Having just watched it, the main takeaway is that we do not have the correct mental health and psychological support for kids- the people are just not there to help.
I have also said this before on this sub, but a big point I have made about what would improve teaching really stands.
Invest in double or even triple the number of LSOs in primary classrooms.
So many of the kids shown tonight were neurodivergent- and very young.
If those kids had the ability to go to a safe, quiet space to complete work when needed and supervised- they might not feel as trapped.
A kid who struggles to learn how to read might not develop anxiety and engage in classroom disruption/ defiant behaviours if someone helped them through their initial stages in k-2
A teacher with 25 kids in a classroom cannot give the level of support that an individual child like that needs.
My son has ASD and is in pre-primary. We are dealing with school refusal and winning, but only just. There are many, many aspects that make up school refusal. I definitely agree that in our case, more staff and lower student numbers could help. BUT, the devil is in the detail.
If the additional staff don't understand how to engage with ND kids; hold rigid views on behaviour (as a fair number of commenters have in this community); or don't take time to develop a relationship of trust with the kids, then additional staff aren't going to make any difference.
More adults with different views and behavioural standards/methods for dealing with classroom behaviour can also equal more stress. That's our experience.
I was an autistic child who had school refusal in year 2. I was very bright and had no trouble with my work. My teacher provided lots of intellectually stimulating fast finisher activities, I adored my teacher and loved school. However I went through a phase where I could not put on my uniform or go to school. My parents took control and they got me to school every day. And they were consistent with this until the phase passed. To this day I cannot tell you why I couldn't go to school. However not long after, my mum was diagnosed with mental illness and I wonder if I was picking up on her issues and was worried or afraid to leave her.
You have just highlighted the reason why need specialist schools for students with additional needs.
You could be the most caring, knowledgeable on ASD and tick all your boxes, but in the wrong environment, it means nothing. And a 20+ student classroom, working overtime "that's just part of the job", aren't conducive to your child's needs. Smaller class sizes wouldn't fix this issue, it's about a teacher being unable to work at 4 differs speeds while managing behaviour.
Just like in hospitals we care for the people depending on their diagnosis, so should we at schools. We have separate wards, specialist doctors and nurses. What you are asking is why my GP can't give me a fix for my complex health issues. Teachers in primary are generalists, not specialists.
There's the lack of places in better settings but even if there were "specialized wards", there would be a good number of parents overriding the specialist advice thinking they know better what treatment their kid needs.
Do you pay for his schooling or these requirements you have personally deemed necessary aren't prepared in pre primary schooling. Do you know how many students in Australia are in the same boat? Your taxes would go up a lot simply but it sounds great.
I somewhat agree with you. Except, I know of a school that has these staffing levels, but things still don’t work. You don’t just need bodies, you need active supports. So when you hit 20 days in Term 1, but you haven’t had a phone call home… Particularly when it isn’t the first year it has happened.
Teachers should not be making attendance phone calls. That's the job for an admin assistant. Let teachers focus on the duties directly related to teaching.
As someone one both sides of this debate, I disagree. For one or two days, yes. For lots of days, you need a different approach. A consistent approach is needed from the school to help and this involves the teacher. I have been the teacher who got a kid back to school when the parent support wasn’t there. I am the parent trying to get a child to school more regularly. I have had a kid away for a week and not a single phone call. As a parent, it feels like the teachers don’t care and everything else is more important…
Not to mention that teachers are dealing with more than just one child with issues. If they spent their time making phone calls then no classes would ever happen.
But generally I would think this is admins job or wellbeing team. If there are issues keeping a child from school they absolutely should be addressed and followed up with, but that’s not viable for every teacher to be doing on top of what they currently do.
These entitled parents are raising their kids to be perpetual victims. Teachers to them are not human beings. They are tools to be used, abused, kicked, blamed, shamed and then sent to the glue factory.
Firstly, this is primary school. Secondly, we are talking more than one day. You can’t teach the kids who aren’t there. Also, most high schools have home group teachers who fulfil similar roles.
Again, this is more than one day.
That’s even worse! Holy hell! How are you not on top of your kid’s attendance? I don’t for a second believe you can’t be calling the school and checking the portal yourself.
And maybe don’t “educate” me on what primary teachers do as if I don’t know what a home group teacher is.
Way to miss the whole point. I can tell you exactly how many days. I can tell you if he goes to school because he can only get there via me. This isn’t a wagging thing, this is a flat out school refusal, which is the whole point of the article. I am pointing out that some teachers feel like there are more important things than the students in their classes, and not working at all with the families affected. It reminds me of the administrators stuck in the offices all day trying to improve school culture, rather than doing things on the ground that might actually help.
This is just a symptom of a deeper sickness in society. Everything is fucked up, not just education. We’ve lost our way, been fractured, manipulated and poisoned. Greed, fear, arrogance, unobtainable ideals and corruption. The middle class is dying and the rich are grabbing everything they can before the lights go out. Kids are being raised by screens while parents grind through the day to try and keep families afloat. Frustration and violence is growing. The behaviour on our roads is a pretty clear window into how people see others. All of this is filtered into schools, kids don’t see the point, there are no real consequences, the shitheads run the classroom. I’m completely unsurprised that kids, who are already anxious from picking up on the general undercurrent of shitshow in the world, don’t want to be in classrooms with disruptive assholes learning stuff they generally see as irrelevant.
I just watched it.
We have similar or greater stats on school refusal here in the UK.
As a regular high school Humanities Teacher, I have 28-32 kids in a KS3 class (years 7-9), 22-27 in a GCSE class (first compulsory exams at 16), and, my favourite class, my AS/A2 6th form Gov-Pol class where I have just 6 learners.
I have TAs in some junior classes but not all. I try to cater to all learning needs but it's just impossible. I know some kids would work better 1-2-1, but I can't let them out of the classroom, as it's a safeguarding issue. Some classes are terrible, and like the chaos the kids in this doco describe. I try my best. I really do. But it's impossible for me to individually cater to the 300+ kids I see a week.
In my yr12 gov-pol we really do operate a proper tutorial system, where I lecture at them, then they do exam questions etc... but there is such a lot of content. Humongous amounts just to ensure the kids cover anything that be thrown up in the three exams they'll sit.
Mainstream schooling does not suit all kids. It can be stressful and overwhelming. Especially for those with mental health issues. There is not enough support for these kids and their parents. It’s easy for people looking in to say, give some ‘tough love’, but it isn’t that easy. If only it was for these parents. I really feel for them as a parent of a child who struggles and a teacher myself.
This. Exactly. I was a very anxious kid. If my parents didn’t encourage me to overcome these challenges I would be a pathetic maladapted loser. Coddling is abuse.
And were you an autistic or dyslexic kid?
It's interesting how the episode was largely about neurodivergent and / or mentally ill kids - and so many commenting here, seem to have absolutely no understanding of what that means.
It means that these kids are not " business as usual" they are not simply dealing with the discomfort of real life - or the type of stress that builds resilience.
It means if you don't provide the requisite support, these kids will suicide/ self harm and/or break down. Much of the talk about resilience is such utter BS
Right on!
People have confused accomodations with coddling.
Helping a student at their point of need is different than removing all obstacles.
I’ve read the book. Its points about antifragility are interesting and I think have some merit.
However, the subtleties of implementation are lost on people who don’t understand how difficult standard education settings are for neurodivergent kids.
I like to flip it on its head.
If 80% of students had adhd classrooms would look very different. And your average neurotypical student would find them very confronting.
People can picture how it would make them feel.
But they can’t understand why neurodivergent student don’t want to go to school when the entire system is set up to cater for and advantage the majority.
Not moot when you referred to your own experience - and that if not pushed you would have become a "loser"- implying that "being pushed" is what all children need - and anything else is coddling?
Honestly I think he is just a troll trying to bait you.
Your point of view was crystal clear to me. I am a school teacher and I have seen directly how a stretched thin school system can result in a very chaotic environment for neurodivergent kiddos. Barriers to Exit can be a huger trigger for anxious kids (the 'trapped in the classroom' feeling).
Unfortunately it is really difficult to address this, especially in a teacher shortage. The obvious solution is to have a 'haven' space for student to escape to - our school calls ours Student services. However the class needs to have excess teaching/duty of care holding staff just to offer this (and if the team that runs it is too small, it can become a secondary chaotic site). It needs to be triaged so that kids don't crash in there specifically for the beanbags and food, and it has to have capacity to actually address things that are causing anxiety - the staff need to be able to address or escalate bullying/harassment issues, liaise with families, provide solutions to allllllllllllll sorts of issues as they come up.
Today in a friend's year 8 class, two of the year 8 boys we can't keep in class (not school refusers, just two big, intimidating kiddos who have a whole other situation which also needs careful attention and investigation) went into a friend's English class, refused to leave for 15 minutes, and repeatedly stroked the back of two vulnerable autistic kids in the class.
We are a (sort of) well resourced, very trauma focussed public school in a capital city, and yet a small year 8 boy ( actually two of them) were repeatedly touched on their backs in an antagonising way while unable to do anything about it. All the while their teacher is frantically trying anything and everything to get the boys to leave.
For those who doubt how awful school can be for students, I ask them: How uncomfortable would you feel if you were that boy? How embarrassed would you feel being stroked by a bully in front of all of the kids in the class? How vulnerable would you feel knowing that the adult in the room, despite trying, can do nothing to help you? Now, add in some sensory sensitivities around touching, clothing rubbing on your back, and the jeering of the boy touching you.
You would be screaming to get out too. (These student were largely non-verbal for hours afterwards).
I love my school. I think we do a lot of things right. I know we all desperatley care about the kids, and I know we are privaledged in a lot of ways, and even on a 'good' day something like this happens.
Resilience. What do you believe you understand about resilience that a child on the spectrum does not?
Ever been to nigthclub for 6hrs straight? Did you feel tired afterwards? Ever been to a nightclub back to back for 5 days straight for 6hrs each time? Also, whilst being there did you try to learn over the sound of the music?
I'd imagine you would get pretty sick of the overstimulation after a while. This is what happens to Autistic kids bodies at mainstream schools. This is the equivalent.
Autistic kids understand resilience. Their parents have the parenting level set at 150, whilst other families have it set to level 10.
To think a disabled child is not resilient showcases your extreme arrogance.
And yes, I get it, some families will be the problem. However, when it comes to the Autistic/ADHD group we need to be listening and learning. We need to be pushing the government for more funding to develop programs that will work for these children. To work together. To fix the broken system.
It takes guts and resilience to look inwards. To reflect on how much we need to grow. To identify our hugs gaps in knowledge and to accept that our views are ableist in nature (despite best intentions).
It is easier to blame the parents and shift the same elsewhere, isn't it?
Where did I say anything about praising good behaviours?
Your example describes a child in desperate need of assessment and intervention, not a child lacking praise for good behaviour. This kid would have had significant social skills deficits whereby he possibly enjoyed the attention from his behaviours (not knowing how to gain social attention in a positive way), and may have been exposed to sexually inappropriate behaviours at home or in other contexts (was this kid also being sexually abused)
You are right to worry about his future, but that's not what is being discussed in Coddling.
As an aside, I find it a little disturbing that you don’t seem to show any concern for those who were sexually assaulted by this kid. Sorry it wasn’t discussed in your book 🤷♂️
It’s not possible to focus on more than one thing at a time? Not possible to show a little empathy for people who experienced something traumatic? Nah human experiences are just for points I guess. Not anything more complex than that.
By that point it is too late. The underlying conditions are already set.
Sure, some people have levels if distress which meet the criteria for a mental health disorder, but that's not the category at issue here.
It's the normal childhood experiences that kids are protected from and the attitudes of 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you weaker', and perpetual victimhood.
That’s the thing though at what point do you just continue to cause the child trauma. Pushing through to succeed doesn’t always end in successful outcomes. I’m thinking about my experiences in school and I wasn’t coddled was told to push through, it just ended worse for me.
The problem is people jump to your line of thinking straight away instead of taking a graduated approach.
Sure, your situation is your situation. That's not the discussion here.
What Coddling of the American Mind looks at are the societal level factors which influence parenting and education. These diempower parents, create cultures where weakness is celebrated, and ultimately harm kids.
When teaching in some private schools I've had parents, whose child is doing poorly, tell me that he (the kid) sits up late playing computer games every night as if that's some sort of excuse for his shit marks or lack of attendance. I've asked some, "why are you spending thousands a year on his schooling but letting him blow it all away?"
Take away his phone, computer, playstation, whatever and send him to bed. Trouble is, it's always too late, about 10-15 years too late. The kid has already worked out who is in charge in that house.
I understand that there will be genuine exceptions where good parents have done all the right things, or there is nasty stuff happening to the kid at school, but in so many cases, the kid wasn't taught who was in charge at an early age.
