Day care (and other situations) and violence

[Guest guest]

Hi, Jeneane,

I have been thinking for a while about your note that says or

implies that hitting and biting are a normal stage of child development

for all kids, NT, ASD, and otherwise. I think that many in our society

do believe that (though I don't think it can be found in many child

development texts). May I challenge you (and other listmates) to put on

another way of looking at that for a few minutes and see how it works for

you?

What if we were to say that violence is *never* appropriate and must

be dealt with immediately and firmly whenever it raises its head at

whatever age?

I come to this from a homeschooler bias. I know many homeschoolers

(lots of them Christian like me but lots who are not). Regardless of

religious faith (or lack thereof) we *all* seem to have one factor in

common. Violence is *never* appropriate in our classes. I am in a co-op

with twelve homeschooling families, and a Bible study with a huge

homeschooler contingent (and classes offered up to twelfth grade), and a

church with a lot of homeschoolers in Sunday school, etc. I must say

that zero tolerance for violence *does* work when you have small classes.

I have never known of an incident of violence in our co-op, though there

is a preschooler class for ages 3 and 4, as well as a nursery for younger

siblings. If there were a violent incident, the class would immediately

be stopped until it was dealt with. I think knowing that keeps the kids

aware of good boundaries and makes violence non-existent among us.

We are not perfect people nor are we in search of perfect kids or

Utopia. We simply don't tolerate violence (nor verbal abuse) and it

works well for us. My ASD son is safe there, too.

I do believe that smaller class sizes have a lot to do with this,

too, and therefore I understand why those who don't or can't homeschool

often look to private schools or charter schools. Our public school

system, while pretty good on paper, has too few staff for too many

students, IMHO. That leads, little by little, to toleration of violence.

When you have 30 kids, you can't even watch them all in class, let alone

on the playground. So it is easy to say, " Well, a little hitting and

kicking won't hurt anything " (out of frustration that you can't stop it)

until we have redefined the human existence as one in which we find

violence to be a natural part.

I am not saying that we don't all *feel* like being violent

sometimes. As a Christian, I actually believe that is part of human

nature. But we can be raised in a way in which we don't act out our

violent feelings. The learning curve is longer for some ASD kids and

there can be safe, smaller classes for them until they learn to not hurt

other students.

I wonder whether the immature minds of some middle schoolers

understand the different levels of violence and how to de-escalate them

instead of escalate them? I mean, we allow a child who is different (or

any other child) to be kicked, hit, and verbally abused, then he crosses

a line into fighting back with a gun. Does he see the difference? Or by

tolerating " a little violence " are we not setting ourselves up for " a lot

of violence " at the extreme end of things? Just some thoughts, for what

they are worth, M.