Violent children should be stopped regardless of other factors

[Hamalam]

The part that struck me about the Southport findings was the way AR seems to have been given leeway because he had an ASD diagnosis. Oh he’s carrying a knife and a hockey stick but he has ASD, as if that’s ok. It’s an attitude I have met a lot with my child school, where they and other children suffer from violence meted out but other children.

Oh but they have SEND / are in care / have a bad home-life as though that’s excuses my child being a victim. I really hope that one of the lessons learned by schools, police etc is to look at the threat or the violence and the danger to others, regardless of any ‘excuses’ the perpetrator might offer.

There is no discipline for many children at home or at school, it's all gentle hands at home and teacher's aren't allowed any effective form of control in school, children can hit, kick and swear at teacher's and they can do nothing. The balance has gone too far in the direction of children should be treated with kid gloves and mustn't be talked to harshly or punished for anything, so they grow up thinking they can do whatever they like with no consequences.

This was in relation to the PP who said the figure was 85%.
This report says different.
That's all. No agenda.

I remember a boy my kids went to primary school with. As soon as he kicked off he was taken to play football with a TA. Effective punishment! His older sister had been excluded and was at a PRU. parents couldn't see anything wrong with their kids behaviour, it was all the schools fault. Finally he was excluded. He's now in prison. Oh, but he has ADHD now, so none of it is his fault. (I have a child with ADHD, he's managed not to be violent, get excluded from school or go to prison)

Meanwhile on Facebook his mum can be found spouting off about badly behaved kids like hers weren't ever like that!

So what? the pose danger to the public so should be isolated.

The guy who threw the child from Tate terrace has sever mental disability. He shouldn't ever be allowed any freedom.

That's deeply concering - lessons should be learned and children should be given therapy before they get to the AR state of mind - but how - and with what funding and skills.

There needs to be a zero tolerance policy of violence in any setting. I don't understand why we are expecting teachers, other pupils and professionals to put up with it.

Yes, I think you're right in that a huge part of the issue is actually understanding different types of violence within a diagnostic context, and this is something I referenced on another thread recently.

If there was a real understanding of autistic violence, then professionals would be able to correctly identify other comorbid conditions that are likely present alongside the autism and more likely to result in violence such as that shown by AR.

Things like understanding the difference between nervous system collapse (fight, flight, freeze) for which there is a markedly different physiological response to external stimuli (i.e. heat of the moment violent meltdown) than premeditated and callous aggression, such as that found in individuals with other conditions - such as BPD.

My dd can be aggressive in the moment due to nervous system response (autism and associated heightened anxiety). Though she exhibits this with me only (she's the model of a well behaved child at school due to masking), she's a far cry from planning a callous murder on a stranger because there is nothing wrong with her levels of empathy.

It was the same with Jonty Bravery. People put his actions down to 'autism', but there was far more going on that led him to plan and carry out a premeditated callous attack.

Yep. You only have to look on here to see all the posts about “harsh schools” and “was this punishment too strong” where people are constantly questioning schools and their discipline.
How about parents teach their child not to be rude and feral and then the teachers wouldn’t have to punish them in the first place?
It stems from home. Useless parents with zero ability to parent their kids, seeking any opportunity to abscond themselves of responsibility (“I can’t tell him off because he’s autistic… I can’t take his phone away and keep him off the internet because he’s got ADHD and he needs it to regulate himself…”)
Excuse after excuse time and time again.
Is it any wonder we are where we are?

I fear for the world my niece and nephew are growing up in.

I agree 100% that violent children should be stopped regardless of other factors.

I think i would probably disagree with some people on what would be an effective way to stop it for some individuals. (Theres more than one cause for violent behaviour and i dont purport to know the solution for all of them)

Well in the 70s and 80s we didn’t have a choice. There were violent kids in every year and ‘school refusal’ wasn’t an option because you would be forced to go anyway

I think you are underestimating quite how bad it’s got in modern schools. My education in a failing comp was a walk in the park compared to my child’s experience in an ‘outstanding’ (hah!) school currently.

