Being in the right frame of mind - and the rights of the child.

Will Donald Trump be the only president prepared to protect America's children ?

• Being in the right frame of mind - and the rights of the child -by Ange Anderson

  
  

  I can remember a particular event quite clearly. It was 13 years ago. A friend was a senior manager in the special needs school I taught in. She was summoned to meet with the head teacher of her stepson’s school, across the road from where we taught, because of a behaviour incident that he was involved in.

  Her stepson had walked into school that morning and assaulted a new boy who had been aggravating a boy with obvious learning difficulties.

  I can’t recall how the situation was dealt with but I know it was dealt with. With the knowledge that the school had of the incident itself.

   I can recall that her stepson had been full of pent-up frustration the morning that the incident occurred. He wasn’t really in the right frame of mind to be in school.

  Schools in England will now be surveyed on how they currently deal with mental health issues. Politicians have asked for a counselor in every school.

  Theresa May has declared that secondary school teachers will be given training over the next three years to help identify mental health problems in pupils. Teachers need to be supported to both identify and respond to issues. But parents have to take some responsibility too.

  The night before the incident in school my friend’s stepson had witnessed his alcoholic father being abusive to her. His father had lost his job that morning and was indignant. He had watered the seeds of indignation with bottles of whiskey throughout the day.

  Her fourteen- year old stepson seemed more used to the scene that was unfolding than she was. She had been married less than a year.

   She was pregnant. She told me that she locked herself in another room to protect herself and unborn baby. Her stepson cried out constantly to his dad to leave her alone as his father tried for an hour to batter the door down before falling into an alcoholic stupor. She told me that a few days later, as the three of them ate his dinner of remorse, her husband confessed he had felt impotent rage about losing his job. He claimed also to be irrationally annoyed that no meal was waiting for him when he arrived home- minutes after she and his son had returned from their respective schools.

   So what kind of frame of mind did she allow her stepson to go to school on the morning after the night of 'impotent rage'? She said she knew that he had desperately wanted to help her that night but felt helpless. He was very respectful of his father. He was leading up to that age when fathers and boys sometimes lock horns- being almost on the cusp of manhood.

  When she was summoned by his head teacher and informed of his actions she says that she immediately understood why he had done it.

  I remember too when I was in my first year of teaching and 'on supply'. It was my first job, and it was as a supply metalwork teacher in a secondary school. I had absolutely no training in the subject but was told that, as I was to just deliver the theory, I would be okay. I was given the necessary text books to read up on.

  On my very first day, a fourteen- year old boy, in my class, peed on the floor as he sat at his desk. When I questioned him he just stared at me. Another pupil, thinking he was being helpful, I suppose, rushed out to get the head of department.

  The head of department was the woodwork teacher. He came into the classroom, went up to the desk and got out what I thought was a ruler. He proceeded to hit the boy over the knuckles. I was horrified. The other boys looked on as if it were a regular occurrence. As the teacher turned to put the small hammer back in the drawer the boy ran out of the class.

  The boy locked himself in a toilet. The head of school managed to coax him out of the toilet. Once out of the toilet the headmaster told the boy that he would have to inform his father of what had happened. The boy then punched the headmaster in the face, giving him a black eye. That black eye lasted for weeks. It was a real shiner.

   I reported what I had seen to the headmaster. When the situation was properly investigated it was found that the boy’s mother had died of cancer that morning at home. His father thought he was doing the best thing by sending his son to school.

  The British government faces a challenge in trying to pinpoint the best treatment and support for mental health problems among young people. Thankfully, in Great Britain today, teachers can no longer hit children. They would be put in prison for it.

  The American government face an even greater challenge in trying to pinpoint the best treatment and support for mental health problems among young people. Why is it that nineteen states still allow corporal punishment in their schools?

  In 2016 a federal data analysis found that on average, one child is hit,by a teacher,in public school every 30 seconds somewhere in the United States. In one Florida school students in woodwork classes actually make the paddles used for corporal punishment. The paddle, it says, is about “16 inches long, 5 inches wide, and half an inch thick and made of ash wood,” deemed to be a “good size” by the school.

  There is no evidence to support claims that corporal punishment helps modify disruptive behaviour. If we were to actually look into the cause of the behaviours that warrant corporal punishment would we find similar true stories to the two I have written about?

   Why then is it okay to punish a teenager already traumatised?

  The United States of America is the only country in the world that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

   ‘From a young age, many children — particularly students of colour and those with disabilities — are funnelled out of the schoolroom and into prison for childhood behaviour. Children as young as six years old have been removed from the classroom in handcuffs for throwing temper tantrums’. (1)

  
  

   How a society treats its children is a direct reflection of how that society looks at its future. In Trump's reign as president of the United States do we dare hope that he will strive to ensure that they do sign up to the most important document in the world for protecting children’s rights?

  I am thankful to be working in Great Britain as they look to support our teenagers suffering from mental health issues. But I do wonder how teachers can be trained to spot those suffering from these issues when boys of that age often do not want anyone to know.

   The current trend for schools to include mindfulness in the curriculum is certainly to be applauded for the possible benefits to pupils as a method of stress management, particularly when it enlists the parts of the brain that would otherwise be engaging in worrying or in preparing an unneeded flight-or-fight reaction. 

   But I think the answer for those actually suffering from mental health issues could be the use of trained counselors. The counselors would need to be pro-active, trustworthy and likeable.

  At any rate at least it would be a start.

  And what could my friend have done better as a parent? Perhaps she should not have let her workaholic nature determine the way the ‘day after the night before’ went when she decided that going to school came first on her list of priorities.

  Then perhaps her stepson would not have been in school to be put in the position that he found himself in. And she might not have lost the baby she was carrying.

  On the same day that her stepson lashed out, getting rid of pent up frustration from the night before, she came to work, looking exhausted.

   That same morning, she was kicked in the stomach several times by a teenager in the special school we both taught in. The child suffered with severely challenging behaviour and autism. He was not a pupil from her own class. His frustrations were more to do with not finding the videos he was looking for. Apparently they used to be in her class. In his own way he was traumatised. And she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Thankfully it wasn’t in America. Otherwise he may have ended up in prison. And so too might her stepson.

   ‘Children in these prisons are denied a meaningful education and adequate mental health treatment, have been held in solitary confinement and are sometimes subject to physical and sexual abuse. The United States remains the only country in the world to sentence children to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a severe punishment that is categorically prohibited under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. ‘(1)

  Michelle Obama, the former president's wife ,gave a very moving final official speech in which she said “I want our young people to know that they matter.”

  Donald Trump can show the world that they do indeed matter. By ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

  
  

  References

  1.Sarah Mehta, researcher at ACLU, Human Rights program 

  
  
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