How to talk with your kids about what is going on in public schools right now

 

Here’s the scenario:

 

Your kiddo comes home agitated and scared. “Joe” has once again thrown a fit and their whole class has had to evacuate the classroom. It was loud, chairs were thrown and a book even flew at the teacher! The kids went to the library until Joe was able to calm down.

 

On a good day, Joe is stomping around the classroom, slamming the Chromebook closet and generally just being really loud. 

 

All your kid can tell you is that Joe is loud, rude and mean. He even hit someone in the face one time.

 

You hear nothing from the school. 

 

If you don’t work in a school today and your only school experience was 20-30 years ago, pay special attention here. 

 

Many of us adults today cannot imagine what it is like to be a child in a classroom today, because 20 years ago, children with differing educational needs were sent to specialized schools or classrooms. They were mostly segregated from us “mainstream” learners and we probably only saw them for author’s visits, assemblies, and occasionally art, music and PE. 

 

Specialized classrooms in a separate location from general education is generally a thing of the past. As is “resource room” where children would attend instruction in smaller ratios like 5:1 with a special education teacher. The majority of special education is delivered under what is called “integrated co teaching” meaning that a child reading on the kindergarten age level is likely spending most of their day in your 4th grader’s classroom. The teachers may modify the worksheets or change the expectations (if they have time for that planning, but spoiler alert, they don’t have time for that planning most of the time) but kids are very rarely brought to a separate location to learn material at their instructional level. I am not advocating for inclusion vs. special classroom scenarios, just attempting to give you a synopsis of the current landscape.

 

In my experience, two of my own children currently attending public middle school are developmentally at a math concepts understanding level two to three grades below their current grade. With “full inclusion” models, the school doesn’t offer a “resource room” to get math instruction separate from their peers, so they attend a typical class that is presenting concepts they’re not ready for. One of my kids is learning to plot points on a graph and rotate them around a point when their IEP goal is to choose the correct operation in a word problem. One of my other kids doesn’t really have solid knowledge of the concept of division, but they’re supposed to add and subtract improper fractions. Many of the concepts they’re expected to learn are beyond where they’re at currently in terms of their understanding. It leaves them feeling dumb and “lesser” than their classmates because in the math class they have to sit through 70% of it goes over their heads. It is terrible for their self-esteem. Then they get added to a “math help” class where they lose a study hall to practice these extra skills that they’re not really ready to learn in the first place because they don’t have the foundation. We have kids in ELA classes with goals to write 5 sentences when the child cannot even speak in full sentences. I can’t even write this without getting my blood boiling. I also want to add that it isn’t always just a mismatch between educational instruction and learning level. Sometimes a child is struggling because basic needs like food and sleep aren’t being met at home. The point is, the kid isn’t getting what they need because it is impossible to address all the different priorities. 

 

Those that propose “full inclusion” as the optimal model tout the fact that “all kids” deserve to be there and we can’t be shipping kids who are below grade level off. That would be segregated and exclusionary. The problem is that the “there” (regular classroom) isn’t and cannot be designed to meet all the differing needs given the current staffing and education. I’m an OT, Universal Design for Learning is my wheelhouse- it has gone nowhere because schools don’t have the staff and budgets to implement it.

 

Classrooms have on average somewhere between 18 and 25 students. Instructing a group of this size may work at the college level, where people are self-selecting to be there, but it doesn’t work in an environment where the participants have no choice in whether to be there or not. From the OT perspective, I could go on about the “just right” challenge or “zone of proximal development.” But the point is, generally, these principles aren’t applied throughout the day to all the child’s learning and can’t be when you’re trying to cater to 20 some odd kids.

 

How do you feel when you’re trying to learn something and it is just beyond your capacity?

Are you motivated to try or do you just want to give up?

What would it do to your self-concept to see that almost everyone around you is capable of more than you?

How does it feel when your talents aren’t valued or seen?

What would it do to your mood and willingness to comply?

 

It isn’t a matter of providing fidget tools or special seats for those kids who have trouble sitting still.

It isn’t a matter of “extra” recess.

None of that is going to fix it.

I’m talking about an overhaul of what education looks like. For some kids, their ideal learning environment is a farm. For others, it is a science lab, for others, a lecture hall scenario. I’m lucky, I’m a lecture hall kid. I fit into public school. 

 

Kids need to be motivated and every kid will be motivated in a different way.

 

The kids having the outbursts deserve a public education and so do the kids who like a quiet, controlled traditional looking learning environment.

 

Now, that was a tangent meant to help establish a little of the landscape of the current school environment since none of us adults have attended public school as learners today.

 

As a group of parents, we don’t have the capacity to change an entire country’s  views on what public education looks like…yet. The neurodivergent movement is getting real traction admirably with advocating for different learning needs and the fact that modifications made for some often end up benefiting all. This article isn’t about taking on that change, though we can be called to action to help. That change is coming, but it won’t be fully realized for the next 10-15 years I estimate.

 

We need solutions now to help our kids in the state the education is currently in. Sure, you could remove your child from the environment and homeschool or send them to a private school. But that leaves public school for the poor and for those who don’t have the means for alternatives.

 

(full disclosure- 2 of my children are homeschooled, one because they have the behaviors similar to Joe in the first example)

 

Providers are working within the system to improve understanding of disability so that teachers and providers can better meet their needs; that work is slow and laborious especially as staff turnover is huge. I don’t know any other job where you can go to work every day wondering if you’re going to leave with a concussion, which is why a lot of our Education Support Professionals (Aides) quit.

 

So to recap/What I hope your understanding at this point: 

Changing public school isn’t within the scope of this blog.

