Not overaccommodation. In the real world, we can pick where we eat. I’m personally hearing impaired and can’t stand loud environments which make conversations difficult. Not to mention the din of background noise is amplified. I know NT introverts who also prefer quiet lunches. In MS, many kids choose to spend lunch in a quiet classroom and no formal accommodations are needed. I know lots of kids who chose the classroom option. At our HS, the kids can also choose where inside or outside to eat lunch. I suspect this is a staffing issue. If my child had a disability, I’d fight for the accommodation. If the school claims to want to address the root cause of needing the accommodation, they should create lunch bunch groups. Our ES had those with the school counselor.

I have a neurotypical teen who has never liked the extreme noise of cafeterias. DC regularly takes advantage of a quieter space in HS to eat lunch and get a few minutes to decompress. It’s not up to me to consider what is an appropriate accommodation for children with additional needs, but I wanted to chime in to say that this can be an issue for kids and adults of all ages to find that volume and chaos to be exhausting.

As someone with a concussion , I’ve had the experience of handling the cafeteria and not handling the cafeteria. It was truly agonizing after hitting my head. I feel for some of these kids. Yes, I was able to tolerate noise again, but throwing a person in the deep end is not a great plan. I think gradually increasing the time in the cafeteria would be better. OP, ask them if you can increase dc’s time in the cafeteria by five minutes each month, with the goal of full immersion by the end of the year.

I also think loop ear buds or five silent minutes for everyone would be helpful. In elementary, each table comes in at a different time, so there would always be two tables that would be silent taking the volume down a notch for everyone.

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty unbearable in the school cafeteria and I say that as a non-neurodiverse person. So I would push for this to continue.

+1000

Anytime you can teach your child tolerance to the way the world works, which includes, loud cafeterias, you should. Otherwise you are crippling your children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a new trend in special needs. Teaching them skills to cope instead of special placements.

I would argue that the actual cafeteria gets the volume lowered. It's SO loud.

This. I'm all for skill building over time, but gradually. It's loud AF, and they're in a room with 24 other kids allllll day. It's fine for them to need a break. I don't know how teachers deal. Nobody should have to put up with that noise level all day long, period.

And yes this is about staffing.

I can't believe adults in this forum actually believe that kids with disabilities just need to work on skill building. It's amazing that you think some of the issues that lead to the need for quiet spaces just require skill building. Some of you really don't understand these disabilities. I'd be so embarrassed if I was you.

I’m not embarrassed. I am someone with a disability. You should be embarrassed telling me how I should think about this stuff. I mean, really, how dare you.

Anonymous wrote:My kids' school does a quiet lunch for kids who prefer to not eat in the cafeteria. Some neurodivergent, some who just prefer quiet. My 1st grader is ADHD and has enjoyed having a quiet place (10 or so kids in the library) to eat each day. He also likes not having to choose who to sit by.

The school is considering ending it due to "skill building" and that the students need to learn to build up their tolerance to the cafeteria, build the executive functioning to decide who to sit by, etc. We cannot overaccommodate, they say, but rather teach children the skills to deal with the things they are uncomfortable with.

What do you think?

Sounds smart. There’s way too much coddling these day.

School lunch is terrible, the noise is unbelievable. I have a child who eats very little most days. The most we have been able to get is periodic lunch bunches, which I do appreciate a lot. I think kids CAN manage it, but for those just trying to make it through the day and find all of school overstimulating I feel like giving a break at lunch so they save that energy for class time is not so much to ask.

I have to take my migraine medicine literally every time I go to school lunch to volunteer. So I guess I make it through but it’s not great you know?

I think you should push for it but I’m an adult who is bothered by loud places in general.

I’m surprised they didn’t try for the noise cancelling headphones instead. I’m HS teacher and many have that accommodation at my school, that they can wear as needed in the day. But there, many students would like to wear headphones anyway now for music so they fit in and it’s different than elementary school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's over-accommodation because most adults can choose to eat their lunch in a quiet spot if they so choose. I'm not ADHD and have always sought quiet places to enjoy lunch my entire adult life and it's never been an issue.

