Restraint of children with 'special needs' in our schools

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ninImoQbX60

The above link takes you to a video of an Illinois police officer brutally beating a youth in an Illinois special needs high school.

15-year-old Marshawn Pitts was beaten by the police officer, because his shirt wasnt tucked in. Pitts was a student at the Academy for Learning High School in Dolton, which claims to be a school for children with learning disabilities. In this video, the officer, whose name has not been released, is seen slamming Pitts (who has a learning difficulty) into lockers, and then slamming him facedown on the floor. (This technique, known as 'facedown/takedown' has caused the deaths of some 20 people so far.

Ok, Northern Ireland is not Illinois. Our problems are different but I do wonder why some schools in Northern Ireland are receiving staff training on 'restraining young children with special needs'. A number of schools have sent their teachers on 3 day courses on how to 'restrain' our kids in a classroom.

My own boy has very rarely needed to be 'restrained' except in his car seat and the seat does that. The way in which I conduct myself with him, teach him, respond to him, negates any need for 'restraint'.

It's sort of like mental hospitals and group homes - you wouldn't build them unless you intend for them to be used. What is the belief of teachers who feel the need to take a 3 day course on how to physically manipulate/overpower/oppress my child when in fact he has a fully functioning brain and responds so much better to trust, compassion and understanding?

Why is it that so many children in 'special schools' 'behave' in a manner that teachers think needs 'restraining', either for their own safety or the safety of their peers/teachers.

Something is very wrong with this picture. I don't know if you know this parents, but your child's teachers and aides are being trained in how to 'hold' your child in a quasi arm lock and march him down the hall. It's all made to look very compassionate and P.C. but its adults weilding physical power over your child, just the same.

very VERY worrying.

Watch the link to the video above and see how its done 5000 miles away. Incredible is the belief system that tells a police officer to brutally assault a child for a shirt tail hanging out. What are your own children being 'restrained' for and why? In particular watch towards the end when the teacher carrying files just walks past the frenzied attack and doesn't even give a blind bit of notice. She just non chalantly carries on with her business whilst a vulnerable youth is brutally beaten.

You can bet if there is a 3 day course on child restrain, that it's going to be used on your child at some stage, and possibly for no reason whatsoever. Funny, how there is no 3 day course on how to listen to children, or a course on how to examine your belief systems on what is 'important', or on how 'attitudes' colour judgement.

I personally am thinking of designing a course for teachers to help them understand why they believe what they believe about our children. A lifetime of 'attitude', belief, judgement, etc is wrapped up in every teacher. Our children, so very vulnerable, are prone to being the butt of teachers beliefs about 'naughty' or 'unruly' behaviour.

If a teacher had the crap beat out of him as a child, or if his parents constantly nagged him, judged him, criticised him, how do teachers shuffle off the effects of such a legacy, when they are working with our children?? When it comes to 'restraining' our children, what stimuli triggers a response in a particular teacher warranting in them, a need to restrain??

Do you think teachers would attend such a course? Would they be open enough to spend 3 days examining their belief systems, thoroughly examining themselves, before they pre-judge our children as something needing 'restraint'??

Hmmmmm. There are many many teachers out there who have never even heard of sensory integration, don't know what it is, and certainly don't know how to reduce/eliminate environmental triggers that cause our children to 'react'. There are to date, no courses that I have seen offered, training teachers how to re-design their classrooms, modify their curriculums and offer techniques on how to calm over active nervous systems. Further, I have not seen a course for teachers on how to 'talk' to our children, to teach them to self advocate, to learn how to express their frustrations at a school system that lumps them in classes of 28/30 and expects them to sit at desks for much of the day, or eat food in the canteen that sends them doo lally.

The cart is being put before the horse here. Techniques in ensuring 'low arousal' in the classroom, examination of behavioural techniques (antecedent, behaviour, consequence) and so much more would be way more effective than just training teachers carte blanche in how to restrain. Our kids' brains are getting 'restrained' in the process, much less their trust of adults.

It's all very sad.