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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 198470" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Exhausted, you said something about needing to see both sides - bravo. I agree, that is important. Even if you disagree with the other side, being able to understand it helps you better counter their arguments. Being able to be balanced also helps you feel more confident about fighting injustice when you see it, because you know you HAVE been able to properly consider the problem from all aspects.</p><p></p><p>You also said, "The principal did tell me that the 2 boys that were involved in the last 2 fights can be pretty mouthy, physical and nasty. She told me that she has 0 tolerance for bullying. She hates to suspend kids for any reason, but our difficult child cant seem to understand that he needs to control himself and not take it to the next level. so i believe it was used as a scare tactict in my mind. That was her reasoning for suspending him, while the others were "talked to". Did I mention the other kids were in Severe Behav. Disorder classes? "</p><p></p><p>Your son's own awareness that the other two boys are trying to get him expelled - the boys probably told him, or told someone else who told him.</p><p>The principal says she has zero tolerance for bullying, and yet this has been happening on consecutive days - so something just is not working.</p><p></p><p>She also says "difficult child cant seem to understand that he needs to control himself and not take it to the next level". </p><p></p><p>If your difficult child has a recognised diagnosis of ADHD (with the likelihood of more) then the principal should recognise that there is a very good reason for difficult child failing to control himself. It is wrong to penalise a child who cannot help what he does. While it is highly likely that difficult child, when calm, knows what is right and wrong, the problem is that when he's goaded to snapping point then any self-control goes out the window. The bullies know this and are using this. Why do the bullies realise this, and the principal seems not to?</p><p></p><p>I have some questions for you to ask the principal. You also need to go in with some preparation in terms of possible answers she will come up with, and answers to those answers. I agree with your approach in staying calm and also in seeing all sides. It is how I try to handle these interactions also. So these questions CAN be asked with this aim in mind. You and the principal can workshop these questions with a view to finding a strategy that works. To find such a strategy is important not just for difficult child and for you, but also for the school's success with its anti-bullying policy; if they cannot stop the persecution of difficult child and he does end up getting expelled, or even if he gets suspended again, then the principal has lost and those bullies will have gained more power. Every time they succeed, the principal also loses. She needs to know this, because the success of her anti-bullying strategy depends on these boys NOT succeeding in their aims. They MUST be blocked in some way.</p><p></p><p>So now to some think tank questions:</p><p></p><p>What is the purpose of punishment?</p><p>A common response is, punishment is to help teach a lesson that the behaviour being punished is unacceptable. The lesson is not only for the child directly, but for other children who observe.</p><p></p><p>How do we measure success of a punishment?</p><p>A good answer here, is we measure success by a drop in occurrence of problem behaviours.</p><p></p><p>Is it fair to punish all kids equally for the same offence? Or should punishment be graded according to the capability of the offender to understand?</p><p>If the answer here is that all kids must be treated equally, then ask if that means that a child of 5 years old who hits another child should receive the same punishment as a child of 10.</p><p>Conversely, if the answer is that each case should be assessed individually, then ask what sort of parameters are considered here.</p><p>However, I strongly suspect the answer will be that all children must "be treated fairly" which equals the easy way out, to simply apply the blanket ruling across the board. This is actually NOT fair, because to a 5 year old who has lashed out (as five year olds often do) not only can they not control themselves well enough to be able to prevent a recurrence for sure, but the punishment is going to be much more upsetting to them than to a 10 year old who is a bit more mature, a lot more capable and for whom punishment can even give some sort of social status in the eyes of his peers. Not so, the five year old.</p><p></p><p>By this stage you should have a good idea of how this principal thinks, on matters such as punishment. However, discipline does not necessarily have to be punishment-based. Also, in my experience, a school which applies punishment as deterrent, across the board 'fairly' for all equivalent crimes, is actually taking the easy (and unfair) way out. They are also not going to be very effective in actually changing the problem behaviours.</p><p></p><p>Why is this the case? Because you can't make punishments the same, when all children are NOT the same.</p><p></p><p>A child who is in full control of himself and who deliberately, maliciously plans to do something he knows is wrong (something like stealing money from a teacher's purse) should not receive the same punishment as a kid who impulsively grabs another student who has been swearing at him and tears his shirt in the process. If you apply the same punishment to both, you are saying that each situation is the same.</p><p></p><p>You cannot effectively discipline using a "one size fits all" method. The problem for schools, is that they are afraid that if they attempt to personalise discipline they will make the task so huge that they will not have enough time or energy left in which to actually teach!