My kid used to go to a school that enforced silent lunch for ALL kids, and I thought that was ridiculous because some kids can handle talking and eating. So offering a separate quiet space makes way more sense than that.

That’s true, but it is also removing kids from what all other kids do in a big way. So it’s right to give it some careful thought.

Two obvious considerations I see are LRE and individualized goals. If the school is really intending to transition kids from quiet to regular lunch, I don’t see this as a staff reduction effort. Seems like it would require more intensive effort than to just keep a bunch of kids in quiet lunch with the minimal supervision that takes.

I said before that I think getting kids to the point where they can regularly be successful at regular lunch is a great skill. But I don’t think it’s a simple or easy transition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a new trend in special needs. Teaching them skills to cope instead of special placements.

I would argue that the actual cafeteria gets the volume lowered. It's SO loud.

This. I'm all for skill building over time, but gradually. It's loud AF, and they're in a room with 24 other kids allllll day. It's fine for them to need a break. I don't know how teachers deal. Nobody should have to put up with that noise level all day long, period.

And yes this is about staffing.

I can't believe adults in this forum actually believe that kids with disabilities just need to work on skill building. It's amazing that you think some of the issues that lead to the need for quiet spaces just require skill building. Some of you really don't understand these disabilities. I'd be so embarrassed if I was you.

I have a kid who has benefited enormously from being “mainstreamed” at lunch, including when I was worried it would be too much for him. Obviously this has to be individualized if a child is melting down regularly. But our kids can in fact learn to cope with a lot. I also thing that having a quieter option for all kids during recess as well as periodic therepeutic lunch bunches is the ideal. But there’s a lot to be said for joining in and eating lunch with all the other kids.

The skill of asking people to stop being so noisy!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a new trend in special needs. Teaching them skills to cope instead of special placements.

I would argue that the actual cafeteria gets the volume lowered. It's SO loud.

This. I'm all for skill building over time, but gradually. It's loud AF, and they're in a room with 24 other kids allllll day. It's fine for them to need a break. I don't know how teachers deal. Nobody should have to put up with that noise level all day long, period.

And yes this is about staffing.

I can't believe adults in this forum actually believe that kids with disabilities just need to work on skill building. It's amazing that you think some of the issues that lead to the need for quiet spaces just require skill building. Some of you really don't understand these disabilities. I'd be so embarrassed if I was you.

As a parent of a child who used to get very overstimulated and anxious with loud noises and can now tolerate it well as a teen, I think it *can* be about exposure and building a tolerance to discomfort. We didn’t set out to do this, but since she didn’t have the option for that type of accommodation, she grew out of it. Depending on the diagnosis, some kids can develop coping skills, but if they don’t get exposed to the situation they can’t build up the tolerance. I’m not saying that they should cancel quiet lunch, I think it’s a fine option for some, but wanted to answer the pp that SOME kids can improve and reduce their sensitivities. Obviously for more severe cases it’s not as simple.

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty unbearable in the school cafeteria and I say that as a non-neurodiverse person. So I would push for this to continue.

OP how many days per week is quiet lunch offered? Are they talking about cutting gradually, or just scaling back, or eliminating it altogether?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a new trend in special needs. Teaching them skills to cope instead of special placements.

I would argue that the actual cafeteria gets the volume lowered. It's SO loud.

This. I'm all for skill building over time, but gradually. It's loud AF, and they're in a room with 24 other kids allllll day. It's fine for them to need a break. I don't know how teachers deal. Nobody should have to put up with that noise level all day long, period.

And yes this is about staffing.

I can't believe adults in this forum actually believe that kids with disabilities just need to work on skill building. It's amazing that you think some of the issues that lead to the need for quiet spaces just require skill building. Some of you really don't understand these disabilities. I'd be so embarrassed if I was you.