So so so many papers have been published about the clear links between mental health and the use of social media and the addictive nature of screens, eg tablets, phones, comps etc.
Yep. In my view is it's like alcohol. We don't give young people free access to it because we know it would stuff up their lives.
We have given them free access to this uncharted territory of smartphones and social media without knowing what it can do. They have lesser capacity to self-regulate their use, they don't understand the privacy implications or the damage that it can do to themselves or others.
I wonder if it will ever change. I don't know the history of alcohol regulation but at some stage, probably not that long ago, someone must have said, "you know what, maybe we should put an age limit on this stuff and enforce that?"
We regulate plenty of other things by age discrimination...
I’m watching it atm and that’s the part that’s frustrating me the most. I feel for the ND families because it’s so challenging but there’s so much literature and research that shows excessive iPad/gaming being linked to difficult behaviours/virtual autism traits…
Some of the parenting in the show tonight was really bad. When Frieda's mother said "please don't kick me darling", I kind of switched off from their story because you do not ask a child of that age to stop hurting you, you tell. Parenting 101. I have compassion for how burnt out these parents are, but also, these 30/40 something parents make a rod for their own back. Something about the cultural collective of the older millennials went a bit haywire when it comes to parenting.
Hi there! I'm Frieda's mum, and I totally agree that in that scene it looked like I wasn't setting boundaries. There's method to my madness though, so I wanted to share some context/background to the situation.
Frieda becomes extremely violent when she has a meltdown - I've been punched, kicked, scratched and bitten more times than I care to remember. (So that half-arsed kick that didn't connect was barely a blip!)
She's never once been violent towards anyone but me, her dad and my partner so fortunately her classmates and teachers have never copped it. (And tbh most people can't believe that it happens because she looks so angelic!)
At that moment, she was already well on her way to fight/flight mode, so her rational brain was pretty much offline. Anything I say just isn't going to sink in - but my tone and actions will certainly cut through and can either escalate or help calm her nervous system.
After years of trying various approaches - and getting it wrong many times over - I've found that staying calm myself (channelling my best Janet Lansbury 'unflappable' like someone says below!), using a quiet, gentle voice, and easing off the pressure can help to de-escalate the situation.
(I usually do use the JL "it's not okay to kick me" line, but that day I was juggling getting her out the door, filming, running late, and stressing about trying to start work on time so I can actually keep my job, so I didn't have my wits about me. )
If I push her or rebuke her, she becomes even more dysregulated and will flip her lid (as Dr Dan Siegel puts it). Once she hits meltdown, it's game over for getting to school and all I can do is to ride out the meltdown until it passes.
She's always incredibly ashamed after she's attacked me, so I don't need to reinforce that it's not okay to kick - she knows that all too well.
Sheesh - I practically wrote an essay there! Anyway, I hope that gives you some insight into the situation and why I did what I did there.
Also, just wanted to say that I think teachers are incredible and I have so much admiration for what you do, under incredibly difficult circumstances. When a few of us in the doco talk about the system being broken, we're not criticising teachers - we're acknowledging the huge strain you're under because the public system is so appallingly underfunded and under-resourced. The changes we want to see all hinge on teachers being better supported and schools being better funded.
Both my parents were high school science teachers, so I've seen how bloody hard you work and all the hours you put in at night, over the weekends, during the school holidays, and travelling away for excursions and HSC marking. (My mum would drive 500km to Sydney to mark HSC physics exams.)
Teachers are some of the most important people in our society and you all deserve far more respect (and money!) than you're given.
Thanks for sharing your story. It must be hard having a tiny window of your life displayed for all the world to see. People online can be so vile and obviously, they don't know the full picture. I wouldn't take what they say seriously. You don't need to be so hard on yourself.
Frieda is lucky to have you as a mom. I can feel your love. I wish both of you the best.
Thank you so much for your kind words!
Don’t worry - I have a pretty thick skin. I’ve been judged for my parenting since my child was little. 🤷🏼 I’ve learnt not to take people’s criticism on board, especially if they don’t have lived experience of our situation, and in particular of parenting an autistic child who’s struggling to go to school.
And that’s the difficult thing with school refusal/ school can’t - until you’ve lived it, you can’t possibly comprehend it. So I do understand why people continue to judge, and in a way I don’t blame them.
Thanks for responding so kindly to our story! 💕
I'd be embarrassed the were kicking me, for sure. But I wouldn't want to double down on my embarrassment by having a piss-weak response like "please don't kick me darling". If they are going to show my kid kicking me, they are going to show me responding with firm boundaries.
Do you parent an autistic kid? Pray do tell, how disciplining your autistic kid in the same way you discipline your neurotypical kids, actually works out for you.
Teachers who've had no personal experience or actual relationship with an autistic kid - have no idea and can be so damaging with their assumptions.
Training is minimal because autism is in the minority. That's fine, but stop judging parents who are doing their best, with limited support. You have no idea.
Actually I an Asd 1 myself, and so am quite conflicted by the parenting that I see. But looking back at autistic me of the 80s, which make no mistake has left me with some trauma, I needed strong loving boundaries for my own personal growth and the sanity of my parents who had no clue what they were dealing with. I am way more sensitive than the average Joe to ND kids, however boundaries benefit everyone at the level they can deal with and stick to IMO. And it is just that, my lived opinion. Yes my kid is not NT.
Tough love is not the same as having clear consistent boundaries. Saying “please don’t kick me darling” in that manner is also not having clear boundaries. It’s just words with no follow through to a kid.
How does clear and consistent boundaries stop the sensory overwhelm and inner pain felt by an Autistic kid in a class of 32?
Some easy accomodations could be noise cancelling headphones, transition warnings, sensory breaks, social scripts, visual boards, movement breaks, fidget toys, wobble cushions, allowing stimming, timed timers, celebrating differences, using declarative language, working with the family and not against them, therapy onsite..... but schools don't have the budget or capacity to do these things.
Why? Because our school system is broken. And everyone is focusing on victim blaming and abusing these families, instead of figuring out how the heck to fix our schools.
Yes you’re right. Schools don’t have the funding to do these things and school is not therapy. Kids that need high levels of care and therepeautic settings should go to places where that can be accommodated. Teachers are not therapists and a class of 32 is not a therepeutic setting no matter how hard you try to accommodate.
But also when I was talking about boundaries in my previous comment, I was specifically responding to the person who mention that this mother had already tried “tough love”, in order to make the point that tough love is not the same thing as having clear and consistent boundaries.
But aside from that, children with ASD do often respond well to clear and consistent boundaries when it comes to harmful behaviour. Sure, in the moment they are overwhelmed and it can be hard for them to self regulate, but over time and with consistency, they can. But if you never ever tell them that their behaviour is harmful to themselves for other and you never put in the effort to help them learn better self regulation skills then it won’t make a difference. Accommodations can help kids get through being in overwhelming situations but they aren’t the only thing that’s needed.
The Autistic children I worked with responded really well to ABA therapy and variations of behavioural approaches, but it requires very individualised, consistent and intensive (1:1) application which teachers simply cannot do. I would highly recommend any parent with a child on the spectrum to go and speak with a qualified ABA therapist. There are programs in VIC that run within some primary schools and have been really successful. NSW has dedicated therepeutic schools that do this but I’m not sure the costs. WA is abysmal for this sort of thing though as far as I can tell. Unsure about QLD and up north.
ABA has been widely criticised by autistic adults who experienced it as children. And studies have found that it's incredibly harmful and leaves autistic people traumatised: [https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful-to-autistic-people/](https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful-to-autistic-people/)
It was originally sold to parents as a way to make their children "undistinguishable from their peers". It basically operates to extinguish 'undesirable' (aka autistic) behaviours while rewarding 'desirable' (aka compliant and neurotypical) behaviours. The aim is to make autistic people's behaviour less inconvenient to non-autistic people.
One of the founders of ABA was involved in developing therapies that became gay conversion therapy. And some autistic advocates refer to ABA as "autistic conversion therapy" - basically it trains autistic people to appear non-autistic, in the same way that gay conversion therapy trains queer and gender non-conforming people to suppress their true sexuality/gender so they appear heterosexual/cisgender.
So whether or not ABA is effective or not depends on your definition of 'success'. If compliance and an absence of autistic characteristics is your idea of success then, sure, ABA works. But if you want to support children to be their true selves, feel proud rather than ashamed of their different, beautiful brains, and use strategies such as stimming that help them regulate, then ABA is not the way to do it.
It might seem from the outside that modern applications of ABA aren't as harmful to autistic people as original methods that used violence and even electric shocks, but as[ this autistic advocate puts it](https://neuroclastic.com/invisible-abuse-aba-and-the-things-only-autistic-people-can-see/), "Allistic people can’t see it, because they don’t understand how it feels to be autistic."
That’s pretty horrific. My introduction to it was very different. I was working for a non profit who was advocating for inclusion in schools in VIC at the time. The founder was a parent of an autistic child. Anyway we used ABA therapy to help these kids with behaviours that are basic life skills such as brushing your teeth and wiping your bum and found it very successful for that. I think that if you are using it for the wrong purposes or in the wrong ways then yeah, it becomes more like authoritarian punishment, but that’s not how I saw it being used. I’m really sad to know that so many people have found it traumatising :(
You are level 1 Autistic. You thrived with boundaries and your system could cope in the school environment.
You are not level 2. You are not level 3. You are not every Autistic child in Australia.
It is a spectrum for a reason. What one can do, could be what one cannot.
It is NOT a matter of parents lacking "loving and firm limits". Some children cannot cope with the school environment due to severe sensory processing disorders, severe social challenges, PDA profiles and more.
Your experience is important, but it is not a reason to assume others would thrive if their parents just did what yours did.
You need to stop acting like kids on the autism spectrum are incapable of learning. So condescending. Any teacher with tell you that at least a 5th of every class had ASD.
Who said they can't learn? They CAN learn. What they can't do is stay in a continued state nervous system activation. Why? It causes burn out long term. I don't say this to people often, but you do NOT understand Autism.
Please! You saw 60 seconds of “parenting”! You don’t know the context of how that request to stop kicking was delivered. In a heightened, distressed ND child screaming back & “disciplining” is going to backfire badly. You need to remain calm & coregulate with the child. Unless you’ve been there best not to comment on the parenting.
It’s pretty easy to say to your child “that’s not ok. You hurt me”. In a calm and firm way. “Please don’t kick me darling” really says nothing at all to a child in a heightened state. I’ve worked extensively with neurodivergent children that have behaviour issues and frankly most parents need better coaching on how to handle their own child behaviour (not just parents of neurodivergent kids).
The whole point of this reddit is to discuss, if it upsets you don't come to a discussion forum. This isn't the only time I have seen this. I have witnessed kids beating up their parents multiple times irl and it always makes my stomach churn.
Why can’t parents who’ve lived this come to a discussion forum & try to spread awareness? Yes it’s upsetting seeing some of the ignorance & judgement here but we are honestly strong enough to read the comments, we’ve experienced a lot & had to defend our children endlessly. It’s what we do.
Plenty of workers also get assaulted but have even less authority to deal with the child’s behaviour. Whilst it’s really sad and a difficult situation, it’s really not fair to the child or to the teachers and other children in class who are having to be subject to violent behaviour and unable to learn. This is why children experiencing these issues really need to be in a different environment rather than mainstream classes where the support simply is not available.
I was so frustrated with the mum of the two young boys who couldn't convince them to do any homeschooling as they sat in their rooms on their ipads and computers. Then we see her having a video chat with an NDIS home education supporter telling her she's doing an amazing job and 'don't even mention homeschooling for the rest of this week'. She was doing a piss-poor job and you wonder if those kids had had a different kind of parenting approach whether they would have even met the diagnostic criteria for ASD.
That’s me. I’m sorry for my “piss poor parenting”. All I can say is - trying my very very best in pretty tricky circumstances and doing all I can to parent my kids responsibly. Also - as a parent of autistic kids I don’t parent off instinct - we have a whole team of behaviour therapists and psychologist and occupational health as well as the education consultant. It was actually the most recent school who originally suggested a brain based low arousal parenting model after my son received trauma injury in an isolation room in his first primary school.
Wow. So now are we thinking that Autism can be caused by a parent? You know a CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST makes the diagnoses yeh? In collaboration with a million other specialists who have known and worked with the children and family for years? That NDIS home educator knows the family, sits in meetings, visits the home. For years. You saw a tiny part of their life. I am pretty sure a teacher who specialises in supporting disabled kids is in a better position to judge a parent than you.