But whilst making sure everyone involved is safe, you really can’t write off children/yp because they don’t fit the increasingly rigid approach that schools offer.

I’ve seen a huge increase in SEND in schools and of challenging behaviour, but it tends to be that the children cannot cope with the system, then parents are blamed. There are shit parents, twas always thus, but not to the point where up to 40%+ of pupils in a mainstream school have SN (this was the rate in my dc’s school). The world has become a far more difficult place to be - bills skyrocketing, stress abundant, social media changing how people socialise, creating polarisation.

Those in charge need to start looking at what’s going wrong, rather than doubling down on policies and guidelines that just make things worse. At the moment there’s a push to blame parents and children, not long ago it was teachers being blamed. Perhaps it’s all an inevitable reaction to how crap live has become for so many?

They weren’t forced though. So many of my 80s schooled peers skipped school with no repercussions.
Focus on attendance at all costs is far worse now than it ever was.

Again...
This was in relation to the PP who said the figure was 85%.
This report says different.
That's all. No agenda.

The OP is bang on

Nephew is the same 'oh he's autistic, so punches people in the stomach'

Right

🤔

We’re so far from this. Even young dc will beat the brunt.

You could have stopped the Southport killer AR by not giving his parents asylum. There are many safe countries they could have chosen snd Rawanda is now safe again. Parents should control what their children are watching. All social media should be banned for under 16s. All parents should know what their kids are doing, teenagers especially now are such easy targets. My friends daughter was putting and then trying suicide. When her mother finally invaded her privacy and read her diary it was all there. For years she didnt read it becsuse it was private. If you are concerned there is no such thing as privacy it is your duty to protect your child and others.

As pp's have said, it's just excuses all the time.

Oh little Timmy can't eat a meal in a restaurant without his iPad on full blast.

If little Timmy isn't able to sit quietly and eat his nuggets without an iPad, maybe he shouldn't be in a restaurant????

@Hamalam My DD is a family law barrister. When she was a baby barrister (very junior!) she did a case where she represented a local authority seeking to deprive a teen of his freedom. I’m probably using the wrong terminology but everyone in court was in agreement that this dc was extremely vulnerable with a long history of being unmanageable. I know the case was reported by the Guardian at the time. However, the big issue then, and no doubt the sane now, is that we have nowhere dc like this can go. All the secure units for dc are full. Always. We clearly need far more robust joined up thinking regarding dc who pose a danger but we don’t have facilities for them. It’s dreadful for everyone but we need greater protection from dc like this. I doubt we will see it. Dc excluded from school for violence should be subject to much greater scrutiny. Ditto school refusers. We also have too many people who have a good idea something is very wrong, but don’t do anything. We need far greater vigilance.

YOI - for what crime?
Sectioned - for meeting what criteria
PRU - how would that help - except to put other pupils at risk?

Honestly if you think SEND young people or care experienced yp don’t get excluded for much lesser behaviour you are wrong.

being out of education is a huge risk factor for kids

We need a much better system for multi agency support and intervention. That requires funding!

Them being in mainstream education is a vast risk for the other kids in mainstream. Do they not matter? Do their lives not matter to you. He was caught travelling to school with a hockey stick and a machete, saying he was odd to murder other kids and nothing happened to him. Does that not worry you at all???

Where should someone who takes weapons to school be?

I recently interacted with the staff team in our local authority who support children with behaviour difficulties. They described all of the children by the number of "aces" they had, and shrugged their shoulders as if to say " What can you do?"

These people had inadequate training for the job they were tasked to do, no power to make any decisions, and so hid behind "trauma-informed practice", which is merely a lovely conversation once a week. I felt for them, being nice was the only card they could play.

Could you point out anywhere in post I have said it didn’t matter? You posed 3 ‘solutions’ I was asking more about how that would work in reality

If someone travels to school with a machete he should be locked up for at least 5 years.