General Chat

There was an item on the local news earlier about a successful entrepreneur who at school was considered idle or stupid, because he was undiagnosed as dyslexic until he was a teenager, the teacher would throw board rubbers at him and his confidence in his own ability was shot to pieces.

I was an intelligent, disruptive child at grammar school and was eventually expelled.

I couldn't understand my behaviour. Since school I have been described but various relations as very clever but won't use it.

Now I am on the other end of the situation looking back and having done a lot of research into how things were I can see that I was desperately unhappy but thought everybody else was suffering the same amount of neglect and psychological abuse as I was.
It was my norm,the only way of life I knew because I had seen other members of the family treated the same way.

It seems there is a genetic pesonality disorder in our family that,apart from everything else, the sufferers are v
ery good at hiding.

Sorry Stan but that's just not the case generally ( though obviously I cannot say who you knew as a child, or went to school with) ...what is the case is that children with special needs or learning difficulties just did not usually go to mainstream schools.

Hang on I'm confused .com

All these things wrong with todays kids

In my day , we were all the same apart from one or two that had better clothes

when I was in school the teachers were never in danger - however, we pupils were!! we had one male teacher who liked nothing better than to walk up to you in the playground and if you were doing something he didn't approve of, he would punch you in the back!!! also had the cane on many occasions - for talking - but that was diferent and did not have any lasting effect on me

I do agree with you there, I just wanted to avoid any confusion :-D

I've now read a few different news reports, that basically all say the same thing and tell us nothing, so I'm going to refrain from commenting on this specifically because I don't have all the relevant facts.

Thanks Chaotic. In that case I am pretty familair with both. :-D

Autistic children still have special educational needs though. Which is why I put SEN.

I'm not going to run round in circles on this though as so little is known about the case. I was just making a point that the boy could well have special needs due to autism/aspergers.

Sorry, I spend quite a bit of time on another forum where these acronyms are well known.

ASD is Austic Spectrum Disorder, aka autism.
SN is special needs which is slightly different to special educational needs.

Would you mind explaining what ASD and SN are please Chaotic?

Just what the letters stand for.

Can I just point out that ASD is SN and not SEN. I haven't read about this incident yet so won't comment on it just now but just wanted to point that out.

Exactly Rose, which is why I suggested the boy might have SENs.
I found very little about the incident other than it was 'alleged' and he attended an SEN school. No hows or whys or even if the boy had actually made physical contact with the teachers - they could actually have sustained their injuries through falling as a result of a possible outburst. We just don't know.

You 'could' say that all dyslexics, or some , or a few, are too lazy to learn how to spell, that is what would have been said in the past ...that is obviously NOT true! , a family member was only diagnosed as dyslexic at 7...before dyslexia was recognised would he have been labelled naughty, idle or just thick because he wasn't reading/writing 'properly'?

What I am trying to say is that like dyslexia was, autism and related conditions, are only relatively recently being diagnosed and recognised earlier.

Imo I think the facts of this individual case, and any others similar , are important to know before a judgement is made on the child, or his parents.

Earlier in the thread when I suggested the boy in question might have special needs I meant GENUINE special needs such as those required by autistic spectrum youngsters. Some autists are high functioing but others find it difficult to cope with the outside world and may lash out at times when they are frightened or frustrated. These are not malicious acts, often the individual has no concept of cause and effect.
But hey, let's give them a good hiding. That'll sort the little blighters out. :-| :-| :-|

Annie, how do kids who are taught to misbehave by parents (eg, lack of care) get funding for SEN?

i totally agree Annie, and i myself think, to much enphasis is put on "labelling" bad behaved children with X and Y illness/diseas/syndrome etc,

when a lot of the time its good old mismanagement of there behaviour :)
like you say ill discipline/poor parenting,

and its easier for them to label the child than re educate the parents


EDITED TO SAY, that i do belive some childen genrally do have SEN, but not all diagnosed, are true diagnoses IN MY OPINION :-D

I was a teacher and then a headteacher and I got sick and tired of pupils' bad behaviour being blamed on "special needs". Granted, this was often the case but teachers and parents often used this as an excuse for ill-discipline and poor parental control.
This meant that these pupils were often assessed for special needs and, in many cases, were granted extra money and sometimes one-to-one or small -group tuition. This also meant that the children who genuinely had special needs were not able to access the teaching and the funding which they desperately needed because it had already been allocated to pupils whose needs amounted to no more than a little firm handling and being taught the difference between right and wrong.
If a pupil attacks a teacher it is an assault just the same as if it had happened on the street. I was not afraid to exclude pupils of any age from school if their behaviour warranted it.

I wouldn't say you were controlling your children Suzanne. You were looking after them and being involved with their lives.

I would have thought the job of a parent was to give their children the ability to control themselves rather than to make it necessary for them to be controlled.

yes,everyone has their own ways,it didnt hurt me,and it didnt hurt my children,but with four it was difficult to keep them all in control..what i choose to do seemed to have worked,but what you said earlier has a lot of truth in it,i to have friends that have been very good parents and their kids have become bad.x :-D

it never hurt me either, but i choose to find other ways to discipline him, and it works for us :-)

very true. but a tap on the hand for being naughty never affected my children.x :-D

the only way to teach them is give them a slap,

then

there is to much fighting and violence in computer games

yes, so lets teach them violence reaps violence, "sighs"

im proud to admit iv never smacked my son :-) and hes turned out just fine up to now,

i dnt think you can always blame the parents, ya can have the best fmaily in the world but if you get in with the wrong crowd, thats it :-(