To challenge autistic DD’s detention?

[ThisFairShark]

Dd (14) is autistic, diagnosed at age 8. She has trouble reading social cues and knowing what is/isn’t appropriate to say, she’s always very honest at all times! and has a support plan at school and is under the SEND team.

In school, she wasn’t paying attention in her science lesson and a teacher apparently said “(DD’s name) am I boring you?” to which DD replied “yes a little”. The whole class started laughing and DD got given a lunchtime detention to be served next week.

I know for all intents and purposes this is rude behaviour but I’ve spoken to DD and she genuinely didn’t realise that this was something she wasn’t supposed to say, the teacher asked a question and she gave an honest answer…

now I’ve spoken to her about how the teacher actually just wanted her to pay attention and this was their way of asking her to do so, but I don’t really think she should have to do the detention as she wasn’t aware that she was being rude nor did she intend to be rude, she just doesn’t have the social awareness to understand that the teacher actually just wanted to pay attention and wasn’t genuinely asking if she found the lesson boring.

WIBU to talk to the school, CC’ing in the SENCO and ask that she be excused from the detention, and that in future, if teachers could be clearer (for example, “pay attention please, DD’s name”)?

Absolutely OP can use this as a teaching moment — for both her DD and the teacher.
But her DD doesn’t deserve a detention for a misunderstanding.

These are not mutually exclusive opinions to hold. DD can learn from the experience without being unfairly punished for it.

From an HE perspective:

OP,

Your DD made me laugh. The teacher was wrong to pose the question and wrong to give the detention.

But the bigger question us, what will help DD most to get what she wants out of life in the longer term? The academic experiences of even highly able autistic students at my excellent university are very often troubling, as I know from personal tutees, informal interactions and, especially, work on Mitigating Circumstances Panels. With the best will in the world and substantial extra support, many cannot cope. Even if we grant ample mitigation ( and there are limits) Student Finance England eventually pulls the plug.

IMO no one really understands this. Very, very roughly speaking a lot of it is great difficulty in rolling with the punches. The world of work is going to offer a similar problem.

Practice in ‘sucking it up’ when the stakes are not very high and in fact DD was, however inadvertently, wrong, is no bad thing.

I agree that contacting the school with positive feedback occasionally would be a good habit for you. Then by all means feel free to intervene on more serious occasions.
Best wishes to DD

You don’t need to punish someone to teach them.
She can learn without the detention.

I use detentions to teach them. Sometimes they "get it" straight away and apologise, then I let them go after 5 minutes. Sometimes the conversation takes longer.

Is the detention effectively a conversation with you then?
That’s a bit different from the usual understanding of detention.

YABU!

Yes. It's the procedure where I work and other schools in our MAT. The time is for rebuilding, as they say. I find them very productive.
I have a set email answer for the many, many parents who complain about detentions. It informs them about this.

Teacher needs to learn that throwing a sarcastic question at an autistic young person will get an honest answer.

teacher was unwise and her response ableist.

(as are many replies on this thread)

I would challenge the teacher’s behaviour

Thank you.
It’s quite different where I am, unfortunately.

Ok, it's a model that's being used a lot, so it's a pity that's not the case where you work. Perhaps raise it with the Head of Inclusion or I/c CPD? You could adopt it.

My workplace recently let someone (observably but I don't know if officially) ND go because he wouldn't/couldn't understand that certain behaviours weren't acceptable in the workplace (he crossed the line at social events and didn't revise his behaviour after HR followed up with him)

That’s the kind of thing my autistic son would do.

I think the challenge for the teacher is that when they’re suddenly faced with that kind of (unintentional) rudeness, they can’t be seen to let it go as then it encourages the rest of the class to think it’s ok. Other kids in the class will then make similar comments and get in trouble.

But they also can’t necessarily say “well you’re not to blame for this because you’re autistic” if they’re not 100 percent sure that the rest of the class knows this fact and the kid is ok with that.

So the best solution might be to give a detention but to use that time to review some rules of social behaviour and how the kid can answer more politely in future, but that relies on the individual teacher being available to do that - in our school detentions are run centrally, not by the teachers who gave them out.

I don’t think I would complain or challenge this, but I would ask SENCO for advice - how does school plan to deal with this kind of issue in future? How would you like them to deal with her, taking into account their time limitations and obligations to the rest of the class?

In general you’ll get better results trying to work with the school rather than arguing with them.

This sounds like such a positive approach, much more constructive.

How does it work if you have multiple children who need the detention for different reasons, or the teacher who set the detention isn’t available to take it?

Good question. I set them on different times/days. So Issy sees me at break (5 mins I'm guessing), Alfie lunchtime, Callum after school etc. to be honest most days I don't give detentions at all, so there's flexibility. Mostly a final warning does it, then they've got the measure. Autistic children learn this quickly too, imo, as long as we're clear.

