also seems very unfair and essentially leaves no room for children to make any sort of mistakes or to be different or struggle so I can see why that particular comment may have angered her.

You either need to be direct with her or get over it.

Good lord. Nope. Never once have I said I would defend that.
What happened to you is terrible, but I don't need to be told to go and learn how to better support.
I totally get your anger and hers but I cant be the whipping boy (none of my family are teachers )

Yep I never would moan to her about parents or ND kids or anything like that. I actually rarely talk about school for this reason, but as you can imagine, it's brought up a lot in family updates

I do agree with her on the school disco thing, that is stupid and IS setting some ND kids up to fail. She is dead right on that one.

Thank you, this is it exactly

I think if she is also autistic you are perhaps expecting too much especially when she is channeling upset about something that’s affected her boys.

If you say something, sit down separate to a rant and say that sometimes you feel hurt by what she is saying and you appreciate she’s frustrated at something that’s affected her boys but you spend a lot of time trying to run things like that.

You have shown you believe that punishing children for things out of their control is right. That should never be a starting point and a system that doesn’t look at children as individuals is setting many up to fail.

as someone who works in school use the lived experience of people you say you care for to help change things for others rather than sitting back and taking offence they don’t like things.

But it’s the exact same system your Sil criticised and you’ve defended? Anyone with a behavioural point didn't get the special treat, who does that help?

Your posts to me feel too harsh and not indicative of my career history at all. Thank you for your input and I do get that it's hard for me to put nuance and full story on a short Internet forum entry. This is really a family matter rather than a specific school or education system one. It would probably be similar to a police officer constantly hearing their family moan about the police. It would be tough

OP I hear you. I think a lot of people are missing the point. She is criticising the system you are part of without any concern for your feelings. The constant bashing would upset me too.
it would be like if you were a police officer and someone criticising the whole force because theee are some laws they don’t like. The police don’t have control over what laws are put in place, but they do have to uphold them.

It's a very specific step in our school which is recovering from a very poor ofsted/behaviour/safeguarding etc

It has helped to.improve behaviour generally and to change the ethos of the school. (Prevoiusly students were frightened to come to school as behaviour was not managed well)
Now we have had a zero tolerance poor behaviour system. Not perfect but part of our improvement plan with school improvement partner

but It’s the same system. Who knows what’s going on for the kids at ops school who got a demerit and now can’t go to the reward disco. If op didn’t set the system up and can’t control it then she isn’t being criticised, sil is criticising the unfair policy and she’s right.

It sounds like you support this. Surely you can see that some kids will not be able to adhere to this because they are ND, so they are literally excluded for something they cannot help. That is a shit system.

so what about the kids like my dsd? I guarantee there are children in your school struggling and going through traumatic situations causing them to misbehave even if you don’t know about it.

I think it might help if you accept that schools do make many mistakes and are failing many children. The example you give is a perfect example of how schools penalise children who don't fit in the little box schools want them to fit in.
I'm a social worker so I'm also in a profession that gets a lot of criticism and I used to get quite upset with it as I knew me and my colleagues were working so hard. However, I am working in a broken system and working with people is very complex so there is no quick fixes. As soon as I started to admit to myself that mistakes are made in my profession and was able to reflect and realise I have also made mistakes it was easier to hear the criticism of the profession. I actually find it really useful to engage in conversations about it and think about how things could be better.

Your SIL is autistic. She's under massive stress. School isn't working for her kids and she wants it to. You're expecting to much of her. I doubt that she can see anything school related, objectively

I'm a retired teacher and I found it hugely dispiriting to constantly be complained about by the general public, who thought they could do my job better, despite not having a clue about what it actually entailed. So I absolutely get how hard it must be to get the same thing happening in your family life.

But I doubt she can help herself. I'd just respond with either 'you must find that frustrating' or 'I'm a teacher. I do the best I can every day'.