Does your school have fewer massively disregulated students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elementary is the difficult period when many kids who will go on to be diagnosed with ADHD and autism (among other things) are not yet diagnosed, since they are between that age where people say "oh it's normal to scream and run around" and "your kid throw chairs and hits the para every week, he needs an evaluation".

1. Parents need to come to the realization that their child actually has a problem. Sometimes they never do, and blame literally everyone and everything else, for years.

2. Then if they agree their kid might have a diagnosis, they have to get on waitlists for private evaluations that cost $5K, or wait for the issues to be severe enough that the public school wants to assess the kid themselves (a much more basic and simplified assessment, so it's best to pay for the full neurosych, but most can't afford it). The whole thing can take a year.

3. Then they have to be willing to medicate (for ADHD) and sometimes it takes a long time - at least a year - to find the right dose of the right med (did you know there's been an ongoing national shortage of ADHD stimulants?). For autism, there are no meds, so a whole behavioral mitigation plan needs to be put in place. Or maybe they don't want to medicate, because they've heard of side-effects, or they go back to 1. and denial. Or the kid tries meds and nothing works.

I have a kid with inattentive ADHD (daydreaming type) and know many children with ADHD and/or autism. That's what their elementary years looked like.

Your kid didn't just develop ADHD, it happened at birth. Your waiting to get help was the problem. A regular ped. can work with you till you get an evaluation. It sounds like you are making excuses.

I knew my chid had something going on around 18 months. I didn't wait and got them help.

PP you replied to. MY SON HAD PROBLEMS AT BIRTH AND RECEIVED HELP STARTING AT BIRTH. HE HAS MULTIPLE DIAGNOSES. HE NEVER MISBEHAVED AT SCHOOL - I MENTIONED HE HAS INATTENTIVE ADHD IN ADDITION TO THE MEDICAL STUFF, BUT APPARENTLY YOU CAN'T READ. WE DID EVERYTHING RIGHT. I WAS DESCRIBING THE "USUAL" COURSE OF EVENTS, SINCE I KNOW MANY KIDS WITH ADHD AND AUTISM.

Complete arsehole. Shame on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine how those kids behave at home? There are no consequences at home or school so they run wild.

Our school uses RJ, which works miracles with these kids. It's too bad they don't train everyone better in its practice.

I smell some massive BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what's RJ?

Restorative justice

Don’t bother reading any threads about it on this forum because MCPS doesn’t implement it properly. There are large school systems and privates that do.

at our school they do and it has made a huge and positive difference

Your school must be in the land of make believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what's RJ?

Restorative justice

Don’t bother reading any threads about it on this forum because MCPS doesn’t implement it properly. There are large school systems and privates that do.

at our school they do and it has made a huge and positive difference

RJ has been used effectively at our school too. Don't listen to these complaining Karens. They hate everything.

[Anonymous]

Welcome to America in 2024.

Try a more conservative area where most parents still believe in actual parenting, but be warned, entitlement is everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elementary is the difficult period when many kids who will go on to be diagnosed with ADHD and autism (among other things) are not yet diagnosed, since they are between that age where people say "oh it's normal to scream and run around" and "your kid throw chairs and hits the para every week, he needs an evaluation".

1. Parents need to come to the realization that their child actually has a problem. Sometimes they never do, and blame literally everyone and everything else, for years.

2. Then if they agree their kid might have a diagnosis, they have to get on waitlists for private evaluations that cost $5K, or wait for the issues to be severe enough that the public school wants to assess the kid themselves (a much more basic and simplified assessment, so it's best to pay for the full neurosych, but most can't afford it). The whole thing can take a year.

3. Then they have to be willing to medicate (for ADHD) and sometimes it takes a long time - at least a year - to find the right dose of the right med (did you know there's been an ongoing national shortage of ADHD stimulants?). For autism, there are no meds, so a whole behavioral mitigation plan needs to be put in place. Or maybe they don't want to medicate, because they've heard of side-effects, or they go back to 1. and denial. Or the kid tries meds and nothing works.