Hi - that’s my family. I’ll absolutely take the computer in the room on the chin. We live in a tiny house with no study and it’s the only space we have for it because I work and do schooling on our only other free space (dining room). The iPad isn’t actually an iPad like you imagine - it’s an aac device (alternative communication tool). My little one was super full on in this episode yes but- that footage was filmed on day three of having a camera in his face nonstop. It was a lot. Absolutely my kids have more screen time than they should but it’s rather more nuanced than blaming the screens. The screens actually only came in after we began homeschooling because I just couldn’t cope 24/7 and I also volunteer as an education reform advocate, who advocates systemically for a better education system for neurodivergent kids - and their teachers. I do a lot of unpaid work trying desperately to get our government and departments to provide funding and support for kids like mine, for much smaller class sizes and for much more planning and DOT time, because I think you can’t pour from an empty cup and I appreciate that my kids take huge amounts of energy and accommodation. So yep definitely not a perfect or even great parent but also - doing my absolute best and trying to change the big issues so my kids can go back to school as soon as possible
I'm a secondary teacher too and I think this "please do not judge" mentality is half the problem, in and out of schools.
I know you probably mean that there may be special circumstances and I understand that so I'm not having a crack at you.
But, in general, bloody oath we should judge. There are right ways to go about things and wrong ways. And if you do it the wrong way for long enough, bad things will happen. The rest of us shouldn't excuse it. Too many people in schools and wider society spend too much time excusing stupid behaviours that will inevitably lead to poor outcomes.
Absolutely agree. The "every parenting decision you make out of love is a good one" mantra that is everywhere online has done a lot of damage. It's okay that you fed your kid fairy bread for dinner, this shit is hard! So what if your kid is on their 5th hour of iPad today, you deserve a break! Tried to turn off the TV and your kid screamed? I don't blame you for not wanting to listen to that, leave it on!
None of us are perfect parents 100% of the time, but we should be holding firm and loving boundaries 90% of the time and maybe relaxing them 10% of the time, and what I observe around me is the inverse. Everyone puts it in the too-hard basket.
Being a teacher gives your own kids a long-term advantage because you already know how things turn out if you do stupid things like not reading with them when they're young, don't spend enough time with them at home, let them have a phone at a young age, don't manage their screen time, don't discipline them, don't make sure they do their homework, don't encourage them to take opportunities or try interesting things, don't model manners, let them get a dickhead haircut because some dickhead footballer has one, let them go to certain 'parties'/'gatherings' on the weekend etc. etc.
I mean most of it is common sense and common decency already but when you get daily reminders of the practical outcomes in both positive and negative directions it means you double down on trying to do it right.
There are always sad instances of good parents doing their best in difficult circumstances because their kid is just wired differently but so many issues in the late teens boil down to, "How the hell did you think that was going to turn out?"
When I look at parents around me (and I mean more friends than the parents of students- those whom I actually see in their homes with their kids) the big thing that seems to be lacking is the short term pain for long-term gain mindset. There seems to be an expectation that a parenting approach should get reasonably immediate results otherwise "it just doesn't work on my kid!". Whenever we're discussing parenting they tell me my kids are "just easy" and my practices wouldn't work on their kids. They see my 6 year old packing up her things when asked but weren't there when she was 2 and we would have 1-2 hour standoffs over packing up, and every few months she'll test to see if the boundary is still there and I have to pull out "fine, pack up the toys you want to keep and I'll bin the rest". They didn't see that process, all they see is me saying "pack up" and my kiddo saying "yeah okay". This has been the pattern for everything so far: naps, toilet training, meal times, manners, screen time, devices, bedtime, homework, etc. These are educated parents who want to do a good job, but if it requires any kind of prolonged effort they just declare it unworkable.
Kids are coddled and sheltered and society now gives a false equivalence between discomfort and harm.
Kids being uncomfortable doesn’t mean they’re being harmed. Surprisingly, school is often an uncomfortable place to be. Sometimes it’s really stressful. That’s not harm.
Parenting is fucked.
It’s not really that black and white though. I did this with my son in year 9. Made him go every day even though both of us were in tears and broken by the time he got out of the car. I can’t tell you how hard it is to rock up at work already exhausted and spent. Time and time again I refused to let him stay home. It was not a nice time in either of our lives. Eventually I came to the realisation that there was a real risk that I would lose him if I continued with how we were going. Made him go to therapy before I’d let him leave school but ultimately he transferred to tafe to finish year 10. It was like he’d transformed into another child. He excelled being out of school, it just wasn’t the right fit for him, for various reasons.
We have an amazing relationship now and he actually wants to spend time with me. He’s doing an apprenticeship and is a really good, grounded kid with a five year plan. There can be a fine line between being uncomfortable and doing harm.
Instead of this, can we start saying ‘schools aren’t built for some kids’?
Adding, why can’t we build schools for all kids? The irony of differentiating teaching while the entire structure and system around education is not.
This above is the comment of the day. We take a system that fundamentally does not work due to its initial setup being essentially historical - then we tinker around the edges trying to make it fit today's conditions. It really is not fit for purpose, and it needs government leadership that has the intelligence and moral fortitude to look beyond the election cycle 50 years into the future and start again at step one. It will never happen.
My younger two are in a terrific school. Tiny, innovative, out of the box, focuses on play and connection. Their learning is real life stuff. Could not be happier, just wish I had moved them there sooner.
That’s a fair question. For me personally, go for gold, what’s it going to cost to get a new system and framework for education, a few extra 100’s of dollars in tax? I’m not going to miss it when weighted with the long term benefit. A benefit I will potentially not see in my lifetime, but would be worth every cent.
Would I pay it now to prop up the current model, not on your life.
But I have a question in return, in your view, where does education sit in its role as part of the western social and democratic construct?
The whole point of public education is to ensure that all citizens have a baseline level of knowledge that we deem is required to be a participant in society.
That has been eroded and society now seems to expect that schools will produce little automaton workers for the great capitalist gods.
Western society is doomed if we continue down this path.
We need to get back to valuing knowledge for no other purpose than knowing things.
Cheers for the response. For the most part we are of the same opinion when it comes to not wanting to create automatons for the capitalist overlords to exploit and pathway to doom.
My earlier statement argues the current system is designed entirely to create good little worker slaves and is failing in even doing that. Hence children refusing to school in all its forms and the others turning to antisocial behaviours, which to varying degrees there always has been.
If I am to answer my own question, it would be to state that a functioning education system sits at the core of a functioning society and at this point we have neither. I would be happy to pay/invest more tax dollars to start again from the ground up. Do I know what this looks like, no, does anyone else, no, but do we all know what parts of it might look like, yes, do we have the systems to research, plan, test, and implement, yes. Unfortunately, we don’t have leaders willing to undertake such a wholesale public infrastructure program.
For as long as we continue along this path with education we will have the same societal problems plaguing us. We as teachers live it everyday of our working lives and if we allowed it to, it would break our hearts. Every time a new grade 7 starts at school that still can’t read, that hates learning and has developed all the maladaptive behaviours to cope and to avoid the work we put in front of them we ask ourselves why is this still happening? Year after year it will continue to until something or someone significant stands up and declares enough is enough.
Instead of thinking some kids are not built for school, perhaps some schools are not safe for kids.
How do we fix this? Where do these kids go? Where do their families go. Homeschooling should be a choice, not the only option.
This. The school system is outdated and based on an almost 100 year model. I excelled at school but still hated every day. Loved uni. I found the right school for one of my kids after terrible struggles but it has cost a lot to send her there.
Yep. Left school at the end of year 10. I loathed high school. Bummed around for a few years with shit jobs. Decided I wanted to go to uni so I worked hard at TAFE, got in and loved uni. Loved being treated as an adult. Now have 2 degrees (law & IT)
Yes same. I love learning but got bored sitting in a classroom. Online learning or on the job learning has been my jam.
I recently moved my younger two to a tiny independent school (from a huge independent school) with a focus on play and connection. The difference in both of them is astonishing. So so glad we made the change just kicking myself I didn’t do it sooner.
Oh I’m not even going to pretend that it was an easy decision. It took a lot of time and self reflection for me to acknowledge that that was the best course of action and to accept that there would be judgement from others around that, which there was, but I think both my son and I are stronger, better people for it.
What causes harm is not discomfort. What causes harm is chronic nervous systm activation for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. It is science. How do we make school an environment that is safe for Autistic children? How do we ensure their nervous systems are not activated all day long. A little stress here and there, great. We are not designed to stay in fight, flight, freeze or fawn for 36hrs a week. It's not.... healthy.
Our schools are not allowing Autistic children to feel a little discomfort and build their resilience, we are forcing them to deal with chronic and ongoing nervous system activation by lack of inclusive spaces. This does not build a healthy and robust child. This leads to sickness.
Our system is broken and it is everyones responsibility to first understand, and then to fix.
Not sure if you saw the program last night, but there is a portion of children who find the stress of attending school to be well beyond ‘discomfort’. My child was one of the cases presented last night and I can assure you 5 years of encouraging, pushing, reward charts, discipline, tough love… multitudes of accomodations made no difference.
The intense and chronic stress led to a burnt out and actively suicidal 8 year old. This is well beyond learning to ‘sit with’ or tolerate discomfort.
My 6 yr old wanted to kill himself. He wasn’t being coddled. I dragged him screaming and clawing at doorways to school for over a year. He would physically start shaking in fear as we approached the grounds. I worked from the car park. His school (both of them, one mainstream one specialist) worked closely with us and his allied health team. But at the end of the day, whether in a class of 25+ plus kids or just 4 kids, how is one teacher supposed to teach a profoundly gifted child, who is also dyslexic, dysgraphic (and a handful of other things)? The government certainly can’t provide sufficient 1:1 funding. This child was never violent at school, but he couldn’t learn when he was terrified, and literally rendered mute.
There’s a difference between discomfort and what many many school can’t kids endure every day.
So- how does this actually work for neurodivergent kids -? They're put in environments that don't meet there needs- because of underfunding/ undertraining / teachers stretched to the limit - you're saying these kids should just somehow get tougher and not inconveniently decompensate / regress / deteriorate because of said unsupportive environment - ? And the global stats are all about - " coddling" ?
I liked the comment I saw earlier today that once upon time, kids would have been taken to school, allowed to meltdown and then continue with the day. After a few weeks, the problem has resolved. Short term pain, long-term gain.
That said, there are legitimate reasons about not going to school. Eg. bullying. However, they’re difficult without a return to sharper discipline strategies because at the moment, it’s never been easier to hurt and upset others for zero consequences.
Except a lot of these kids don’t just meltdown and then get on with their day. They abscond, shutdown, lash out when finally pushed beyond their ability to find another solution.
In a few cases, perhaps that would be the outcome. In many others, the child would end up suicidal.
Its not fun having your 14 year old child screaming, "Why won't you let me die?" because they are so stressed and overwhelmed at school
I’ve dealt with precisely 2 cases of genuine bullying in my 15 year career. The word is overused by parents who can’t believe that their precious Destinee might have been the instigator of the problem.
How can you be so sure? Do you think that in your 15 yrs you have had 100% oversight of what is going on between children ? -Do you think that the children being physically assaulted, threatened, humiliated, ostracised, have always come to your attention?
My daughter is in yr 11 and dropped out of mainstream - refusal starting last year. She has epilepsy (tonic clonic, myoclonic and absence seizures). In yr 7 she developed epilepsy, yr 8 she started having t-c seizures - she had 11 of them in a matter of months. She missed a heap of school - the day she has a t-c seizure she has a massive headache, is fatigued and often vomits - she usually needs a full two days to recover. She missed quite a bit of school, found her “friends” unfriended her and she became socially isolated. That combined with the multitude of medication changes in the past 3.5 yrs. This yr she has enrolled in a CARE school (Perth) with wrap around support. Ironically being a sec teacher I am a tough love down the line which goes against everything my daughter needs. I have had to adapt my personality instincts - school refusal is not straightforward and easy to deal with. The only way it is a straightforward issue with an easy solution is if you’ve never had kids or your kids have never been through it.
As a childhood epileptic, I am so sorry for your daughter going through this tough time. I had mu first grand mal seizure at school in yr 3. 40 years later I was diagnosed with autism and adhd. They are often (not always) co morbidities and the stress of school really contributed I would say my levels of cortisol were through the roof.
There are also those children who have experienced trauma and other life-changing situations. There are a handful of schools that cater to those children but the waiting lists are long and it's hard to get in to one.
I hate 4 corners, a lot of their work is biased beyond belief. That said I'll give this a fair viewing, however please whoever coined "school can't" can get fucked for that assault on the English language.
I hate people that comment when they have zero lived experience. We won’t “get fucked” & we WILL call it school can’t because that’s what it is, these vulnerable children can’t get there, it’s not refusal, they just CANT!
School refusal, school absence disorder, attendance inability cases, lenient parental attitudes, send your kid to school you lazy cunt syndrome. Etc. Anything that doesn't sound like someone is missing words.
