This certainly applies to younger people at the moment, but I think it’s a result of the society we live in, the constant fear and pressure.
School in the 80s and early 90s wasn’t amazing for me, but it was a totally different experience to how schools are now, the rigidity, the constant pressure from a young age, the ham fisted attempts to help mental health issues that appear to exacerbate them. Teachers attitudes towards children are increasingly negative. Parent blame with SN children is rife.
I do think that natural numbers of SN are higher than we realise, but in a better environment needs are more naturally met. Nowadays very few needs are met. Those that flounder are often not supported well, and this results in either school refusal or poor behaviour, both very difficult to manage.
There’s a child psychologist called Ross Greene whose motto is “Children will do well if they can”, which directly opposes western society expectations which largely dictate that all children should do well, and if they don’t let’s blame the parents and stick our heads in the sand to the glaring issues (current education issues, social media etc). The growing number of struggling young people should be a massive neon sign to the failures of the system and how much it is letting so many down.
When you actually have a child with SN you very quickly learn this.
The current system destroys the resilience in people. It saps out our own inborn power.
My now adult son dramatically school refused at 11. I was proactive in working with his school (an academy which is now known to be awful for SN kids) but they weren’t interested. Eventually we reluctantly pulled him out and HE him for the next 5 years. This is relevant to this comment…
I don’t think there’s any point, I think v few of them will have a productive life. There’s going to be an awful lot of benefit claimants in 5/10 years and anyone with half a brain will leave the country to avoid the tax burden
Had ds stayed in mainstream school I have no doubt that he would not have a productive life, 7 weeks in that school destroyed him, god knows what 5 years would have done!
HE meant he could thrive. He could socialise in ways that suited him (not the current terrifying Wild West of secondary schools). He learnt practical employable skills. At 19 he is anything but a tax burden that mainstream school would have produced. These children who are so often assumed to be a tax burden (ablist) are unable to be productive in a late stage capitalist society because they’ve been hurt so badly by the very organisations that should be inspiring them to grow and fly. It’s shocking really.
School is the problem here for many pupils, not the pupils themselves. They are being forced into situations that literally make them ill.
None of this is making excuses. SN children are the canaries in the mines - they are dropping for a reason. Schools are broken. Unless there is change for the better, more and more pupils will be refusing to go, and more and more parents will prioritise their child’s health over their school attendance.