</p><p></p><p>But this isn't necessarily the case. And there ARE other, better ways to more effectively fix this sort of problem.</p><p></p><p>Punishment is supposed to help a child learn to not do that behaviour. It is supposed to be a deterrent. But it fails, if the child is either unable to learn, or unable to control the behaviour.</p><p></p><p>Often an ADHD child DOES know that he has done the wrong thing, but was unable to prevent himself. Punishing the child here does NOT make him more capable to not act impulsively next time - if this worked, the child would already be doing better. To continue to apply punishments to a child who clearly is still doing the same thing, is not only a waste of effort, it can be aggravating the problem (as well as causing a lot of other problems). And if you think about it, it is also sending a message to the parents, that they clearly are not doing their job in teaching the child to behave better. </p><p></p><p>You can see the silliness of this in several analogies:</p><p></p><p>1) If you punish a child for getting an answer wrong, by giving him a lethal electric shock, you will have made certain that the child will not make the same mistake again. That is a punishment with a very effective deterrent. But it does have a few problems...</p><p></p><p>2) If you insist on punishing all children equally, then you should punish blind children for failing to copy accurately form the blackboard. Why do you not do this?</p><p></p><p>Incentives work better. Encouragement works better. Mediation works better. The principal needs to perhaps consider having a mediation session with difficult child and these other boys, to not only get to the bottom of the problems but to maybe get a better insight herself into what is going on. Maybe if handled well, it could resolve any issues sufficiently to prevent the continuing problems. As things currently stand, nothing is preventing the recurrences. These other boys are contributing and their contribution is not being sufficiently considered when it comes to meting out punishment. It seems that nobody has really tried to find out WHY they are targeting difficult child, or finding a more effective way to resolve things BEFORE they again become a problem. </p><p></p><p>It seems to me that the principal is trying to bandage an open, running sore without cleaning it first, removing any grit, dirt or thorns which will keep the wound open and infected. </p><p></p><p>Good luck with this one. I also recommend you put your concerns in writing (continue to do so) and any meetings, conversations, etc you have with the principal, take your own minutes and then afterwards put them in a letter to the principal. "Dear Ms ..., Thank you for talking to me this morning about my concerns that difficult child has been taking the fall for some unpleasant goading instigated by a number of other boys whose bad behaviour is already known to you. I felt we had a very constructive discussion over this and I'm glad you listened to my concerns that... and that you will be putting in place the following options:..."</p><p></p><p>By putting it in a letter you are keeping it friendly and polite. But you are also making it clear that you are NOT going away, you will NOT be fobbed off and you are not going to accept the school treating your child unfairly because they're taking the easiest way out. Your letter also provides a paper trail so at no future stage can the school claim that they were unaware of your concerns.</p><p></p><p>Our local school had a very engaging principal, someone I have been on friendly terms with for a couple of decades. However, I have known him to be less than honest over ongoing problems, claiming, "I didn't know it was so serious," or 'This is the first I've heard of this problem," or "nobody else has complained; are you sure you're not ovedramatising things?" when I've spoken to him about something, only for me to later find out that a number of other parents had also spoken to him about the same things, but because it wasn't also put in writing (so he couldn't later deny knowing about it) then he was able to claim utter ignorance. Some of the things he claimed ignorance about when it was later found tat there had been numerous occurrences over several years - </p><p></p><p>* very young children being sexually molested by older students who remained unidentified due to the very young age of the victim as well as them being such new students they just didn't know any of the kids;</p><p></p><p>* gangs of bullies known by teachers to be a problem, not only not being punished but actually being put into the same study groups (unchaperoned) as their victims;</p><p></p><p>* a teacher physically attacking her very young students.</p><p></p><p>Putting things in writing can be the first step to getting some change in place. But you do need to be careful to be truthful, to be diplomatic and to be constructive.</p><p></p><p>For example, when I wrote letters to the local school about my grave concerns about their discipline policy (it was barbaric) I included some alternative punishment suggestions which I felt would be far more effective and should have been even easier to implement.</p><p></p><p>Among those options - immediate lunchtime detention instead of the existing delayed detention. Not suspending a kid (which rewards him with time off school) but instead requiring some form of reparation. Writing an apology to the wronged party. </p><p></p><p>I also listed some preventive measures - keep the victim and the bullies apart (or at least, do not send them off together on the same errand!). Put in place good playground supervision for either the victim or the bullies, including some supervised structured activity. Ensure adequate reporting of ongoing problems with certain students with the possibility of providing anger management, counselling, mediation, conflict resolution.</p><p></p><p>I hope you can get something constructive in place to help your son. This is not fair, he shouldn't be having to cope with this.