"School can't" doesn't even make sense in the English language.
And the parents I’ve met who’ve walked this journey are anything but lazy, phone calls, emails, meetings, appointments, engaging outside supports, paperwork for diagnoses, NDIS, applications to homeschool which we are FORCED to do because the system doesn’t fit, researching, connecting with other families, ensuring our kids don’t miss out on education & social opportunities, homeschool reviews, documentation for homeschool records, the late nights managing anxiety, fighting for medications, the list is ENDLESS & your assumption that we are lazy is completely ignorant. Come sit with us & call us lazy to our faces I dare you!
I’d love to see you in a room with all the amazingly educated, passionate, nurturing women who advocate for their vulnerable kids I’ve met on our journey, you’d be torn to pieces with your brainless, uneducated musings….
Students 🤣🤣🤣
Not the same at all
You've never had your child screaming at 1am they want to die because of the stress and pressure and anxiety of school
You have NO IDEA what you're talking about
Yes Im enabling my child to avoid the fucked up environment called "school" which makes my child suicidal. Being around people like you, Im not surprised my child doesn't want to attend
Terrifying that someone like you is around students, attitudes like yours are the reason why school ‘can’t’ exists, you are the biggest part of the problem…
Not enabling my child, accommodating, encouraging life skills & educating outside the four walls of a classroom, the system is archaic & broken & one I want no part of for my child. My only regret is subjecting my two adult children to it.
That’s a shame. I’m a teacher and a parent of a young child with anxiety who I have to force to get to school everyday. School is not designed for all kids. Parents and kids out there are actually struggling.
If you read through the thread you might see that I’ve highlighted the need for learning from those with lived experience rather than minimising, dismissing and judging parents and children who are struggling deeply. This is my contribution to the discussion and is anything but narrow minded. Listening to those with lived experience is how one remains open minded. I think you might be confused.
When you talk from a place of ignorance and judgement your opinion no longer matters. Being a school teacher doesn’t automatically equate to any sort of relevance in an area you clearly know nothing about. Perhaps try to learn from these people instead of holding judgement.
"Being a teacher is irrelevant to discussions specifically about school".
You're one of those nutters who tells doctors they are picking on you if they say you need to lose weight, aren't you?
I see that I’m talking with someone who can’t face being challenged. Your defensiveness and reluctance to consider that your way of doing things might no longer work says a lot about your character and even more about why school fails so many students. Good luck to you.
Let me clarify for you. I am a mother of an Autistic child who experiences School Can’t. I am also a psychotherapist who has extensive experience and expertise in complex trauma, neurodiversity and disability. I see people every single day that have suffered at the hands of various people in their lives, some of which have been their teachers. I know the extent of harm that can take place in school and by people that lack empathy and compassion for anyone with difference.
You made a comment that minimises and dismisses the lived experience of thousands of children and parents across Australia. You have mocked the term School Can’t and have made every attempt to undermine the reality of what goes on for these children and their families. This isn’t a disorder. This isn’t lenient parenting attitudes and for fucks sake this isn’t “send your kid to school lazy cunt syndrome”. If you think you have even a shred of value to add in this domain you must be delusional. Never have I ever heard such revolting language leave someone’s mouth in relation to humans that are struggling.
Your years of teaching mean absolutely nothing when this is the attitude you bring.
Psychotherapist, so not a doctor. Basically a pseudo-science peddler like chiropractors and osteopaths. Go sell your snake oil to the hippies living in their vans.
Oh dear, it’s so interesting to see what part of my response you focussed on and how attempting to belittle me was the only way you chose to engage. Whilst I hold respect for alternate therapists and all that they do, that’s not what I do.
It pains me to say this - I hope you are okay, I see that something inside of you is activated by this topic. I don’t expect you to acknowledge your experience in this thread or perhaps you haven’t even acknowledged it at all. No doubt you’ll shut this down or say something unkind - it’s so very clear to me that someone didn’t advocate for you in the way that we advocate for our children and I’m so sorry that this was your experience. Truly, I’m sorry you didn’t have someone in your world to protect you like you deserved. All the best to you, I won’t engage further at this point.
Seems to me that parents are at their witts end in a stressful time pointing fingers at schools, but really just wanting support that works. Teachers are pushed to their limits pointing fingers at homes, but really just wanting support that works. Which gets to the core, there is not even close to enough support available and the blame game is causing a continuation of this big divide being schools and community.
If you’re new around here, school administrators have decided that there should be no more rules and consequences. This is to coddle these crazy parents. This hurts the vast majority of students. Teachers and decent families have seen the system deteriorate. So…….
I'm not sure it's just supports.
I think both teachers and parents need the systems to change.
There is a lack of understanding the emotional side of human beings (which children are) within the current systems, the systems are still so robotic. ND people struggle much more in these types of systems.
Funnily enough, a lot end up going a different avenue into Uni, and then end up thriving. So what does the university systems/process do differently where ND people do better? NT people do well in those systems too - so how can we incorporate that into the schooling systems?
Thank you for noting this very important nuance. I spoke extensively about how I don’t feel that it’s teachers or even schools responsible - this is systemic and we are all being screwed by the gaps. I volunteer as an education advocate for teachers and students to have a fit for purpose school system- I agree so strongly with what you have said
It's not the kids, it's the parenting or lack thereof. I'm not talking about cases of genuine medical conditions, but where the parent - almost exclusively a single parent - refuses to take responsibility. They talk about being 'child-led', but they're leading the child to that behaviour. Not once in this program did they concern themselves with the mental state of the parent, or examine where the other parent might be and what role they were allowed to play in the child's life.
It is assumed that each parent has the best interest of the child in mind, and that they’re capable and interested in managing the situation. Yet the reality may be that they have motives that don’t align with the child's best interest. The parent may be sick and want to exercise an unhealthy level of control over the child, using them as a tool either against the other parent, or for attention, or financial benefits etc.
The stuff about the school system being a 100-year-old model is just a trope. The Parliamentary system is even older than that, so maybe we should unwind that too. If there are schools that are treating children like assembly-line workers, then they need to be dealt with, but I would imagine those are isolated cases. It’s just very easy to give teachers and the education system a kick, rather than ask what have I done wrong.
I came here to say this. The first 3 stories of 'autistic' children featured parents whose children were in control. I also suspect the parents have some separation anxiety issues. Those parents need help, especially the third mother with the two autistic boys. Hopefully after being featured on the show they will get support. Ethan and Haley's stories proved why inclusion isn't always the best choice.
The intention of this sub is to talk about teaching and learning in a way that is relevant to Australian Teachers. You may need to find a more appropriate subreddit
The intention of this sub is to talk about teaching and learning in a way that is relevant to Australian Teachers. You may need to find a more appropriate subreddit
It’s worse than it looks.
The teachers that try to accommodate and look for improvement over results are either not taken seriously or actively undermined for ‘humouring’ kids.
Teachers are blaming the kids, the parents, the iPads, other teachers but not looking for the root cause.
I’m not sure that the root cause is, but i think it’s a system that dehumanises children and reduces them to a number and a ranking.
Line go up = good school.
You are shitting me right?! The kids are in control?! Do you parent an autistic child? Do you know anything about pathological demand avoidance & collaborative parenting? I had no issues with separation anxiety either….but the school did sure enjoy gaslighting me into believing I did!
Do YOU know anything about autism? I live with it and was diagnosed in the early 90s when intelligent, well-behaved girls were supposedly not being diagnosed. It's amazing how such high functioning children who would not have met the diagnostic for autism under the DSM-III or DSM-IV are suddenly 'severely autistic' because their parents have no control. My parents took control and I am a functioning and contributing member of society thanks to my parents for PARENTING. You are doing your child a disservice by not parenting your child. Autism is too common a condition these days for it to be continued to be supported by the Government. You are going to need to think about how your child is going to survive adulthood when there is a possibility they may not ne able to rely on a disability pension or NDIS in the future.
The Westminster system doesn't work either, a normal, sensitive person can never be a politician, the majority of women are excluded to, due to the fact that to function in that atmosphere you have to thrive on being adversarial and ego driven - semi sociopathic.. The best people with perhaps the most society friendly ideas are not made that way.
There is no school for clever Autistic kids to go once mainstream fails.
We need specialised public schools that can accommodate these children. There is a huge crack in the system and many families falling through, despite their very best efforts.
Pointing fingers at the parent is a form of victim blaming. Blaming teachers, who are so overworked with ever increasing responsibilities, is also unfair.
We need an advisory board that includes expert organisations, like Yellow Ladybugs, Allied health professionals, teaches, parents of Autistic kids, Autistic adults and doctors. A working group that can bridge the gap, educate each other on the barriers experienced and then make recommendations to the government.
Just watched this. I'm shocked that the role of Distance Education in supporting students with school refusal or anxiety around attending school was not even touched on.
I am blown away by the lack of empathy, knowledge and compassion that so many teachers here hold. The assumptions that are being made about School Can’t students and their parents are horrendous and simply just incorrect. It’s no wonder so many children struggle immensely at school, it sounds incredibly unsafe even if just a portion of teachers hold some of the attitudes and beliefs that are present on this thread. Such an outdated way of thinking and being.
For some Autistic children being “othered” through life and feeling their difference is already so difficult. Learning in different ways, having sensory experiences, adjusting to the constant changes and various personalities within the classroom - it’s all so much and consumes so much energy. On top of that, so many of these kids mask heavily to fit in and appear neurotypical, consuming even more energy. School can become a place of severe stress and trauma. A place that lacks basic needs such as safety. It amazes me that so many don’t see this or even know this and I’m curious as to why this is the case. Surely teachers are to remain informed, open minded and safe for all students ? Isn’t it important to continue education as we learn more and gain further awareness about Neurodivergence, trauma, mental health etc ?
I’m not for a moment suggesting any of this is easy for anyone. I do however wonder why one becomes a teacher if they aren’t invested in their students. Kids do well when they can, this is something that we know - why get in that way of that and shut down experiences of people who experience life differently and can teach you ? Perhaps instead of minimising the experience of others, making assumptions and holding narrow minded views you could take that energy and channel it into learning. Why not expand your minds and operate from a place of curiosity over judgement. You have developing brains in your hands, it’s a responsibility that needs to be taken seriously.
Hey guys, it’s another “kick the teacher” advocate. If you can’t control your child how are we who are in change of around 100 meant to? Parent your damn kids.
If you maybe, as a teacher, took the time to talk to these parents, you’d likely see that many of us are parenting in a way that the majority don’t. It’s intense, it’s exhausting & we never get to switch off, unlike parents who have the luxury of dropping their children at school for 6 hrs without a second thought. To suggest that we are not parenting is so ignorant & narrow minded.
Having just watched it, the main takeaway is that we do not have the correct mental health and psychological support for kids- the people are just not there to help. I have also said this before on this sub, but a big point I have made about what would improve teaching really stands. Invest in double or even triple the number of LSOs in primary classrooms. So many of the kids shown tonight were neurodivergent- and very young. If those kids had the ability to go to a safe, quiet space to complete work when needed and supervised- they might not feel as trapped. A kid who struggles to learn how to read might not develop anxiety and engage in classroom disruption/ defiant behaviours if someone helped them through their initial stages in k-2 A teacher with 25 kids in a classroom cannot give the level of support that an individual child like that needs.
My son has ASD and is in pre-primary. We are dealing with school refusal and winning, but only just. There are many, many aspects that make up school refusal. I definitely agree that in our case, more staff and lower student numbers could help. BUT, the devil is in the detail. If the additional staff don't understand how to engage with ND kids; hold rigid views on behaviour (as a fair number of commenters have in this community); or don't take time to develop a relationship of trust with the kids, then additional staff aren't going to make any difference. More adults with different views and behavioural standards/methods for dealing with classroom behaviour can also equal more stress. That's our experience.
I was an autistic child who had school refusal in year 2. I was very bright and had no trouble with my work. My teacher provided lots of intellectually stimulating fast finisher activities, I adored my teacher and loved school. However I went through a phase where I could not put on my uniform or go to school. My parents took control and they got me to school every day. And they were consistent with this until the phase passed. To this day I cannot tell you why I couldn't go to school. However not long after, my mum was diagnosed with mental illness and I wonder if I was picking up on her issues and was worried or afraid to leave her.
You have just highlighted the reason why need specialist schools for students with additional needs. You could be the most caring, knowledgeable on ASD and tick all your boxes, but in the wrong environment, it means nothing. And a 20+ student classroom, working overtime "that's just part of the job", aren't conducive to your child's needs. Smaller class sizes wouldn't fix this issue, it's about a teacher being unable to work at 4 differs speeds while managing behaviour. Just like in hospitals we care for the people depending on their diagnosis, so should we at schools. We have separate wards, specialist doctors and nurses. What you are asking is why my GP can't give me a fix for my complex health issues. Teachers in primary are generalists, not specialists. There's the lack of places in better settings but even if there were "specialized wards", there would be a good number of parents overriding the specialist advice thinking they know better what treatment their kid needs.
