To think we need a "label' in addition to SEND?

[ParentsToBlame]

I've name changed as I work in education and don't want this to bite me on the arse.

I feel like we're moving towards needing a "label" for children who are let down by parents and aren't functioning at an expected level as a result. Not those with SEN but those who just aren't being raised properly.

This includes, but there's more..

Children who aren't put to bed at a decent time and are too tired to cope at school

Children who can't eat with cutlery / use the toilet simply because they've not been taught to

Children who struggle to manage anxiety, not because they have an anxiety disorder but because parents say they "have anxiety" and don't support them with coping strategies

Children who are overweight because their parents feed them a poor diet, not because they have genuine ARFID etc

The list is endless. Schools haven't got the time or funding to deal with SEN etc but staff increasingly have to deal with these things in addition.

They dont need to be "needs" but Children are genuinely disadvantaged due to poor parenting. I totally accept that this is sometimes due to inability to parent, rather than willful want to do harm to their child's development

I'm absolutely not a perfect parent. My 14 year old is currently shovelling crisps down his neck and watching YouTube (he has however played 2 hours of footy today and has done all his homework) He'll be off to bed in 10 minutes

This really.

Hard agree.

I've taught in primary for 30+ years.

More parents now than ever before are incapable of parenting, or just can't be bothered to do the hard stuff like teach their child.

E.g. I had a parent in last week who was happy with their 5 year old child using their hands to eat at home, as it meant the floor and sofa didn't get dirty. Unsurprisingly the child got the food everywhere using cutlery - maybe that's because you didn't teach them to do so when they were 1?

Setting boundaries and sticking to them is seen as a bad thing to more parents than before.

And the phrase "what my child needs is..." . It should be "what you've enabled this child to demand that you now see as reasonable is..."

We have a group called 'the underserved' that we have support in place for at school and track progress, plan learning, use core funding for and do cpd for teachers.

The reason we have this label is the existing labels of sen and pp both attract funding (sen its notional and not ringfenced) and you have to have a strategy in place that is costed and published. There is an overlap with pp /send but they arent all the same group at all. But our school wanted to try think strategically about these pupils too and sort of plan the same way tgey do for sen and pp. Its just broadens the net for us.

Its difficult because the definition of send is needing additional support over an above the ordinary offer and its very much an education term. So send should cover what you described. I think you are trying to seperate out the disability from sen for other reasons but I guess in education the need trying to be solved is the education one, however it arises.

The amount of children in the UK supposedly having SEND needs is absurd.

By way of example it is at least 6 times higher than other comparable western European countries such as France and Spain and nearly 20 times higher than countries such as Sweden.

The UK is such an outlier it is reasonable to believe the numbers are massively overstated. Of course there are a number of genuine cases, quite likely a similar proportion to other comparable countries, however the vast majority are simply the result of poor parenting within a society that promotes an excuse culture.

We seriously confuse needs & wants in the uk, especially with regard to children in educational settings.

People dont measure it in the same way.
You dont need a 'genuine case'. Its not a diagnosis. Is an education term used in this country to identify children that need help. Children with poor parents need educational help.

In England, if a chilld needs extra support over and above the ordinary offer they have send.

Many countries dont measure that. They just measure diagnosed disability.

Other countries have also have such a different ordinary offer. Smaller classes, starring formal school later, less external high stakes testing, different curriculum and so on.

(Also some countries have worse outcomes)

You’re supposed to give them easily attainable small challenges to increase their bravery and therefore confidence.

So you agree that the vast majority of SEND cases are due to poor parenting.

That means we should be doing far more to treat the causes rather than the symptoms otherwise things will never improve.

Encouraging inadequate parents to have more children while at the same time pricing out many competent parents from having a similar number was always going to end in disaster for society.

I don't see how it would be helpful to the children or how it would result in them receiving extra support considering it would currently fall under SEND anyway. Just sounds like something to judge and shame parents which isn't going to help anyone, especially considering the blame culture when children do actually have SEND.

I dont agree the vast majority are due to poor parenting. I would say some are.

There were lots of factors I highlighted that account for the higher numbers of sen in the uk compare to other european countires, that were not to do with parents at all

My very well looked after 8 year old has 'SEMH' needs. His social, emotional and mental health difficulties stem from his autism and the anxiety he feels around school, due to his autism.

@ParentsToBlame I do get it. A child who is not fed correctly (just sugar) and doesn't go to bed at an age appropriate time will show all the signs of ADHD.

Ah yes, I quite agree. Let's label the "other" kids so we can move forward with our progressive elimination policies.