</p><p></p><p>Also it's about time someone told you to get a copy of "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. It's a darn good book. If more schools applied this stuff there would be far fewer problems. AND it would be easier than their current methods!</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 198470, member: 1991"] Exhausted, you said something about needing to see both sides - bravo. I agree, that is important. Even if you disagree with the other side, being able to understand it helps you better counter their arguments. Being able to be balanced also helps you feel more confident about fighting injustice when you see it, because you know you HAVE been able to properly consider the problem from all aspects. You also said, "The principal did tell me that the 2 boys that were involved in the last 2 fights can be pretty mouthy, physical and nasty. She told me that she has 0 tolerance for bullying. She hates to suspend kids for any reason, but our difficult child cant seem to understand that he needs to control himself and not take it to the next level. so i believe it was used as a scare tactict in my mind. That was her reasoning for suspending him, while the others were "talked to". Did I mention the other kids were in Severe Behav. Disorder classes? " Your son's own awareness that the other two boys are trying to get him expelled - the boys probably told him, or told someone else who told him. The principal says she has zero tolerance for bullying, and yet this has been happening on consecutive days - so something just is not working. She also says "difficult child cant seem to understand that he needs to control himself and not take it to the next level". If your difficult child has a recognised diagnosis of ADHD (with the likelihood of more) then the principal should recognise that there is a very good reason for difficult child failing to control himself. It is wrong to penalise a child who cannot help what he does. While it is highly likely that difficult child, when calm, knows what is right and wrong, the problem is that when he's goaded to snapping point then any self-control goes out the window. The bullies know this and are using this. Why do the bullies realise this, and the principal seems not to? I have some questions for you to ask the principal. You also need to go in with some preparation in terms of possible answers she will come up with, and answers to those answers. I agree with your approach in staying calm and also in seeing all sides. It is how I try to handle these interactions also. So these questions CAN be asked with this aim in mind. You and the principal can workshop these questions with a view to finding a strategy that works. To find such a strategy is important not just for difficult child and for you, but also for the school's success with its anti-bullying policy; if they cannot stop the persecution of difficult child and he does end up getting expelled, or even if he gets suspended again, then the principal has lost and those bullies will have gained more power. Every time they succeed, the principal also loses. She needs to know this, because the success of her anti-bullying strategy depends on these boys NOT succeeding in their aims. They MUST be blocked in some way. So now to some think tank questions: What is the purpose of punishment? A common response is, punishment is to help teach a lesson that the behaviour being punished is unacceptable. The lesson is not only for the child directly, but for other children who observe. How do we measure success of a punishment? A good answer here, is we measure success by a drop in occurrence of problem behaviours. Is it fair to punish all kids equally for the same offence? Or should punishment be graded according to the capability of the offender to understand? If the answer here is that all kids must be treated equally, then ask if that means that a child of 5 years old who hits another child should receive the same punishment as a child of 10. Conversely, if the answer is that each case should be assessed individually, then ask what sort of parameters are considered here. However, I strongly suspect the answer will be that all children must "be treated fairly" which equals the easy way out, to simply apply the blanket ruling across the board. This is actually NOT fair, because to a 5 year old who has lashed out (as five year olds often do) not only can they not control themselves well enough to be able to prevent a recurrence for sure, but the punishment is going to be much more upsetting to them than to a 10 year old who is a bit more mature, a lot more capable and for whom punishment can even give some sort of social status in the eyes of his peers. Not so, the five year old. By this stage you should have a good idea of how this principal thinks, on matters such as punishment. However, discipline does not necessarily have to be punishment-based. Also, in my experience, a school which applies punishment as deterrent, across the board 'fairly' for all equivalent crimes, is actually taking the easy (and unfair) way out. They are also not going to be very effective in actually changing the problem behaviours. Why is this the case? Because you can't make punishments the same, when all children are NOT the same. A child who is in full control of himself and who deliberately, maliciously plans to do something he knows is wrong (something like stealing money from a teacher's purse) should not receive the same punishment as a kid who impulsively grabs another student who has been swearing at him and tears his shirt in the process. If you apply the same punishment to both, you are saying that each situation is the same. You cannot effectively discipline using a "one size fits all" method. The problem for schools, is that they are afraid that if they attempt to personalise discipline they will make the task so huge that they will not have enough time or energy left in which to actually teach! But this isn't necessarily the case. And there ARE other, better ways to more effectively