A mother has expressed anger at what she describes as an 'unacceptable delay' in telling her that her nine-year-old son went missing from school.Went missing how? Kidnapped? Abducted by aliens?
No. ‘Went missing’ is the wrong phrase – ‘absconded’ is a bit more correct:
Levi, who has been diagnosed with ADHD and recently started taking medication, left the school just after noon on Wednesday.
He made his way across two busy roads into Nelson town centre to his mother’s place of work at the bus interchange cafe, a distance of around half a mile.And mum is furious at her son for running out of school and for the trouble he caus…
Wait. No, she’s not. Of course she’s not. He can’t help it, can he, he’s got an ‘illness’:
Miss Broadbent said that she had not been told been told that Levi had run away from school when she returned from her lunch break to find him being looked after by a colleague at around 12.30pm.
She said: “Apparently something upset Levi, he became distressed and left the school premises.
“I’m not saying that staff there didn’t know he had gone but I feel angry and let down that I wasn’t told immediately that Levi had run away.”I feel ‘angry and let down’ that we allow parents to get away with thinking their child is the centre of the universe and must always be pandered to and cared for by everyone else. But I don’t think the newspapers would be interested in that, do you?
The commenters are having none of it, either:
billy32 says... Has she told her son off for leaving school premises, as for the school i think that because it was dinner break they could not watch everyone. If they locked the children in the playground the mother would probably complain about that. If the mother is not happy with the way the school has dealt with the situation then she should think about changing schools. At the end of the day the child was safe.Common sense isn’t so uncommon as I thought…
Sgl says... How can anyone dislike what Billy32 said? If I had run away from school my mother would have taken me straight back and made ME say sorry to the school for causing a problem. Sadly today, so many parents (and people generally) only care about THEIR rights and don't remember the responsibilities that need to go with them./cheer
InterpolNYC says... ADHD is just an excuse for misbehaviour - which gives the child the right to do as they please and the parents an excuse for their offsprings behaviour. It didn't exist in my day! And why go to the papers about this - seeking attention maybe?I think you might be spot on with that one. Of course, there’s always someone to excuse the culprits:
l m h jones says... http://www.nhs.uk/co nditions/Attention-d eficit-hyperactivity -disorder/Pages/Intr oduction.aspx nothing to do with parenting for those who claim that adhd "didnt exist" suggest that you research the subject. surely the point that the mother is attempting to make is that her child has identified SEN and should therefore have been identified as potentially at risk outside of a secure environment?Great! The answer is to lock him up in a ‘secure environment’ then, which a bog-standard off the peg school is clearly not.
Resurrect the Borstal System!
Never had ADHD in my day ....
ReplyDeletePrescription for ADHD: One nice flexible plimsole apply to bottom of patient as necessary after each attack.
ReplyDeleteSaid prescription worked in my day and there is no reason that it won't today.
Not as slow as July 16th:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2174781/Shes-alive-Heart-wrenching-moment-Lynsie-Johnson-reunited-girl-vanished.html
The 4-year-old 'vanished' for 90 minutes and was found playing with a friend in a nearby street.
It's not that I have no sympathy - on the contrary, I remember how it felt when my own child staged a couple of similar escapes (one from playgroup) at the age of 3 - but is it really national news?
JT, we did have hyperactivity back in the 60s - or at least I did, according to the health visitor - but 'attention deficit', like 'oppositional defiant disorder' (what we used to call being bloody-minded), is a relatively new appendage.
XX Resurrect the Borstal System! XX
ReplyDeleteResurect the "deported to Australia" system.
I was known to go AWOL.
ReplyDeleteUntil teatime.
"Said prescription worked in my day and there is no reason that it won't today."
ReplyDeleteApart from Childline and the SS....
"It's not that I have no sympathy - on the contrary, I remember how it felt when my own child staged a couple of similar escapes (one from playgroup) at the age of 3 - but is it really national news?"
It seems so - the news that two children in Manchester were missing overnight was headline news yesterday, until they were discovered, anyway. Are questions being asked now? I'd hope so.
"Resurect the "deported to Australia" system."
Bit tough on the Aussies..? ;)
Hmm. Then, I presume the French are not doing much with Devils Island, at present.
ReplyDeletePerhaps someone could explain to me how the school can keep a pupil in who wants to be out ?
ReplyDeleteThe teachers cannot restrain a pupil.
The parent can take the child to school and hand him/her to a teacher...and then the child will walk out straight away.
Been there.
AND the parent is then liable to prosecution, for which a not-guilty plea is not a possibility.
ADHD: modern lingo for "being a stroppy little shit". Ivan's method indeed works wonders. And we all know there are some kids that should be regularly beaten just on general principle.
ReplyDeleteDG, the plimsoll method fell rapidly into disfavour when a some particularly litigious parents went to Strasbourg over their son being 'slippered' at prep school.
ReplyDeleteThey eventually lost their claim that the punishment was 'degrading', but the case took 8 years to reach a judgement and caused much rewriting of school policy in that time.
The legacy of the case has much to do with the 'can't touch me' attitude among pupils today.
Julia, re missing children; one might argue that it is news as long as they are still missing and the report might bring in information, but to report it after the child is found (with a focus on the mother's emotional state) is pure sensationalism.