Parent Blaming

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Parent Blaming

One of the main requests we hear from people asking for advice is, “Don’t read it from a book.” We often hear, “I don’t want a guy in a suit shouting some theory at me.” Almost everyone has experienced not being believed or supported in the right way, and ironically, we’ve probably all been guilty of not believing others at some point too. Why should we be any different?

Some professionals have suggested to parents that maybe they aren’t feeding their child properly or that they should just try listening or being nicer. What tends to happen is that when parents ask for support, they’re often blamed for not doing things right. It usually becomes a cycle of:

“What are you doing?”

“You need to make this different.”

or

“Why is this happening? What did you do to make this happen?”

So parents are often criticised rather than supported when they ask for help. Now, not all professionals are like this — I’ve had the privilege of meeting many who are superb — but I’ve also met plenty who aren’t. I’ll be honest, until I left my job as a teacher, I didn’t realise how common parent blaming was.

On a daily basis, a parent will give us a detailed account of something that’s actually a breach of law. It might sound far-fetched, but it’s true. A parent once told us that whenever their child’s behaviour became too extreme for the primary school, they were placed in a room alone for the entire day. No one was in there with her, the room was locked, she had work to do, and it was considered “therapeutic” by the school. This happened repeatedly and was classed as an internal exclusion.

When I hear something like this, I know I don’t have the full story. It’s easy to react emotionally and call out the practice publicly, but without every piece of the puzzle, that’s not my place. However, if this account is true, it’s at best a breach of the Restraint Reduction Network and at worst, illegal. It would be classed as seclusion — one of the most extreme forms of restriction. This kind of intervention should only ever happen “in extremis” and typically only under the Mental Capacity Act. In short, this is a very bad situation.

Why have I gone off topic? Because in this case, no one realised it was wrong. The parent was told it was acceptable, so they believed it. The school assumed “this is what we’re supposed to do.” The parent was even told they should be enforcing these boundaries and respecting the school. So, once again, the parent was blamed for not being able to control the child — which simply isn’t true.

To put it clearly: the parent was told it was therapeutic and in the child’s best interest. Meanwhile, the child was being traumatised daily and naturally didn’t want to go to school. What does the parent do? They push their child to attend. Then they come to us asking, “Why won’t my child go to school?” Well… if you locked me in a room every time I was upset, I’d fight tooth and nail to avoid going back. And when you finally opened that door, I wouldn’t be very pleasant about it.

What is that child learning? Adults don’t listen. “I’ve told my mum I don’t like it, but she won’t listen.” School is there to punish, not to help.

Then it often escalates. The school might move the child to a part-time timetable because they “can’t handle a full day.” So what does the child learn now? If I’m aggressive enough, they’ll send me home. That’s much better than being locked in a room. If it were me, I’d be smashing windows as soon as I got there.

We know of many pupils who have been on part-time timetables for years, which is not what they’re meant for. In fact, it’s unlawful to send a child home for behaviour without formally suspending them — even if the parent agrees. Part-time timetables should only ever be temporary, lasting 8–12 weeks at most, while the school puts proper support in place. It’s the school’s legal duty to educate the child.

I don’t underestimate how tough it is to work with challenging pupils in mainstream settings — it’s a difficult job. But if a child is sent home for behaviour, it should be recorded as a suspension. That record then clearly shows that the school can’t meet need, providing evidence to support an EHCP application.

Anyway, I started talking theory again, didn’t I? The point is, when someone says, “Have you tried this?” most parents respond with, “Well, you do it then!” We’re probably the only people who say, “Okay, let’s do it.” We tell parents to sit down, have a cup of tea, and watch us fail if that’s what happens — and that’s fine. We live what we teach. We aren’t just people in suits; this is our life, our experience.

As a company, we’ll make mistakes. As a teacher, I’ve made thousands. I’d be more concerned if a professional told me they’d never made any. Mistakes are how we learn, improve, and understand what works. We know what to do now because we’ve done it wrong hundreds of times — we’ve said the wrong things and made the wrong choices.

So why are we any different? Because instead of just giving advice, we lead by example. We offer practical solutions that actually help, not just “Have you tried being nice to your child?” There are many fantastic professionals out there, and there are many who aren’t helping — our goal is to be part of the first group.

Now, this is a contentious topic, so here is some legal guidance to help my point.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/6cs/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2016/07/capbs-seclusion-isolation.pdf

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/pages/category/exclusion-from-school

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/faqs/part-time-timetable

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