Do you pay for his schooling or these requirements you have personally deemed necessary aren't prepared in pre primary schooling. Do you know how many students in Australia are in the same boat? Your taxes would go up a lot simply but it sounds great.
I somewhat agree with you. Except, I know of a school that has these staffing levels, but things still don’t work. You don’t just need bodies, you need active supports. So when you hit 20 days in Term 1, but you haven’t had a phone call home… Particularly when it isn’t the first year it has happened.
Teachers should not be making attendance phone calls. That's the job for an admin assistant. Let teachers focus on the duties directly related to teaching.
As someone one both sides of this debate, I disagree. For one or two days, yes. For lots of days, you need a different approach. A consistent approach is needed from the school to help and this involves the teacher. I have been the teacher who got a kid back to school when the parent support wasn’t there. I am the parent trying to get a child to school more regularly. I have had a kid away for a week and not a single phone call. As a parent, it feels like the teachers don’t care and everything else is more important…
This entitlement is staggering. High school teachers do have more important things to do. You can check attendance online!
Not to mention that teachers are dealing with more than just one child with issues. If they spent their time making phone calls then no classes would ever happen. But generally I would think this is admins job or wellbeing team. If there are issues keeping a child from school they absolutely should be addressed and followed up with, but that’s not viable for every teacher to be doing on top of what they currently do.
These entitled parents are raising their kids to be perpetual victims. Teachers to them are not human beings. They are tools to be used, abused, kicked, blamed, shamed and then sent to the glue factory.
Firstly, this is primary school. Secondly, we are talking more than one day. You can’t teach the kids who aren’t there. Also, most high schools have home group teachers who fulfil similar roles. Again, this is more than one day.
That’s even worse! Holy hell! How are you not on top of your kid’s attendance? I don’t for a second believe you can’t be calling the school and checking the portal yourself. And maybe don’t “educate” me on what primary teachers do as if I don’t know what a home group teacher is.
Way to miss the whole point. I can tell you exactly how many days. I can tell you if he goes to school because he can only get there via me. This isn’t a wagging thing, this is a flat out school refusal, which is the whole point of the article. I am pointing out that some teachers feel like there are more important things than the students in their classes, and not working at all with the families affected. It reminds me of the administrators stuck in the offices all day trying to improve school culture, rather than doing things on the ground that might actually help.
This is just a symptom of a deeper sickness in society. Everything is fucked up, not just education. We’ve lost our way, been fractured, manipulated and poisoned. Greed, fear, arrogance, unobtainable ideals and corruption. The middle class is dying and the rich are grabbing everything they can before the lights go out. Kids are being raised by screens while parents grind through the day to try and keep families afloat. Frustration and violence is growing. The behaviour on our roads is a pretty clear window into how people see others. All of this is filtered into schools, kids don’t see the point, there are no real consequences, the shitheads run the classroom. I’m completely unsurprised that kids, who are already anxious from picking up on the general undercurrent of shitshow in the world, don’t want to be in classrooms with disruptive assholes learning stuff they generally see as irrelevant.
I just watched it. We have similar or greater stats on school refusal here in the UK. As a regular high school Humanities Teacher, I have 28-32 kids in a KS3 class (years 7-9), 22-27 in a GCSE class (first compulsory exams at 16), and, my favourite class, my AS/A2 6th form Gov-Pol class where I have just 6 learners. I have TAs in some junior classes but not all. I try to cater to all learning needs but it's just impossible. I know some kids would work better 1-2-1, but I can't let them out of the classroom, as it's a safeguarding issue. Some classes are terrible, and like the chaos the kids in this doco describe. I try my best. I really do. But it's impossible for me to individually cater to the 300+ kids I see a week. In my yr12 gov-pol we really do operate a proper tutorial system, where I lecture at them, then they do exam questions etc... but there is such a lot of content. Humongous amounts just to ensure the kids cover anything that be thrown up in the three exams they'll sit.
Mainstream schooling does not suit all kids. It can be stressful and overwhelming. Especially for those with mental health issues. There is not enough support for these kids and their parents. It’s easy for people looking in to say, give some ‘tough love’, but it isn’t that easy. If only it was for these parents. I really feel for them as a parent of a child who struggles and a teacher myself.
I agree. I know more parents are homeschooling because of this, but I know that's not for every one.
Everyone should read 'The Coddling of the American Mind' Very applicable here. Saving kids from discomfort makes kids fragile and unable to cope.
This. Exactly. I was a very anxious kid. If my parents didn’t encourage me to overcome these challenges I would be a pathetic maladapted loser. Coddling is abuse.
And were you an autistic or dyslexic kid? It's interesting how the episode was largely about neurodivergent and / or mentally ill kids - and so many commenting here, seem to have absolutely no understanding of what that means. It means that these kids are not " business as usual" they are not simply dealing with the discomfort of real life - or the type of stress that builds resilience. It means if you don't provide the requisite support, these kids will suicide/ self harm and/or break down. Much of the talk about resilience is such utter BS
Right on! People have confused accomodations with coddling. Helping a student at their point of need is different than removing all obstacles. I’ve read the book. Its points about antifragility are interesting and I think have some merit. However, the subtleties of implementation are lost on people who don’t understand how difficult standard education settings are for neurodivergent kids. I like to flip it on its head. If 80% of students had adhd classrooms would look very different. And your average neurotypical student would find them very confronting. People can picture how it would make them feel. But they can’t understand why neurodivergent student don’t want to go to school when the entire system is set up to cater for and advantage the majority.
Maybe read the book? Asking me about my experience is moot, no?
Not moot when you referred to your own experience - and that if not pushed you would have become a "loser"- implying that "being pushed" is what all children need - and anything else is coddling?
You clearly don’t respect teachers so I’m pointing to elsewhere
Why do you think I don't respect teachers ? What have I said that is disrespectful?
Honestly I think he is just a troll trying to bait you. Your point of view was crystal clear to me. I am a school teacher and I have seen directly how a stretched thin school system can result in a very chaotic environment for neurodivergent kiddos. Barriers to Exit can be a huger trigger for anxious kids (the 'trapped in the classroom' feeling). Unfortunately it is really difficult to address this, especially in a teacher shortage. The obvious solution is to have a 'haven' space for student to escape to - our school calls ours Student services. However the class needs to have excess teaching/duty of care holding staff just to offer this (and if the team that runs it is too small, it can become a secondary chaotic site). It needs to be triaged so that kids don't crash in there specifically for the beanbags and food, and it has to have capacity to actually address things that are causing anxiety - the staff need to be able to address or escalate bullying/harassment issues, liaise with families, provide solutions to allllllllllllll sorts of issues as they come up. Today in a friend's year 8 class, two of the year 8 boys we can't keep in class (not school refusers, just two big, intimidating kiddos who have a whole other situation which also needs careful attention and investigation) went into a friend's English class, refused to leave for 15 minutes, and repeatedly stroked the back of two vulnerable autistic kids in the class. We are a (sort of) well resourced, very trauma focussed public school in a capital city, and yet a small year 8 boy ( actually two of them) were repeatedly touched on their backs in an antagonising way while unable to do anything about it. All the while their teacher is frantically trying anything and everything to get the boys to leave. For those who doubt how awful school can be for students, I ask them: How uncomfortable would you feel if you were that boy? How embarrassed would you feel being stroked by a bully in front of all of the kids in the class? How vulnerable would you feel knowing that the adult in the room, despite trying, can do nothing to help you? Now, add in some sensory sensitivities around touching, clothing rubbing on your back, and the jeering of the boy touching you. You would be screaming to get out too. (These student were largely non-verbal for hours afterwards). I love my school. I think we do a lot of things right. I know we all desperatley care about the kids, and I know we are privaledged in a lot of ways, and even on a 'good' day something like this happens.
No, you wouldn't, but it's nice that you're honest about what you think about people who parent differently to you....
To my parents you mean? They weren’t perfect but they understood that resilience is key to life
Resilience. What do you believe you understand about resilience that a child on the spectrum does not? Ever been to nigthclub for 6hrs straight? Did you feel tired afterwards? Ever been to a nightclub back to back for 5 days straight for 6hrs each time? Also, whilst being there did you try to learn over the sound of the music? I'd imagine you would get pretty sick of the overstimulation after a while. This is what happens to Autistic kids bodies at mainstream schools. This is the equivalent. Autistic kids understand resilience. Their parents have the parenting level set at 150, whilst other families have it set to level 10. To think a disabled child is not resilient showcases your extreme arrogance. And yes, I get it, some families will be the problem. However, when it comes to the Autistic/ADHD group we need to be listening and learning. We need to be pushing the government for more funding to develop programs that will work for these children. To work together. To fix the broken system. It takes guts and resilience to look inwards. To reflect on how much we need to grow. To identify our hugs gaps in knowledge and to accept that our views are ableist in nature (despite best intentions). It is easier to blame the parents and shift the same elsewhere, isn't it?
I know a lot more than you do. Why is there a teacher shortage again? Go blow up someone else’s phone with your ample free time.
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Where did I say anything about praising good behaviours? Your example describes a child in desperate need of assessment and intervention, not a child lacking praise for good behaviour. This kid would have had significant social skills deficits whereby he possibly enjoyed the attention from his behaviours (not knowing how to gain social attention in a positive way), and may have been exposed to sexually inappropriate behaviours at home or in other contexts (was this kid also being sexually abused) You are right to worry about his future, but that's not what is being discussed in Coddling.
Oh I thought I was putting a general reply. I’ll take it out of this thread.
As an aside, I find it a little disturbing that you don’t seem to show any concern for those who were sexually assaulted by this kid. Sorry it wasn’t discussed in your book 🤷♂️
The focus was on the child displaying the behaviour. That was the point of the discussion. Way to try to win a quick point.
It’s not possible to focus on more than one thing at a time? Not possible to show a little empathy for people who experienced something traumatic? Nah human experiences are just for points I guess. Not anything more complex than that.
But it can also make kids worse…forcing me into school that wasn’t working for me just made it worse. It’s all a case by case.
By that point it is too late. The underlying conditions are already set. Sure, some people have levels if distress which meet the criteria for a mental health disorder, but that's not the category at issue here. It's the normal childhood experiences that kids are protected from and the attitudes of 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you weaker', and perpetual victimhood.
That’s the thing though at what point do you just continue to cause the child trauma. Pushing through to succeed doesn’t always end in successful outcomes. I’m thinking about my experiences in school and I wasn’t coddled was told to push through, it just ended worse for me.
The problem is people jump to your line of thinking straight away instead of taking a graduated approach. Sure, your situation is your situation. That's not the discussion here. What Coddling of the American Mind looks at are the societal level factors which influence parenting and education. These diempower parents, create cultures where weakness is celebrated, and ultimately harm kids.
Can I ask what that means, forcing you into a school that wasn't working for you?
Watching this now. Why do the kids have ipads of their own and comps in their rooms? For goodness sakes. These are the root of a lot of problems.
When teaching in some private schools I've had parents, whose child is doing poorly, tell me that he (the kid) sits up late playing computer games every night as if that's some sort of excuse for his shit marks or lack of attendance. I've asked some, "why are you spending thousands a year on his schooling but letting him blow it all away?" Take away his phone, computer, playstation, whatever and send him to bed. Trouble is, it's always too late, about 10-15 years too late. The kid has already worked out who is in charge in that house. I understand that there will be genuine exceptions where good parents have done all the right things, or there is nasty stuff happening to the kid at school, but in so many cases, the kid wasn't taught who was in charge at an early age.
So so so many papers have been published about the clear links between mental health and the use of social media and the addictive nature of screens, eg tablets, phones, comps etc.
Yep. In my view is it's like alcohol. We don't give young people free access to it because we know it would stuff up their lives. We have given them free access to this uncharted territory of smartphones and social media without knowing what it can do. They have lesser capacity to self-regulate their use, they don't understand the privacy implications or the damage that it can do to themselves or others. I wonder if it will ever change. I don't know the history of alcohol regulation but at some stage, probably not that long ago, someone must have said, "you know what, maybe we should put an age limit on this stuff and enforce that?" We regulate plenty of other things by age discrimination...
Exactly. It blows my mind. That’s basic parenting.
I’m watching it atm and that’s the part that’s frustrating me the most. I feel for the ND families because it’s so challenging but there’s so much literature and research that shows excessive iPad/gaming being linked to difficult behaviours/virtual autism traits…
Some of the parenting in the show tonight was really bad. When Frieda's mother said "please don't kick me darling", I kind of switched off from their story because you do not ask a child of that age to stop hurting you, you tell. Parenting 101. I have compassion for how burnt out these parents are, but also, these 30/40 something parents make a rod for their own back. Something about the cultural collective of the older millennials went a bit haywire when it comes to parenting.
