Playground Protest

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I read my local paper today.

It says that parents at a local mainstream school are planning on a playground protest because a tribunal had ruled that the school was not allowed to discipline a 10-year old boy with ADHD (and one or two other things) for behaviour relating to his condition.

I just can't believe how insensitive and selfish these people are. I didn't believe it could happen here but I was wrong!

Sorry who are insenstive and selfish people?

The parents, the school or the tribunal?

Please be more specific.

It's the parents of the other children at the mainstream school.

The ones that are doing this playground protest?

I keep six honest serving men and their names are who, that, why, where, how and when?

Please answer my servants

its a witch hunt. these parents are uniformed. if his iep says that this is a behavior he has he CANT be disiplined

people are afraid of that which they don't understand

It may depend on what the kid did though - it may have been something extreme to get this kind of response. And also - special needs kids CAN and do bully other kids. On another group one parent complained because a child in the AI classroom would physically abuse other autistic kids and the school would do nothing about it because of his issues. And like the one parents said - my son is not agressive and should not have to tolerate being hit because he is also in the AI room. So - it really depends on what the kid is doing - it may not be automatically wrong if the child is still allowed to run wild and the other kids can not use the playground. If however it is a minor infraction - like jumping ahead in line or running (which is something kids are not supposed to do anymore on the playground - lol) than it is silly. Also - discipline is a unusual word - it could be seen as punishment or as intervention (like having an aide present).

Too little detail right now.

true true

The problem is this: (and don't waste your breath flaming me if you don't agree)

Despite whatever problems we or our children may have, there are certain rules of society that are non-negotiable. Many of those rules are safety related. My son went through a "hug" phase, where he would hug every man, woman and child that came close enough to his grasp. He was a big boy for his age, and could literally hurt children his own age with these hugs. Until he learned to keep his hugs to himself or to family at home, we didn't take him to the playground, or McD's, or other places he'd likely run into peers. Was hugging an expression of his AS? Probably - still today at age 11 he has to put out his arm to remember how far to keep from people.

And so if this child's behaviors (which haven't been listed or explained so I can't comment specifically) are such that they put *other* children at risk, I wouldn't want him on my kids' playground either. I can't imagine what kind of behavior it is that the child would be disciplined for that they agreed he can't be. My son's behavior plan essentially mirrors school policy for most rules, except his stim behaviors, which never involve another person.

There's something important we're not getting here.

definitely lots of facts left out

I have no idea what may have precipitated this protest, but if there were kids being abused by another kid who was ADHD, and the school allowed this to go on because of his condition ... why should those kids put up with this sort of abuse? ADHD sort of has a tendency to predispose some children to aggression.

I was, at one time, in a public school setting and in an NI class. The worst bullies seem to have come from special needs students, for some reason. Some of these students don't feel empathy at all, and if complicated by conduct problems, they can prove to be quite dangerous. If a student is that out of control, though, and the parents bring things up at meetings and whatever, the school should be doing an investigation.

Some schools are completely oblivious to the needs of their students and operate in a very competitive atmosphere, which only adds to these sorts of behaviors. Of course, I don't know what "discipline" refers to in this situation, but I would not be surprised at all if the school is underfunded or underprivileged in some way.

- Ray M -

Hello,

Sorry I didn't answer everybody. I have had a 24 hour bug.

This 10 year old boy has ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (so I pretty much think we can all guess what he is going to be like). He is at a mainstream school (Just outside of London, England). The school expelled him due to behaviour linked to his diagnosis and his mother went to a tribunal and won the right for her son to re-join the school since he should not have been expelled as a result of his condition. Now, some parents at the school have gone to the local newspaper and said that they will be staging a playground protest because of the "situation."

I don't lack sympathy with the kids, the teachers or the parents but I know how I would feel if I was trying to take my son to school and there were parents staging a protest in the playground.

I agree that the school should probably not have expelled the student, but segregation seems to be in order.

I speak from some small bad experience here.

As a third grader back in the dark ages (1970?) a kid from the "special ed" class (back then all the special needs kids were hustled into one room, whether they were just wheelchair bound, learning disabled, you name it) who was very learning disabled had brought a pet to school - a mouse. He was allowed to bring it out to recess, and something upset him and he threw the mouse. It landed on my arm, hanging on for dear life. To this very day I have a crescent moon shaped scar on the inside of my arm from that event.

It was very upsetting to me at the time, I'm terrified of rodents to begin with, and I envisioned myself bleeding to death on the schoolyard. It was my first experience with stitches.

Some days I think we've come a long way, and some days, not so much.

Sorry, I have not exactly been pro-active filling everyone in on this one. I have had a nasty bug and so has my son and we've been at home together for 2 days watching "cheaper by the dozen 2" over and over again and eating pizza and m&ms.

I agree with what everybody said which is funny because people have expressed a lot of different opinions.

I suppose I just feel so desperately sad for the mum here. She's obviously really going for it. I think we've probably all had a taste of how it feels when you've got your back to the wall having to fight your corner.

My son is at mainstream school and, every day when I take him there, I take real pains to make sure he goes into school in the best possible condition etc. so it doesn't blow up in my face. I see other parents sitting in their cars looking bored while their grey little neglected children (ok so I'm exaggerating a lot) climb out and walk into the school on their own like tiny little mice. It is just so ridiculously easy for these people. Why can't they stop and think and be a little bit more sensitive for her sake before they just jump in. No - obviously I don't mean that the needs of 2 have to override the needs of the whole class but........................................