The current state of public education is leading to emotionally dysregulated children who are acting out (because their learning needs aren’t being met).

These outbursts are disruptive and scary and difficult for all people to cope with (other students, teachers).

All children are experiencing trauma from this situation either because they feel their needs are valued less than others or because they are unable to cope with the learning demands placed upon them.

 

How do we help our children process what is going on when a classmate is acting out?

How do we help our child develop empathy for those struggling?

How do we help our kids who attend public school, establish a feeling of safety, courage, and agency?

How can we have useful talks with our kids about what is going on in their classrooms?

How do we help them cope when scary and disruptive things are happening in the classroom?

 

In the end, this could be an opportunity for your child to develop tolerance, understanding, and emotional intelligence if given the tools and space to do it. Unfortunately, speaking purely from my own experience, the school also doesn’t have the time or capacity to help the kids develop this intelligence.

 

Here are the things that roll around my mind that could help:

1. Provide a ton of empathy for your child’s experience. Whether they are hit, yelled at, or just feeling annoyed by the noise, all of their feelings are valid. Hold them, provide a lot of statements like: “That must feel terrible,” and “that must have been so scary.” “What did you feel in your body when that happened?” No one can begin to move forward until their feelings are validated.
2. Don’t move too quickly to explaining why their classmate is acting out (ie, don’t explain the stuff above just yet). Don’t get bogged down in solutions yet. Let the child be angry, indignant, righteous, etc.
3. Begin to be able to label their feelings using tools like the “mood meter.” https://www.marcbrackett.com/the-colors-of-our-emotions/  Allow them to place themselves on a color and describe what is going on in their body when something is going on in the classroom. Help them see that they can think differently about these things when they’re not feeling triggered.
4. Account for your own child’s differences and sensitivities. A child with Autism or Anxiety may be super sensitive and feeling more dysregulated by the noise than someone else. A child with difficulties with interoception (awareness of body sensation) may not be as able to label their emotions or body feelings. This in turn, makes it hard for them to make sense of their responses to situations. If they don’t know what they’re feeling, that’s a valid feeling too.
5. If your child is sent out of the room for safety reasons because a classmate is having  an outburst, or because they need quiet to learn, talk about that with them too. How did that feel? What do you, the parent, feel about it? We may feel a certain way about having our child be put in the hallway to learn, but they may like it. What something means to us as the parent, isn’t what things mean to our kids. We could ask ourselves, “What am I making this mean?”

 

Once you’ve sat in the “where it’s at” situation, you can move onto envisioning “where it’s at” as in “a better future situation.”

 

1. Advocacy and confidence. Help the child notice a time where they stood up or advocated for themselves effectively or had someone advocate for them successfully. What did they say? What did they do? How did they get the adult to help? What part did they play? How did they feel after? Bringing in a past experience that felt successful will help them feel agency. If they can’t think of one, that could indicate something to dive deeper on- feeling power to have an effect on the world around them.
2. Envision in an ideal world, how their school situation would play out better/differently. They may have ideas for what they could do or what others could do. Talk about what it might look like in an ideal situation and then ideas will spark about going to a teacher or finding space for themselves. 
3. This is the point at which you may begin to educate your child on what the other child is going through. Something we often say in my house is “happy people who are treated well in life don’t act that way all the time.” Sure, we all have bad days and moments where we’re angry, but if your kid is noticing a pattern in a classmate, there’s definitely trauma. Our kids have tons of examples where we see their bully or the “bad” kid from school being yelled at and berated by their grandparent or parent at the grocery store. Begin to bring awareness to those perspectives.
4. Acknowledge that if your child is feeling upset or dysregulated, they’re not responsible for doing anything; they may not be able to at that moment. A dysregulated person does not have access to their thinking brain. You can also bring this back to the child who is having the behavioral outbursts; any person who is triggered and escalating isn’t using their cognitive processes. Learn about the hand model of the brain. https://www.facebook.com/whereitsatcoaching/videos/379917449700786  It’s not bad; we’re human and we all struggle with thinking when we’re upset.
5. Acknowledge if your own child has difficulties with “black and white/right and wrong.” This is my own child. In their mind, if one person is right, the other is wrong- about everything. They can never see it from another’s perspective. No convincing. Your child may not be able to see that there is a gray area where the child who is struggling with behavior isn’t fully to blame for the way they act. That’s ok.
6. Nothing will ever be perfect. Things are still going to go wrong in the classroom. But if your kid can figure out how to not let it bother them so much, they will be happier. This is my parenting philosophy, that things are still going to go wrong, but I can figure out how to not let it bother me so much. The earlier we learn that in life, the better. There are going to continue to be people that we are around on a daily basis who make our lives more difficult. The thing that is in our power is how we feel about it. If we feel good about our ability to get through it and find some learning in it, we will feel better about the situation.
7. When they begin to see things shift, celebrate that. Even if it’s something as simple as, “Joe started banging and it didn’t bother me as much today.” or “I could see Joe was getting upset so I kept my space.” 
8. There are endless opportunities to talk about boundaries here. Boundaries can be physical in terms of touching and consent, but they can also be emotional. Let kids explore what boundary was crossed for them and what they could say or do to let that boundary be known. This will help them immensely in their life.

 

These are not the only solutions either. I’m sure if we sat down together, you’d find a half dozen more solutions, strategies or things to try based on your own life experiences and how you have navigated situations in the past. You are resourceful and have the ability to have so much impact.

 

It is my sincerest hope that something in this article brings you some value. If you’re interested in hearing more, find me at www.whereitsatcoaching.com