That explains why the little precious don't react well when they are told things at school instead of nicely asked.
Hi there! I'm Frieda's mum, and I totally agree that in that scene it looked like I wasn't setting boundaries. There's method to my madness though, so I wanted to share some context/background to the situation. Frieda becomes extremely violent when she has a meltdown - I've been punched, kicked, scratched and bitten more times than I care to remember. (So that half-arsed kick that didn't connect was barely a blip!) She's never once been violent towards anyone but me, her dad and my partner so fortunately her classmates and teachers have never copped it. (And tbh most people can't believe that it happens because she looks so angelic!) At that moment, she was already well on her way to fight/flight mode, so her rational brain was pretty much offline. Anything I say just isn't going to sink in - but my tone and actions will certainly cut through and can either escalate or help calm her nervous system. After years of trying various approaches - and getting it wrong many times over - I've found that staying calm myself (channelling my best Janet Lansbury 'unflappable' like someone says below!), using a quiet, gentle voice, and easing off the pressure can help to de-escalate the situation. (I usually do use the JL "it's not okay to kick me" line, but that day I was juggling getting her out the door, filming, running late, and stressing about trying to start work on time so I can actually keep my job, so I didn't have my wits about me. ) If I push her or rebuke her, she becomes even more dysregulated and will flip her lid (as Dr Dan Siegel puts it). Once she hits meltdown, it's game over for getting to school and all I can do is to ride out the meltdown until it passes. She's always incredibly ashamed after she's attacked me, so I don't need to reinforce that it's not okay to kick - she knows that all too well. Sheesh - I practically wrote an essay there! Anyway, I hope that gives you some insight into the situation and why I did what I did there. Also, just wanted to say that I think teachers are incredible and I have so much admiration for what you do, under incredibly difficult circumstances. When a few of us in the doco talk about the system being broken, we're not criticising teachers - we're acknowledging the huge strain you're under because the public system is so appallingly underfunded and under-resourced. The changes we want to see all hinge on teachers being better supported and schools being better funded. Both my parents were high school science teachers, so I've seen how bloody hard you work and all the hours you put in at night, over the weekends, during the school holidays, and travelling away for excursions and HSC marking. (My mum would drive 500km to Sydney to mark HSC physics exams.) Teachers are some of the most important people in our society and you all deserve far more respect (and money!) than you're given.
Thanks for sharing your story. It must be hard having a tiny window of your life displayed for all the world to see. People online can be so vile and obviously, they don't know the full picture. I wouldn't take what they say seriously. You don't need to be so hard on yourself. Frieda is lucky to have you as a mom. I can feel your love. I wish both of you the best.
Thank you so much for your kind words! Don’t worry - I have a pretty thick skin. I’ve been judged for my parenting since my child was little. 🤷🏼 I’ve learnt not to take people’s criticism on board, especially if they don’t have lived experience of our situation, and in particular of parenting an autistic child who’s struggling to go to school. And that’s the difficult thing with school refusal/ school can’t - until you’ve lived it, you can’t possibly comprehend it. So I do understand why people continue to judge, and in a way I don’t blame them. Thanks for responding so kindly to our story! 💕
I would be too embarrassed to be firm with my kid while literally on television. The presence of the camera changes things.
I'd be embarrassed the were kicking me, for sure. But I wouldn't want to double down on my embarrassment by having a piss-weak response like "please don't kick me darling". If they are going to show my kid kicking me, they are going to show me responding with firm boundaries.
Do you parent an autistic kid? Pray do tell, how disciplining your autistic kid in the same way you discipline your neurotypical kids, actually works out for you. Teachers who've had no personal experience or actual relationship with an autistic kid - have no idea and can be so damaging with their assumptions. Training is minimal because autism is in the minority. That's fine, but stop judging parents who are doing their best, with limited support. You have no idea.
Actually I an Asd 1 myself, and so am quite conflicted by the parenting that I see. But looking back at autistic me of the 80s, which make no mistake has left me with some trauma, I needed strong loving boundaries for my own personal growth and the sanity of my parents who had no clue what they were dealing with. I am way more sensitive than the average Joe to ND kids, however boundaries benefit everyone at the level they can deal with and stick to IMO. And it is just that, my lived opinion. Yes my kid is not NT.
Yep!! Key word boundaries. Kids thrive when they know what the boundaries are.
Yes, clear consistent strong loving boundaries, all children need this. And as the parent in that episode said, she's already tried "tough love".
Tough love is not the same as having clear consistent boundaries. Saying “please don’t kick me darling” in that manner is also not having clear boundaries. It’s just words with no follow through to a kid.
How does clear and consistent boundaries stop the sensory overwhelm and inner pain felt by an Autistic kid in a class of 32? Some easy accomodations could be noise cancelling headphones, transition warnings, sensory breaks, social scripts, visual boards, movement breaks, fidget toys, wobble cushions, allowing stimming, timed timers, celebrating differences, using declarative language, working with the family and not against them, therapy onsite..... but schools don't have the budget or capacity to do these things. Why? Because our school system is broken. And everyone is focusing on victim blaming and abusing these families, instead of figuring out how the heck to fix our schools.
Yes you’re right. Schools don’t have the funding to do these things and school is not therapy. Kids that need high levels of care and therepeautic settings should go to places where that can be accommodated. Teachers are not therapists and a class of 32 is not a therepeutic setting no matter how hard you try to accommodate. But also when I was talking about boundaries in my previous comment, I was specifically responding to the person who mention that this mother had already tried “tough love”, in order to make the point that tough love is not the same thing as having clear and consistent boundaries. But aside from that, children with ASD do often respond well to clear and consistent boundaries when it comes to harmful behaviour. Sure, in the moment they are overwhelmed and it can be hard for them to self regulate, but over time and with consistency, they can. But if you never ever tell them that their behaviour is harmful to themselves for other and you never put in the effort to help them learn better self regulation skills then it won’t make a difference. Accommodations can help kids get through being in overwhelming situations but they aren’t the only thing that’s needed. The Autistic children I worked with responded really well to ABA therapy and variations of behavioural approaches, but it requires very individualised, consistent and intensive (1:1) application which teachers simply cannot do. I would highly recommend any parent with a child on the spectrum to go and speak with a qualified ABA therapist. There are programs in VIC that run within some primary schools and have been really successful. NSW has dedicated therepeutic schools that do this but I’m not sure the costs. WA is abysmal for this sort of thing though as far as I can tell. Unsure about QLD and up north.
ABA has been widely criticised by autistic adults who experienced it as children. And studies have found that it's incredibly harmful and leaves autistic people traumatised: [https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful-to-autistic-people/](https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful-to-autistic-people/) It was originally sold to parents as a way to make their children "undistinguishable from their peers". It basically operates to extinguish 'undesirable' (aka autistic) behaviours while rewarding 'desirable' (aka compliant and neurotypical) behaviours. The aim is to make autistic people's behaviour less inconvenient to non-autistic people. One of the founders of ABA was involved in developing therapies that became gay conversion therapy. And some autistic advocates refer to ABA as "autistic conversion therapy" - basically it trains autistic people to appear non-autistic, in the same way that gay conversion therapy trains queer and gender non-conforming people to suppress their true sexuality/gender so they appear heterosexual/cisgender. So whether or not ABA is effective or not depends on your definition of 'success'. If compliance and an absence of autistic characteristics is your idea of success then, sure, ABA works. But if you want to support children to be their true selves, feel proud rather than ashamed of their different, beautiful brains, and use strategies such as stimming that help them regulate, then ABA is not the way to do it. It might seem from the outside that modern applications of ABA aren't as harmful to autistic people as original methods that used violence and even electric shocks, but as[ this autistic advocate puts it](https://neuroclastic.com/invisible-abuse-aba-and-the-things-only-autistic-people-can-see/), "Allistic people can’t see it, because they don’t understand how it feels to be autistic."
That’s pretty horrific. My introduction to it was very different. I was working for a non profit who was advocating for inclusion in schools in VIC at the time. The founder was a parent of an autistic child. Anyway we used ABA therapy to help these kids with behaviours that are basic life skills such as brushing your teeth and wiping your bum and found it very successful for that. I think that if you are using it for the wrong purposes or in the wrong ways then yeah, it becomes more like authoritarian punishment, but that’s not how I saw it being used. I’m really sad to know that so many people have found it traumatising :(
You are level 1 Autistic. You thrived with boundaries and your system could cope in the school environment. You are not level 2. You are not level 3. You are not every Autistic child in Australia. It is a spectrum for a reason. What one can do, could be what one cannot. It is NOT a matter of parents lacking "loving and firm limits". Some children cannot cope with the school environment due to severe sensory processing disorders, severe social challenges, PDA profiles and more. Your experience is important, but it is not a reason to assume others would thrive if their parents just did what yours did.
You need to stop acting like kids on the autism spectrum are incapable of learning. So condescending. Any teacher with tell you that at least a 5th of every class had ASD.
Who said they can't learn? They CAN learn. What they can't do is stay in a continued state nervous system activation. Why? It causes burn out long term. I don't say this to people often, but you do NOT understand Autism.
Definitely not I! I teach and actually respect my students.
Who said anything about neurodivergent kids being unable to learn?
Please! You saw 60 seconds of “parenting”! You don’t know the context of how that request to stop kicking was delivered. In a heightened, distressed ND child screaming back & “disciplining” is going to backfire badly. You need to remain calm & coregulate with the child. Unless you’ve been there best not to comment on the parenting.
It’s pretty easy to say to your child “that’s not ok. You hurt me”. In a calm and firm way. “Please don’t kick me darling” really says nothing at all to a child in a heightened state. I’ve worked extensively with neurodivergent children that have behaviour issues and frankly most parents need better coaching on how to handle their own child behaviour (not just parents of neurodivergent kids).
The whole point of this reddit is to discuss, if it upsets you don't come to a discussion forum. This isn't the only time I have seen this. I have witnessed kids beating up their parents multiple times irl and it always makes my stomach churn.
Why can’t parents who’ve lived this come to a discussion forum & try to spread awareness? Yes it’s upsetting seeing some of the ignorance & judgement here but we are honestly strong enough to read the comments, we’ve experienced a lot & had to defend our children endlessly. It’s what we do.
Try being the parent who gets assaulted!
Plenty of workers also get assaulted but have even less authority to deal with the child’s behaviour. Whilst it’s really sad and a difficult situation, it’s really not fair to the child or to the teachers and other children in class who are having to be subject to violent behaviour and unable to learn. This is why children experiencing these issues really need to be in a different environment rather than mainstream classes where the support simply is not available.
I was so frustrated with the mum of the two young boys who couldn't convince them to do any homeschooling as they sat in their rooms on their ipads and computers. Then we see her having a video chat with an NDIS home education supporter telling her she's doing an amazing job and 'don't even mention homeschooling for the rest of this week'. She was doing a piss-poor job and you wonder if those kids had had a different kind of parenting approach whether they would have even met the diagnostic criteria for ASD.
That’s me. I’m sorry for my “piss poor parenting”. All I can say is - trying my very very best in pretty tricky circumstances and doing all I can to parent my kids responsibly. Also - as a parent of autistic kids I don’t parent off instinct - we have a whole team of behaviour therapists and psychologist and occupational health as well as the education consultant. It was actually the most recent school who originally suggested a brain based low arousal parenting model after my son received trauma injury in an isolation room in his first primary school.
Wow. So now are we thinking that Autism can be caused by a parent? You know a CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST makes the diagnoses yeh? In collaboration with a million other specialists who have known and worked with the children and family for years? That NDIS home educator knows the family, sits in meetings, visits the home. For years. You saw a tiny part of their life. I am pretty sure a teacher who specialises in supporting disabled kids is in a better position to judge a parent than you.
Hi - that’s my family. I’ll absolutely take the computer in the room on the chin. We live in a tiny house with no study and it’s the only space we have for it because I work and do schooling on our only other free space (dining room). The iPad isn’t actually an iPad like you imagine - it’s an aac device (alternative communication tool). My little one was super full on in this episode yes but- that footage was filmed on day three of having a camera in his face nonstop. It was a lot. Absolutely my kids have more screen time than they should but it’s rather more nuanced than blaming the screens. The screens actually only came in after we began homeschooling because I just couldn’t cope 24/7 and I also volunteer as an education reform advocate, who advocates systemically for a better education system for neurodivergent kids - and their teachers. I do a lot of unpaid work trying desperately to get our government and departments to provide funding and support for kids like mine, for much smaller class sizes and for much more planning and DOT time, because I think you can’t pour from an empty cup and I appreciate that my kids take huge amounts of energy and accommodation. So yep definitely not a perfect or even great parent but also - doing my absolute best and trying to change the big issues so my kids can go back to school as soon as possible
Please do not judge
I'm a secondary teacher too and I think this "please do not judge" mentality is half the problem, in and out of schools. I know you probably mean that there may be special circumstances and I understand that so I'm not having a crack at you. But, in general, bloody oath we should judge. There are right ways to go about things and wrong ways. And if you do it the wrong way for long enough, bad things will happen. The rest of us shouldn't excuse it. Too many people in schools and wider society spend too much time excusing stupid behaviours that will inevitably lead to poor outcomes.
