Imagine how unsafe you would have to feel before you would punch somebody.
Imagine how threatened you would have to feel before you would intentionally knock things over and run away.
Imagine how distressed you would have to be to throw yourself to the floor rather than go somewhere.
Really imagine it. Really imagine your self, right now, in your body, in your life, how you would have to feel.
Imagine it was expected of you to go be with the person making you feel that unsafe, at the place making you feel that threatened, doing things that make you feel that distressed, for about 18,200 more hours of your life before you were allowed to stop. Before you had any hope of escape.
One of the most important things that I tell the adults at IEP meetings is, “There is a level of sensory input at which you would react the way this child is reacting. Their reactions are based on their lived experience. Their lived experience is just different than yours.”
Imagine being kept in a constant, chronic state of that feeling of unsafety, threat, distress.
Many people choose to take their kids out of school, because of this. I am in full support of that decision when people can make it. I also work in schools and so it is equally important to me to say: We have to keep working to make the schools not be like that.