I have a kid with inattentive ADHD (daydreaming type) and know many children with ADHD and/or autism. That's what their elementary years looked like.

NP here and thank you for sharing this. I wanted to add on (and I know everyone is tired of hearing about the pandemic), but it has really exacerbated your points #2 and 3. I had a kid flagged in preschool in early 2020. Child Find basically shut down for a year and even by late 2021 when they were scheduling, I had to make a special request for an in person eval b/c the default was virtual, which would not have worked for my kid. Then they did the testing masked so they couldn’t complete the full Autism screening and just decided that was ok because they had enough to know he qualified for free special ed pre-K.

Then we had to wait forever for a neuropsych because things are always at least a year out (and I suspect the backlog from 2020-2021 hasn’t helped things). And now actually getting in with a specialist for therapy/medication is so hard and I have met so many other SNs parents whose kids fell behind during shut downs so they are even trying to add more services.

Also, medical providers are burnt out and
just not taking as many new patients (forget trying to find someone in network, be ready to pony up $300+ out of pocket for an appointment), and when you do finally get a prescription you have to call around to pharmacies (at one point it took me until #8) to find ADHD medication. Sometimes that even means accepting a half filled order (which requires an amended prescription from your doctor). Then it’s wait and see, oh that isn’t the right med or dose for your kid. Let’s try a new med. Rinse and repeat with calling pharmacies. Oh that med isn’t working either.

I do feel awful for the teachers dealing with the fall out of this, but I promise there are just as many of us parents at home struggling to get our kids help. And then we’re told the pandemic is over, kids should be back to normal by now! But if your kid was really young when it started (especially at a prime age where things get flagged) then more than half their life has been since 2024 and backlogs/med shortages/doctor specialist shortages are a real thing. I think this was all a problem before 2020, but it certainly hasn’t improved since then.

[Anonymous]

^sorry meant more than half their life has been since 2020

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Help. I’m a para at an MCPS elementary so I work with all grades, and I’ve just reached my limit dealing with totally disregulated kids. All day long I’m called on to deescalate children who are screaming, throwing, pushing, melting down. Even when they’re happy they’re screaming, roughhousing, running, wrestling. These are just regular mainstream classes, not SESES or autism or a special program. I am thinking of looking for a new school but wondering if others are any better? I’m just overwhelmed. I used to work in a preschool with toddlers and honestly I didn’t deal with this much tantrumming.

This is why we went private. Some of our teachers are former MCPS. I think the teachers at our public were good but they were saddled with too much of what you describe and had to spend too much time managing all of that rather than teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine how those kids behave at home? There are no consequences at home or school so they run wild.

According to their parents, they are fine. Lol. I bet they are when you hand them a phone/tablet and let them have it whenever they want.

MCPS should have parents of misbehaving students attend classes with the kids for a week if they behave so much better for the parents.

I read an article about how a father of a teen boy sat in his class for a week because the boy kept misbehaving. The boy was super embarrassed, and stopped misbehaving.

Way to go, dad! We need more parents, especially dads, to get involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Help. I’m a para at an MCPS elementary so I work with all grades, and I’ve just reached my limit dealing with totally disregulated kids. All day long I’m called on to deescalate children who are screaming, throwing, pushing, melting down. Even when they’re happy they’re screaming, roughhousing, running, wrestling. These are just regular mainstream classes, not SESES or autism or a special program. I am thinking of looking for a new school but wondering if others are any better? I’m just overwhelmed. I used to work in a preschool with toddlers and honestly I didn’t deal with this much tantrumming.

This is why we went private. Some of our teachers are former MCPS. I think the teachers at our public were good but they were saddled with too much of what you describe and had to spend too much time managing all of that rather than teaching.

According to a PP, it's not really any better at their private.

ymmv

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what's RJ?

Restorative justice

Don’t bother reading any threads about it on this forum because MCPS doesn’t implement it properly. There are large school systems and privates that do.

at our school they do and it has made a huge and positive difference

RJ has been used effectively at our school too. Don't listen to these complaining Karens. They hate everything.