fix this sort of problem. Punishment is supposed to help a child learn to not do that behaviour. It is supposed to be a deterrent. But it fails, if the child is either unable to learn, or unable to control the behaviour. Often an ADHD child DOES know that he has done the wrong thing, but was unable to prevent himself. Punishing the child here does NOT make him more capable to not act impulsively next time - if this worked, the child would already be doing better. To continue to apply punishments to a child who clearly is still doing the same thing, is not only a waste of effort, it can be aggravating the problem (as well as causing a lot of other problems). And if you think about it, it is also sending a message to the parents, that they clearly are not doing their job in teaching the child to behave better. You can see the silliness of this in several analogies: 1) If you punish a child for getting an answer wrong, by giving him a lethal electric shock, you will have made certain that the child will not make the same mistake again. That is a punishment with a very effective deterrent. But it does have a few problems... 2) If you insist on punishing all children equally, then you should punish blind children for failing to copy accurately form the blackboard. Why do you not do this? Incentives work better. Encouragement works better. Mediation works better. The principal needs to perhaps consider having a mediation session with difficult child and these other boys, to not only get to the bottom of the problems but to maybe get a better insight herself into what is going on. Maybe if handled well, it could resolve any issues sufficiently to prevent the continuing problems. As things currently stand, nothing is preventing the recurrences. These other boys are contributing and their contribution is not being sufficiently considered when it comes to meting out punishment. It seems that nobody has really tried to find out WHY they are targeting difficult child, or finding a more effective way to resolve things BEFORE they again become a problem. It seems to me that the principal is trying to bandage an open, running sore without cleaning it first, removing any grit, dirt or thorns which will keep the wound open and infected. Good luck with this one. I also recommend you put your concerns in writing (continue to do so) and any meetings, conversations, etc you have with the principal, take your own minutes and then afterwards put them in a letter to the principal. "Dear Ms ..., Thank you for talking to me this morning about my concerns that difficult child has been taking the fall for some unpleasant goading instigated by a number of other boys whose bad behaviour is already known to you. I felt we had a very constructive discussion over this and I'm glad you listened to my concerns that... and that you will be putting in place the following options:..." By putting it in a letter you are keeping it friendly and polite. But you are also making it clear that you are NOT going away, you will NOT be fobbed off and you are not going to accept the school treating your child unfairly because they're taking the easiest way out. Your letter also provides a paper trail so at no future stage can the school claim that they were unaware of your concerns. Our local school had a very engaging principal, someone I have been on friendly terms with for a couple of decades. However, I have known him to be less than honest over ongoing problems, claiming, "I didn't know it was so serious," or 'This is the first I've heard of this problem," or "nobody else has complained; are you sure you're not ovedramatising things?" when I've spoken to him about something, only for me to later find out that a number of other parents had also spoken to him about the same things, but because it wasn't also put in writing (so he couldn't later deny knowing about it) then he was able to claim utter ignorance. Some of the things he claimed ignorance about when it was later found tat there had been numerous occurrences over several years - * very young children being sexually molested by older students who remained unidentified due to the very young age of the victim as well as them being such new students they just didn't know any of the kids; * gangs of bullies known by teachers to be a problem, not only not being punished but actually being put into the same study groups (unchaperoned) as their victims; * a teacher physically attacking her very young students. Putting things in writing can be the first step to getting some change in place. But you do need to be careful to be truthful, to be diplomatic and to be constructive. For example, when I wrote letters to the local school about my grave concerns about their discipline policy (it was barbaric) I included some alternative punishment suggestions which I felt would be far more effective and should have been even easier to implement. Among those options - immediate lunchtime detention instead of the existing delayed detention. Not suspending a kid (which rewards him with time off school) but instead requiring some form of reparation. Writing an apology to the wronged party. I also listed some preventive measures - keep the victim and the bullies apart (or at least, do not send them off together on the same errand!). Put in place good playground supervision for either the victim or the bullies, including some supervised structured activity. Ensure adequate reporting of ongoing problems with certain students with the possibility of providing anger management, counselling, mediation, conflict resolution. I hope you can get something constructive in place to help your son. This is not fair, he shouldn't be having to cope with this. Also it's about time someone told you to get a copy of "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. It's a darn good book. If more schools applied this stuff there would be far fewer problems. AND it would be easier than their current methods! Marg [/QUOTE]
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