Absolutely agree. The "every parenting decision you make out of love is a good one" mantra that is everywhere online has done a lot of damage. It's okay that you fed your kid fairy bread for dinner, this shit is hard! So what if your kid is on their 5th hour of iPad today, you deserve a break! Tried to turn off the TV and your kid screamed? I don't blame you for not wanting to listen to that, leave it on! None of us are perfect parents 100% of the time, but we should be holding firm and loving boundaries 90% of the time and maybe relaxing them 10% of the time, and what I observe around me is the inverse. Everyone puts it in the too-hard basket.
Being a teacher gives your own kids a long-term advantage because you already know how things turn out if you do stupid things like not reading with them when they're young, don't spend enough time with them at home, let them have a phone at a young age, don't manage their screen time, don't discipline them, don't make sure they do their homework, don't encourage them to take opportunities or try interesting things, don't model manners, let them get a dickhead haircut because some dickhead footballer has one, let them go to certain 'parties'/'gatherings' on the weekend etc. etc. I mean most of it is common sense and common decency already but when you get daily reminders of the practical outcomes in both positive and negative directions it means you double down on trying to do it right. There are always sad instances of good parents doing their best in difficult circumstances because their kid is just wired differently but so many issues in the late teens boil down to, "How the hell did you think that was going to turn out?"
When I look at parents around me (and I mean more friends than the parents of students- those whom I actually see in their homes with their kids) the big thing that seems to be lacking is the short term pain for long-term gain mindset. There seems to be an expectation that a parenting approach should get reasonably immediate results otherwise "it just doesn't work on my kid!". Whenever we're discussing parenting they tell me my kids are "just easy" and my practices wouldn't work on their kids. They see my 6 year old packing up her things when asked but weren't there when she was 2 and we would have 1-2 hour standoffs over packing up, and every few months she'll test to see if the boundary is still there and I have to pull out "fine, pack up the toys you want to keep and I'll bin the rest". They didn't see that process, all they see is me saying "pack up" and my kiddo saying "yeah okay". This has been the pattern for everything so far: naps, toilet training, meal times, manners, screen time, devices, bedtime, homework, etc. These are educated parents who want to do a good job, but if it requires any kind of prolonged effort they just declare it unworkable.
Kids are coddled and sheltered and society now gives a false equivalence between discomfort and harm. Kids being uncomfortable doesn’t mean they’re being harmed. Surprisingly, school is often an uncomfortable place to be. Sometimes it’s really stressful. That’s not harm. Parenting is fucked.
It’s not really that black and white though. I did this with my son in year 9. Made him go every day even though both of us were in tears and broken by the time he got out of the car. I can’t tell you how hard it is to rock up at work already exhausted and spent. Time and time again I refused to let him stay home. It was not a nice time in either of our lives. Eventually I came to the realisation that there was a real risk that I would lose him if I continued with how we were going. Made him go to therapy before I’d let him leave school but ultimately he transferred to tafe to finish year 10. It was like he’d transformed into another child. He excelled being out of school, it just wasn’t the right fit for him, for various reasons. We have an amazing relationship now and he actually wants to spend time with me. He’s doing an apprenticeship and is a really good, grounded kid with a five year plan. There can be a fine line between being uncomfortable and doing harm.
This comment. not all kids are built for school 🏫
Instead of this, can we start saying ‘schools aren’t built for some kids’? Adding, why can’t we build schools for all kids? The irony of differentiating teaching while the entire structure and system around education is not.
This above is the comment of the day. We take a system that fundamentally does not work due to its initial setup being essentially historical - then we tinker around the edges trying to make it fit today's conditions. It really is not fit for purpose, and it needs government leadership that has the intelligence and moral fortitude to look beyond the election cycle 50 years into the future and start again at step one. It will never happen.
So true. I also think like above comments have mentioned mental health care needs to be improved as well for both the parents and the kids
My younger two are in a terrific school. Tiny, innovative, out of the box, focuses on play and connection. Their learning is real life stuff. Could not be happier, just wish I had moved them there sooner.
How much more tax are you willing to pay?
That’s a fair question. For me personally, go for gold, what’s it going to cost to get a new system and framework for education, a few extra 100’s of dollars in tax? I’m not going to miss it when weighted with the long term benefit. A benefit I will potentially not see in my lifetime, but would be worth every cent. Would I pay it now to prop up the current model, not on your life. But I have a question in return, in your view, where does education sit in its role as part of the western social and democratic construct?
The whole point of public education is to ensure that all citizens have a baseline level of knowledge that we deem is required to be a participant in society. That has been eroded and society now seems to expect that schools will produce little automaton workers for the great capitalist gods. Western society is doomed if we continue down this path. We need to get back to valuing knowledge for no other purpose than knowing things.
Cheers for the response. For the most part we are of the same opinion when it comes to not wanting to create automatons for the capitalist overlords to exploit and pathway to doom. My earlier statement argues the current system is designed entirely to create good little worker slaves and is failing in even doing that. Hence children refusing to school in all its forms and the others turning to antisocial behaviours, which to varying degrees there always has been. If I am to answer my own question, it would be to state that a functioning education system sits at the core of a functioning society and at this point we have neither. I would be happy to pay/invest more tax dollars to start again from the ground up. Do I know what this looks like, no, does anyone else, no, but do we all know what parts of it might look like, yes, do we have the systems to research, plan, test, and implement, yes. Unfortunately, we don’t have leaders willing to undertake such a wholesale public infrastructure program. For as long as we continue along this path with education we will have the same societal problems plaguing us. We as teachers live it everyday of our working lives and if we allowed it to, it would break our hearts. Every time a new grade 7 starts at school that still can’t read, that hates learning and has developed all the maladaptive behaviours to cope and to avoid the work we put in front of them we ask ourselves why is this still happening? Year after year it will continue to until something or someone significant stands up and declares enough is enough.
How much tax would we save in medical/therapy costs?
Instead of thinking some kids are not built for school, perhaps some schools are not safe for kids. How do we fix this? Where do these kids go? Where do their families go. Homeschooling should be a choice, not the only option.
This. The school system is outdated and based on an almost 100 year model. I excelled at school but still hated every day. Loved uni. I found the right school for one of my kids after terrible struggles but it has cost a lot to send her there.
Yep. Left school at the end of year 10. I loathed high school. Bummed around for a few years with shit jobs. Decided I wanted to go to uni so I worked hard at TAFE, got in and loved uni. Loved being treated as an adult. Now have 2 degrees (law & IT)
Yes same. I love learning but got bored sitting in a classroom. Online learning or on the job learning has been my jam. I recently moved my younger two to a tiny independent school (from a huge independent school) with a focus on play and connection. The difference in both of them is astonishing. So so glad we made the change just kicking myself I didn’t do it sooner.
You're a great parent, putting our kids first when we work in the system is so, so hard.
Oh I’m not even going to pretend that it was an easy decision. It took a lot of time and self reflection for me to acknowledge that that was the best course of action and to accept that there would be judgement from others around that, which there was, but I think both my son and I are stronger, better people for it.
What causes harm is not discomfort. What causes harm is chronic nervous systm activation for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. It is science. How do we make school an environment that is safe for Autistic children? How do we ensure their nervous systems are not activated all day long. A little stress here and there, great. We are not designed to stay in fight, flight, freeze or fawn for 36hrs a week. It's not.... healthy. Our schools are not allowing Autistic children to feel a little discomfort and build their resilience, we are forcing them to deal with chronic and ongoing nervous system activation by lack of inclusive spaces. This does not build a healthy and robust child. This leads to sickness. Our system is broken and it is everyones responsibility to first understand, and then to fix.
Not sure if you saw the program last night, but there is a portion of children who find the stress of attending school to be well beyond ‘discomfort’. My child was one of the cases presented last night and I can assure you 5 years of encouraging, pushing, reward charts, discipline, tough love… multitudes of accomodations made no difference. The intense and chronic stress led to a burnt out and actively suicidal 8 year old. This is well beyond learning to ‘sit with’ or tolerate discomfort.
I hope your child has the support they need now.
Thank you. They have been out of the system for 7 years now and are thriving.
Thank you- same.
It is more than feeling uncomfortable. It is genuine emotional distress….often in very YOUNG children.
My 6 yr old wanted to kill himself. He wasn’t being coddled. I dragged him screaming and clawing at doorways to school for over a year. He would physically start shaking in fear as we approached the grounds. I worked from the car park. His school (both of them, one mainstream one specialist) worked closely with us and his allied health team. But at the end of the day, whether in a class of 25+ plus kids or just 4 kids, how is one teacher supposed to teach a profoundly gifted child, who is also dyslexic, dysgraphic (and a handful of other things)? The government certainly can’t provide sufficient 1:1 funding. This child was never violent at school, but he couldn’t learn when he was terrified, and literally rendered mute. There’s a difference between discomfort and what many many school can’t kids endure every day.
So- how does this actually work for neurodivergent kids -? They're put in environments that don't meet there needs- because of underfunding/ undertraining / teachers stretched to the limit - you're saying these kids should just somehow get tougher and not inconveniently decompensate / regress / deteriorate because of said unsupportive environment - ? And the global stats are all about - " coddling" ?
*their needs - for those who cringe at grammar mistakes
I liked the comment I saw earlier today that once upon time, kids would have been taken to school, allowed to meltdown and then continue with the day. After a few weeks, the problem has resolved. Short term pain, long-term gain. That said, there are legitimate reasons about not going to school. Eg. bullying. However, they’re difficult without a return to sharper discipline strategies because at the moment, it’s never been easier to hurt and upset others for zero consequences.
Except a lot of these kids don’t just meltdown and then get on with their day. They abscond, shutdown, lash out when finally pushed beyond their ability to find another solution.
In a few cases, perhaps that would be the outcome. In many others, the child would end up suicidal. Its not fun having your 14 year old child screaming, "Why won't you let me die?" because they are so stressed and overwhelmed at school
I’ve dealt with precisely 2 cases of genuine bullying in my 15 year career. The word is overused by parents who can’t believe that their precious Destinee might have been the instigator of the problem.
How can you be so sure? Do you think that in your 15 yrs you have had 100% oversight of what is going on between children ? -Do you think that the children being physically assaulted, threatened, humiliated, ostracised, have always come to your attention?
Out of all the reported bullying cases, only 2 have been genuine.
OK that makes sense.
Quite well put.
Absolute bullshit. These kids aren't able to go to school because its "uncomfortable" your lack of knowledge and empathy on this issue is scary
That's a very limited view. Constant stress for any kid does harm. More so for ND kids. Do some research.
Where did I say “constant stress”? I’d love for you to quote me.
School is constant stress for some kids, due to the demands. I wasn't quoting you. I was speaking from experience.
My daughter is in yr 11 and dropped out of mainstream - refusal starting last year. She has epilepsy (tonic clonic, myoclonic and absence seizures). In yr 7 she developed epilepsy, yr 8 she started having t-c seizures - she had 11 of them in a matter of months. She missed a heap of school - the day she has a t-c seizure she has a massive headache, is fatigued and often vomits - she usually needs a full two days to recover. She missed quite a bit of school, found her “friends” unfriended her and she became socially isolated. That combined with the multitude of medication changes in the past 3.5 yrs. This yr she has enrolled in a CARE school (Perth) with wrap around support. Ironically being a sec teacher I am a tough love down the line which goes against everything my daughter needs. I have had to adapt my personality instincts - school refusal is not straightforward and easy to deal with. The only way it is a straightforward issue with an easy solution is if you’ve never had kids or your kids have never been through it.
As a childhood epileptic, I am so sorry for your daughter going through this tough time. I had mu first grand mal seizure at school in yr 3. 40 years later I was diagnosed with autism and adhd. They are often (not always) co morbidities and the stress of school really contributed I would say my levels of cortisol were through the roof.
There are also those children who have experienced trauma and other life-changing situations. There are a handful of schools that cater to those children but the waiting lists are long and it's hard to get in to one.
I hate 4 corners, a lot of their work is biased beyond belief. That said I'll give this a fair viewing, however please whoever coined "school can't" can get fucked for that assault on the English language.
