Excluded possibly expelled for naiveté

School need to try and think about Jealous Dogs developmental age as opposed to his chronological age. Many adopted children due to trauma are lagging behind developmentally, even if cognitively they appear on a par with the peers. He responded to something he thought was cool/wanted without being able to think about the consequences just as a much younger child might. I am always trying to remind Lapwing and Peewits school that they are developmentally about 3 and 4 - its a very hard thing for school to grasp especially if the child can appear articulate. Sorry no useful article, if I come across one will send a link.

Intersting to know nzhb We went in to school and explained in more depth about developmental delay and discovered they had all ready contacted the attachment research community and were "on it." They have been very good since. Jealous Dog gets mentoring with the Chaplain every week - he is very switched on and doing a better job than any therapist ever has in helping JD. Finger crossed. We do take every opportunity to say "oh look at that how daft you could get expelled for that" at every opportunity.

My daughter was excluded from school for this too - she she was 12 she took in a penknife to cut an apple, like her grannie did when she was out on a walk. I will never really know if she behaved inappropriately with it but it was reported and she was excluded and she tells us she did nothing threatening. The school never understood despite previous issues, despite CAMHS being involved, despite her Family Therapist being involved etc etc. After that (and, admittedly, some other strange behaviours) she was certainly considered a 'bad girl'. I think I talked about it on here at that time. Eventually I moved her to the school that I teach in. But now, everybody round here knows her as 'that girl who took a knife into school'. It followed her at every sporting event between the schools etc etc and has been a real nightmare for her. Now she has gone to college and has had to face it again with young people from that school being on her college course.

So its very, very important that the school handle it well, with sensitivity and privacy. Ours so totally didn't. The other parents round us didn't handle it well either. All her 'friends' except one dropped her like a hot potato. Weren't allowed to play with her, they said.   There are very few schools who actually 'get it'. They all say they do. They all dance the dance. Now, especially with funding cuts, performance pressures, no CAMHS etc, in my opinion they especially don't get it unless it is an inner city school who are dealing with this all the time and have NO OPTION but to face issues like this and learn how to make it better.

We are very rural. We are pretty isolated. It completely fed into the narrative that we are 'that weirdo family'. Which, of course, we are.   But we have become very, very knowledgable about all the stuff our children have had to face because that is what we all have to do.