Chubby kid? Segregation and mandatory starvation until the optimum body fat percentage is achieved.

Nits? Forced chemical showers and humiliation rituals in assembly.

Holes in their blazer? Arrest the parents and lock them up for being poor. It's so abusive not to have a Chelsea tractor and designer gear.

(Obligatory sarcasm label for those with poor reading comprehension.)

This is a slippery slope OP, stop categorising children based on things you find annoying. Difference exists in the world, be more tolerant of natural variation in finances, ability and developmental speed.

The single biggest factor in ebsa is autism, with around 90% of school avoiders being autistic. Frankly, the fact that you believe parents would choose not to send their child to school if there was any other way of getting them there is both laughable and offensive. We're not talking mild 'don't want to go to school' anxiety here. Many parents are being forced to give up good jobs and careers for this reason. Good, decent parents who value education, love and care for their kids and are doing everything to try to enable their child to access learning.

Why do we need more labels? It just boils down a complicated problem and oversimplifies it.

In a world that loves label, I find it ajazing how taboo the word lazy has become... yet the reality is that parents nowadays are so much lazier than any previous generations.

There might be good or justifiable reasons, but ultimately, many kids are struggling because of lazy parenting, but giving them a label, or even better, getting professionals to do so, takes the responsibility away from them.

All these kids with anxiety have had their every crazy toddler feeling validated, have been given so much control over their choices that it's like a passenger being handed the joystick on a plane, of course they are anxious
Anxiety is a totally normal part of childhood developmental. Gosh was I anxious about many things as a kid, as were most of my friends. Some I shared with my parents, a lot I shared with my friends, and aot I kept for myself. I grew out of most of it without any interventions.

Completely agree OP. When our eldest was diagnosed with ADHD, we realised that we were tiptoeing around her behaviour to avoid meltdowns and weren't being anywhere near firm enough around routines/boundaries. It was horrendous, never being able to deviate from the routine and DH was totally resistant to it but my god it did make things so much better. We had a strict no screen policy after 6pm, bath every night, quiet time listening to audio books/stories before sleep and lights out at set times every night. It also helped with our other 2 (both NT). Once she wasn't sleep deprived, life got easier for her and us.

I've got a work colleague in his late 50s with 2 non verbal autistic children (5 and 2). Mum is late 40s, they're both exhausted/can't be bothered and there is no routine/bedtime/consistency whatsoever. Kids are often ill due to their horrendous diets. And both kids are flailing with it.... the older boy is on the cusp of being moved to a special school and SS have insisted that the younger does 30 hours a week with a childminder as they had no vocabulary (Mum too busy on her phone). I think both kids need removing, it's awful to hear about.

This is a classic example of attribution bias.

The poster seems to have made a lot of assumptions. The account of the social.worker also sounds very strange.

I can see what you are saying
(and as a parent of a child with SEN I am aware I have to fighter harder for support now because more people are asking for it than may need it. Your example of the exam arrangements is good what are wants what are needs we are currently trying to get extra time for SATS but school whilst acknowledging child has weakness in a specific area say can't justify extra time because they aren't failing in on mock tests for other areas and they can't just give extra time for them to do even better).
But how do you differentiate how do you outright know it's poor parenting and not SEN or not both?
It goes the other way as well our parenting boosted our ASD / ADHD child so well that to start with school didn't believe they had difficulties ironically some of the poorly parented children were getting way more support but that was because other services had been notified and brought in to support because the deficits had been recognised is a a label that is needed or is it that the systems that should support parenting have disappeared and need to be brought back?

Oh, you parented fheir SEN away? 😂

Interesting that you move to removing the kids rather than supporting the exhausted parent. Parenting young kids with autism can be all consuming depending on how their needs present. Both my kids have complex needs and while I know the systems, can advocate for their needs and parent them well it’s absolutely exhausting on every level. If supports and services were readily available and accessible you’d find fewer parents wiped out by the system and more able to parent. Professionals can’t even agree on what it means to “parent well”, much less support parents to do so.

Attending special school isn’t a defeat, or a sign of poor parenting, and accessing childcare can give an exhausted parent respite which may increase their capacity to care for their children.

It’s great that your child responds to the way you parent, other children might find your style of parenting impossible to cope with.

Who needs enemies when your dh's work colleagues know so much about your life they know your autistic kids are non verbal because mum spends too much time in her phone. This has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read on here and that's saying something.

It's strange how you assume a move to a special school is some sort of parenting failure. It actually just indicates how much support the child needs hence parents being exhausted.

Well it seems SS agree there’s a problem.