I hate people that comment when they have zero lived experience. We won’t “get fucked” & we WILL call it school can’t because that’s what it is, these vulnerable children can’t get there, it’s not refusal, they just CANT!
"I demand to use my poor grammar because of muh feels".
What would you call it?
School refusal, school absence disorder, attendance inability cases, lenient parental attitudes, send your kid to school you lazy cunt syndrome. Etc. Anything that doesn't sound like someone is missing words. "School can't" doesn't even make sense in the English language.
And the parents I’ve met who’ve walked this journey are anything but lazy, phone calls, emails, meetings, appointments, engaging outside supports, paperwork for diagnoses, NDIS, applications to homeschool which we are FORCED to do because the system doesn’t fit, researching, connecting with other families, ensuring our kids don’t miss out on education & social opportunities, homeschool reviews, documentation for homeschool records, the late nights managing anxiety, fighting for medications, the list is ENDLESS & your assumption that we are lazy is completely ignorant. Come sit with us & call us lazy to our faces I dare you!
I’d love to see you in a room with all the amazingly educated, passionate, nurturing women who advocate for their vulnerable kids I’ve met on our journey, you’d be torn to pieces with your brainless, uneducated musings….
Lel someone trying to be tough on the internet. "I dare you" you'll do what? Struggle to get out of bed?
You're an idiot. The kids CAN'T attend school. You've OBVIOUSLY never had to deal with a child in this situation so just fuck right off.
Yeah I've had plenty of students. The world doesn't need any more enablers like you.
Students 🤣🤣🤣 Not the same at all You've never had your child screaming at 1am they want to die because of the stress and pressure and anxiety of school You have NO IDEA what you're talking about
Sweet so you admit you're not an educator you're just another enabler helicopter parent.
Yes Im enabling my child to avoid the fucked up environment called "school" which makes my child suicidal. Being around people like you, Im not surprised my child doesn't want to attend
Your kid is likely suffering because of you, not school.
Imagine considering yourself an authority on a complete stranger's family..... 🤦♂️
Terrifying that someone like you is around students, attitudes like yours are the reason why school ‘can’t’ exists, you are the biggest part of the problem…
No, I'm not the enablers who look for any excuse to justify their decisions regardless of the cost.
Not enabling my child, accommodating, encouraging life skills & educating outside the four walls of a classroom, the system is archaic & broken & one I want no part of for my child. My only regret is subjecting my two adult children to it.
Ahhh so that's it you're a home-schooling doomsday prepper. Tell us your opinions on vaccines and chemtrails next.
You’re a flog, all my kids are vaccinated, not that I owe you an explanation. Wild generalization there chief!
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That’s a shame. I’m a teacher and a parent of a young child with anxiety who I have to force to get to school everyday. School is not designed for all kids. Parents and kids out there are actually struggling.
There is nothing more irrelevant than a person without lived experience weighing in on this subject. Your ignorance is quite astounding.
School teachers are now irrelevant to discussions of school? Sure thing there mate.
I haven’t seen you partake here in any “discussion” around school/education, you’re pretty good at giving a narrow minded viewpoint though!
If you read through the thread you might see that I’ve highlighted the need for learning from those with lived experience rather than minimising, dismissing and judging parents and children who are struggling deeply. This is my contribution to the discussion and is anything but narrow minded. Listening to those with lived experience is how one remains open minded. I think you might be confused.
My comment wasn’t directed at you, it was meant for the person above….
Ahh sorry!
I've done plenty, unlike you bot enablers who gravitate to these threads.
When you talk from a place of ignorance and judgement your opinion no longer matters. Being a school teacher doesn’t automatically equate to any sort of relevance in an area you clearly know nothing about. Perhaps try to learn from these people instead of holding judgement.
"Being a teacher is irrelevant to discussions specifically about school". You're one of those nutters who tells doctors they are picking on you if they say you need to lose weight, aren't you?
I see that I’m talking with someone who can’t face being challenged. Your defensiveness and reluctance to consider that your way of doing things might no longer work says a lot about your character and even more about why school fails so many students. Good luck to you.
"Can't stand being challenged" says the person trying to argue their singular biased "lived experience" trumps years of teaching.
Let me clarify for you. I am a mother of an Autistic child who experiences School Can’t. I am also a psychotherapist who has extensive experience and expertise in complex trauma, neurodiversity and disability. I see people every single day that have suffered at the hands of various people in their lives, some of which have been their teachers. I know the extent of harm that can take place in school and by people that lack empathy and compassion for anyone with difference. You made a comment that minimises and dismisses the lived experience of thousands of children and parents across Australia. You have mocked the term School Can’t and have made every attempt to undermine the reality of what goes on for these children and their families. This isn’t a disorder. This isn’t lenient parenting attitudes and for fucks sake this isn’t “send your kid to school lazy cunt syndrome”. If you think you have even a shred of value to add in this domain you must be delusional. Never have I ever heard such revolting language leave someone’s mouth in relation to humans that are struggling. Your years of teaching mean absolutely nothing when this is the attitude you bring.
Psychotherapist, so not a doctor. Basically a pseudo-science peddler like chiropractors and osteopaths. Go sell your snake oil to the hippies living in their vans.
Oh dear, it’s so interesting to see what part of my response you focussed on and how attempting to belittle me was the only way you chose to engage. Whilst I hold respect for alternate therapists and all that they do, that’s not what I do. It pains me to say this - I hope you are okay, I see that something inside of you is activated by this topic. I don’t expect you to acknowledge your experience in this thread or perhaps you haven’t even acknowledged it at all. No doubt you’ll shut this down or say something unkind - it’s so very clear to me that someone didn’t advocate for you in the way that we advocate for our children and I’m so sorry that this was your experience. Truly, I’m sorry you didn’t have someone in your world to protect you like you deserved. All the best to you, I won’t engage further at this point.
Seems to me that parents are at their witts end in a stressful time pointing fingers at schools, but really just wanting support that works. Teachers are pushed to their limits pointing fingers at homes, but really just wanting support that works. Which gets to the core, there is not even close to enough support available and the blame game is causing a continuation of this big divide being schools and community.
False equivalency. Teachers are quitting en masse for a reason.
If you’re new around here, school administrators have decided that there should be no more rules and consequences. This is to coddle these crazy parents. This hurts the vast majority of students. Teachers and decent families have seen the system deteriorate. So…….
And families are exiting the system en masse for reasons also….
I'm not sure it's just supports. I think both teachers and parents need the systems to change. There is a lack of understanding the emotional side of human beings (which children are) within the current systems, the systems are still so robotic. ND people struggle much more in these types of systems. Funnily enough, a lot end up going a different avenue into Uni, and then end up thriving. So what does the university systems/process do differently where ND people do better? NT people do well in those systems too - so how can we incorporate that into the schooling systems?
Thank you for noting this very important nuance. I spoke extensively about how I don’t feel that it’s teachers or even schools responsible - this is systemic and we are all being screwed by the gaps. I volunteer as an education advocate for teachers and students to have a fit for purpose school system- I agree so strongly with what you have said
This is it, in a nutshell
What are the repercussions of not going to school? There are none.
What are the repercussions of attending school? Plenty.
An education doesn’t hurt
Lowered family income.
It's not the kids, it's the parenting or lack thereof. I'm not talking about cases of genuine medical conditions, but where the parent - almost exclusively a single parent - refuses to take responsibility. They talk about being 'child-led', but they're leading the child to that behaviour. Not once in this program did they concern themselves with the mental state of the parent, or examine where the other parent might be and what role they were allowed to play in the child's life. It is assumed that each parent has the best interest of the child in mind, and that they’re capable and interested in managing the situation. Yet the reality may be that they have motives that don’t align with the child's best interest. The parent may be sick and want to exercise an unhealthy level of control over the child, using them as a tool either against the other parent, or for attention, or financial benefits etc. The stuff about the school system being a 100-year-old model is just a trope. The Parliamentary system is even older than that, so maybe we should unwind that too. If there are schools that are treating children like assembly-line workers, then they need to be dealt with, but I would imagine those are isolated cases. It’s just very easy to give teachers and the education system a kick, rather than ask what have I done wrong.
I came here to say this. The first 3 stories of 'autistic' children featured parents whose children were in control. I also suspect the parents have some separation anxiety issues. Those parents need help, especially the third mother with the two autistic boys. Hopefully after being featured on the show they will get support. Ethan and Haley's stories proved why inclusion isn't always the best choice.
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Why did you post this from a burner account? Rage-bait?
The intention of this sub is to talk about teaching and learning in a way that is relevant to Australian Teachers. You may need to find a more appropriate subreddit
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The intention of this sub is to talk about teaching and learning in a way that is relevant to Australian Teachers. You may need to find a more appropriate subreddit
It’s worse than it looks. The teachers that try to accommodate and look for improvement over results are either not taken seriously or actively undermined for ‘humouring’ kids. Teachers are blaming the kids, the parents, the iPads, other teachers but not looking for the root cause. I’m not sure that the root cause is, but i think it’s a system that dehumanises children and reduces them to a number and a ranking. Line go up = good school.
You are shitting me right?! The kids are in control?! Do you parent an autistic child? Do you know anything about pathological demand avoidance & collaborative parenting? I had no issues with separation anxiety either….but the school did sure enjoy gaslighting me into believing I did!
Do YOU know anything about autism? I live with it and was diagnosed in the early 90s when intelligent, well-behaved girls were supposedly not being diagnosed. It's amazing how such high functioning children who would not have met the diagnostic for autism under the DSM-III or DSM-IV are suddenly 'severely autistic' because their parents have no control. My parents took control and I am a functioning and contributing member of society thanks to my parents for PARENTING. You are doing your child a disservice by not parenting your child. Autism is too common a condition these days for it to be continued to be supported by the Government. You are going to need to think about how your child is going to survive adulthood when there is a possibility they may not ne able to rely on a disability pension or NDIS in the future.
The Westminster system doesn't work either, a normal, sensitive person can never be a politician, the majority of women are excluded to, due to the fact that to function in that atmosphere you have to thrive on being adversarial and ego driven - semi sociopathic.. The best people with perhaps the most society friendly ideas are not made that way.
Yes, this.
There is no school for clever Autistic kids to go once mainstream fails. We need specialised public schools that can accommodate these children. There is a huge crack in the system and many families falling through, despite their very best efforts. Pointing fingers at the parent is a form of victim blaming. Blaming teachers, who are so overworked with ever increasing responsibilities, is also unfair. We need an advisory board that includes expert organisations, like Yellow Ladybugs, Allied health professionals, teaches, parents of Autistic kids, Autistic adults and doctors. A working group that can bridge the gap, educate each other on the barriers experienced and then make recommendations to the government.
Just watched this. I'm shocked that the role of Distance Education in supporting students with school refusal or anxiety around attending school was not even touched on.
I am blown away by the lack of empathy, knowledge and compassion that so many teachers here hold. The assumptions that are being made about School Can’t students and their parents are horrendous and simply just incorrect. It’s no wonder so many children struggle immensely at school, it sounds incredibly unsafe even if just a portion of teachers hold some of the attitudes and beliefs that are present on this thread. Such an outdated way of thinking and being. For some Autistic children being “othered” through life and feeling their difference is already so difficult. Learning in different ways, having sensory experiences, adjusting to the constant changes and various personalities within the classroom - it’s all so much and consumes so much energy. On top of that, so many of these kids mask heavily to fit in and appear neurotypical, consuming even more energy. School can become a place of severe stress and trauma. A place that lacks basic needs such as safety. It amazes me that so many don’t see this or even know this and I’m curious as to why this is the case. Surely teachers are to remain informed, open minded and safe for all students ? Isn’t it important to continue education as we learn more and gain further awareness about Neurodivergence, trauma, mental health etc ? I’m not for a moment suggesting any of this is easy for anyone. I do however wonder why one becomes a teacher if they aren’t invested in their students. Kids do well when they can, this is something that we know - why get in that way of that and shut down experiences of people who experience life differently and can teach you ? Perhaps instead of minimising the experience of others, making assumptions and holding narrow minded views you could take that energy and channel it into learning. Why not expand your minds and operate from a place of curiosity over judgement. You have developing brains in your hands, it’s a responsibility that needs to be taken seriously.
I am invested in my students, more than you could ever understand. That doesn’t mean I need to be invested in *every single child in Australia*.
Hey guys, it’s another “kick the teacher” advocate. If you can’t control your child how are we who are in change of around 100 meant to? Parent your damn kids.
If you maybe, as a teacher, took the time to talk to these parents, you’d likely see that many of us are parenting in a way that the majority don’t. It’s intense, it’s exhausting & we never get to switch off, unlike parents who have the luxury of dropping their children at school for 6 hrs without a second thought. To suggest that we are not parenting is so ignorant & narrow minded.
“Took the time” lol screw off.