Your use of misogynistic language undermines your position. I hope you don’t work for the school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine how those kids behave at home? There are no consequences at home or school so they run wild.

According to their parents, they are fine. Lol. I bet they are when you hand them a phone/tablet and let them have it whenever they want.

MCPS should have parents of misbehaving students attend classes with the kids for a week if they behave so much better for the parents.

I read an article about how a father of a teen boy sat in his class for a week because the boy kept misbehaving. The boy was super embarrassed, and stopped misbehaving.

Way to go, dad! We need more parents, especially dads, to get involved.

How many employers will allow a week’s personal leave to accommodate a parent doing this? DCUM just claimed that people couldn’t leave their jobs early for an emergency half day on Tuesday. Two days later, DCUM thinks parents can be at a school all day for five days in a row.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine how those kids behave at home? There are no consequences at home or school so they run wild.

Our school uses RJ, which works miracles with these kids. It's too bad they don't train everyone better in its practice.

Restorative Justice does not work at the middle and high school level, for bullying (no one wants to be in a healing circle with their bully!), or behaviors that MCPS wants to keep out of the criminal justice system. Think the armed carjacking that BCC had before Christmas. Can you give examples of how it works in elementary?

My last school was huge on restorative practices. The preventative side was great with community circles and building a community in your classroom. However, it did nothing to curb kids physically fighting, eloping, cursing out teachers, hitting staff, etc. I taught third grade at this school and it was exhausting. RJ isn't the cure-all that people try and make it out to be in MCPS.

Oh well that's not so bad.

The first time I saw "eloping" in the context of school, on DCUM, I thought it was an autocorrect error.

Eloping is really bad because the kid is out in the community without adult supervision and could be injured or abducted. The school is still responsible so the police have to be called and a lot of staff end up with walkies searching the neighborhood. The parent has to be notified. Some kids do this on a regular basis.

The police officers in MoCo who terrorized a 6 year old were called because he eloped.

Yes, running off from school is bad. Calling it "eloping' is funny.

That is the term psychologists use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine how those kids behave at home? There are no consequences at home or school so they run wild.

According to their parents, they are fine. Lol. I bet they are when you hand them a phone/tablet and let them have it whenever they want.

MCPS should have parents of misbehaving students attend classes with the kids for a week if they behave so much better for the parents.

I read an article about how a father of a teen boy sat in his class for a week because the boy kept misbehaving. The boy was super embarrassed, and stopped misbehaving.

Way to go, dad! We need more parents, especially dads, to get involved.

How many employers will allow a week’s personal leave to accommodate a parent doing this? DCUM just claimed that people couldn’t leave their jobs early for an emergency half day on Tuesday. Two days later, DCUM thinks parents can be at a school all day for five days in a row.

The former is last minute. The latter is planned. Huge difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine how those kids behave at home? There are no consequences at home or school so they run wild.

Our school uses RJ, which works miracles with these kids. It's too bad they don't train everyone better in its practice.

Restorative Justice does not work at the middle and high school level, for bullying (no one wants to be in a healing circle with their bully!), or behaviors that MCPS wants to keep out of the criminal justice system. Think the armed carjacking that BCC had before Christmas. Can you give examples of how it works in elementary?

My last school was huge on restorative practices. The preventative side was great with community circles and building a community in your classroom. However, it did nothing to curb kids physically fighting, eloping, cursing out teachers, hitting staff, etc. I taught third grade at this school and it was exhausting. RJ isn't the cure-all that people try and make it out to be in MCPS.

Oh well that's not so bad.

The first time I saw "eloping" in the context of school, on DCUM, I thought it was an autocorrect error.

Eloping is really bad because the kid is out in the community without adult supervision and could be injured or abducted. The school is still responsible so the police have to be called and a lot of staff end up with walkies searching the neighborhood. The parent has to be notified. Some kids do this on a regular basis.

The police officers in MoCo who terrorized a 6 year old were called because he eloped.

Yes, running off from school is bad. Calling it "eloping' is funny.

Eloping means running off, so...