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School Exclusion

Dav2

Hi everyone 

New to posting. My son who is 13 years old really struggling in school no ECHP but incoming diagnosis after being on the waiting list. Has a love art and graffiti which we channeled in a safe environment at home. Unfortunately this has extended to the toilets at across the whole school  network. He had no idea of the consequences.  It has led to a fixed exclusion due to the scale of it. It became a way of coping and stimming to deal with the pressure he feels at school not as deliberate vandalism.The school  are not very supportive and just dealing with him as a vandalising the school. He feels very broken and so scared to return to school. He is started telling me he has no purpose which is so upsetting. He’s such a lovely boy with not even a behaviour point before this who has channeled his anxiety into something very destructive. We are feel a it broken this last three days. Any advice out there are comments would be so welcomed 

  • Dav2 said:
    It became a way of coping and stimming to deal with the pressure he feels at school not as deliberate vandalism.

    I think the more immediate thing to address if to change his stimming mechanisms. Maybe get him into sketching or painting to give a more acceptable and portable solution under the guise of art class.

    There is an element of creativity and expression there but I think what the driver is will be the social credibility he earns from his classmates for fighting agains the system. Perhaps you could find if there are any organisations that clean up graffitti and sign him up to them as part of his re-education in this aspect.

    At 13 he will be old enough to know that what he is doing is wrong but the thrill of doing it is probably more than the consequences were at the time, so I would remind him of why he is where he is and help him take responsibility for his actions.

    If you can show he has made significant improvements in his antisocial behaviour to the next school then it should make his acceptance much easier.

  • I wonder if a social story or comic strip story or similar might help him to understand the difference between art and vandalism. Is he good with rules? A clear rule that we need permission before we can do our art on something might be helpful?

    I'm sorry the school haven't been supportive. I can understand from the schools perspective they cannot allow graffiti in their toilets. But some understanding as to why he did it and how they can support him in the future would be helpful. It would be good if they could allow him an outlet for his art to help him cope rather than him needing to resort to doing it in the toilets.

  • in reply to Bunny

    Thanks for the information. We are going to remove him from this school it can not support his needs and lol for another school that has strong SEND reputation 

  • Hi and welcome to the community.

    I‘m sorry to hear of your son‘s struggles. You might find the advice here helpful:

    NAS - Education - Exclusion

    There’s a lot of other useful information here too, including about resolving differences with his school and about getting extra help for him:

    NAS - School education