I probably only have a partial view because my DS only has detentions for lost pens (which always get a detention) rather than behaviour issues but his school do seem to go straight to a detention more readily.

To me it seems to devalue the whole point of detentions - I would have been mortified to get a detention whereas DS just seems to see them as minor everyday inconvenience.

, CC’ing in the SENCO and ask that she be excused from the detention, and that in future, if teachers could be clearer (for example, “pay attention please, DD’s name”)?

I'd e-mail teacher SENCO and head of year - not to ask for the dentention to be removed but to ask everyone to be reminded that she is autistic and may need adjusted communictaion compared to other kids.

The school ca then review if dention is appropriate or the dention could be chance to go over then incident with Op DD and tell her how to handle it in future politely - but it leaves it in their hands - while remiding everyone she does have more commuication barriers going forward.

This is the kind of thing my daughter used to have problems with at school.

She’s also autistic and while she manages to muddle through pretty well most of the time, she has never been able to spot sarcasm. In a classroom situation she would have followed the lead of the rest of the class as she would never speak up, but in face to face conversation she might have put her foot in it.

It is worth a conversation with the senco, or do your schools have mentors or anything like that? Does she have an EHCP or any reasonable adjustments or a pupil passport?

My daughter had a nightmare when she was in high school with 1 particular teacher, who it seemed would go out of her way to make things difficult and go completely against the things listed in her plan and then put her in detention. Some of the stuff she did to DD was downright horrible. DD had a mentor in school who would kept on top of it.

I think schools are under enormous pressure because behaviour problems can be very severe and disruptive. Low level stuff is persistent and irritating. The detentions for pens etc is to try to encourage self reliance, being organised and having equipment. A pen is pretty basic. We were giving out hundreds of pens a day.

However, I excuse them if they've left it in the previous lesson, it's just run out or if their additional needs would suggest an issue.

Yes, I think this is a sensible approach

I didn't say it was necessary to email the school. I said that the question posed got an honest answer.
My point was about language used and the issue of honesty.
If staff know that they have autistic pupils, they need to be clear in communication with them. If they want them to pay attention then those are the words that need to be said.
Honesty isn't rudeness, but it can be dressed up in tact.

Learning that what people mean rather than what they say isn't always easy.

This thread has been really difficult to read. Even though our understanding of neurodiversity has grown, it still feels like we’ve only scratched the surface. There are so many people who remain unaware, and sometimes simply uninterested, in learning more.

What feels especially disheartening is that in many countries, including highly developed ones, neurodiversity is widely discussed but still not meaningfully integrated into educational training. While it’s understandable that not everyone will know the details of neurodivergence, it seems reasonable to expect that teachers would receive proper preparation and support.

As a mother of two autistic children living in a developed country, I find myself disappointed and discouraged by the gap between the conversations we hear and the reality we experience. I can’t help but wonder how long it will take for the world to truly catch up, if it ever will.

It is quite evident that the teacher concerned, had little or no knowledge of Autism like possibly 95% of the population. Therefore, those of, who are Autistic or have Autistic children need to do what we can to protect ourselves . This means learning 'social' cues meanings and that some people are 'characters' who might find the answer given by the OP's DD 'charming and witty'. Hence, a response such as nobody below Degree level is allowed to be bored in my lessons. This, firstly letting the Autistic child get a bit of Kudos with the group and also putting the Class in their place. However, in this case the teacher sees interactions as such as 'rude' and interacts a Detention. Autistic people can only learn about peoples characters by experiences. A 14 year old NT pupil would instinctively know that was not the teacher to answer at all to.

Well the problem is that, depending on the child, the fall out could be disproportionate.

Something like that happening would probably mean DS would refuse to attend school for months, and possibly lead to him self harming again. He would feel unfairly targeted and find it difficult to understand what he'd done wrong.

And yes, we're trying to address these things, but it's not easy. There's always half a dozen issues we need to be addressing with very little help or support.

Thats nothing to do with what I said. Workplaces have to give reasonable adjustments and as humans we can recognise that if someone is literal due to autism, then we can be kind and not use sarcasm, like this teacher did. Obviously reasonable adjustments and being kind doesn’t mean allowing everything and anything and that isn’t what I said.

They bend a reasonable amount hence their name. So for someone that struggles with noise sensitivity, it would be reasonable to find a quieter part of an office to work if that is possible or they could work from home if it’s possible. It’s just common sense things to help people with disabilities be able to work. Some people seem to get very worked up about someone getting something that they’re not, to the point that on Reddit someone admitted that they recently posted on here and lied about about a work colleague getting reasonable adjustments to get posters frothing. 🙄