Blame The System, Not The Child
If you’re angry at the children you support, it’s time to take a step back
When our anger gets misplaced
When I say ‘misplaced’, I don’t mean I temporarily lost my anger, although that would be kind of funny — and not all that unusual, considering I have ADHD and lose things all the time.
In this case I am using a different definition of the word, which means to direct a feeling towards someone or something wrongly, or in a way that does not show good judgment.
Priorities and accountability
“If something happens, we’re the ones who shoulder the responsibility.”
An Educational Assistant (EA) said this to me in a meeting once. My son had had an EA looking over his shoulder for months, and it was (justifiably) driving him crazy.
Can you imagine having someone nitpick at your every move, redirect you every single time you were “off task”, even for a second? How can a child learn, explore, connect with peers (or anyone), when they have someone breathing down their neck all day long?
They can’t. He couldn’t.
I had suggested they give him some space and was immediately met with resistance. I wasn’t saying he didn’t need support, at that time he did, but their “support” was making things worse instead of helping.
The EA was more worried about getting into trouble than about providing effective support for my son. That said, I don’t entirely blame them, because I believe there was some truth to their statement.
From my experience, their administrator was likely putting a lot of pressure on them to be within arm’s reach of my son at all times. She was instilling fear in her staff, leading them to believe something “bad” was going to happen and they’d be held accountable.
I replied that it must be an unhealthy working environment if someone is operating under the fear of getting in trouble with their superiors. That’s not how supportive leadership works.
The EA was more worried about getting into trouble than about providing effective support for my son.
More importantly, their concern was what was best for themselves, not my son or the other children in the school.
That’s messed up.
They were mad at the wrong person
This EA was frustrated. My son had been really struggling, and the EA believed the school had been trying everything. (Spoiler alert: they definitely were not).
They had tried a number of half-assed supports, only partially following the recommendations from their clinical staff, and the accommodations required per my son’s IEP.
My son’s emotional health, sense of connection and community, and feeling valued by school staff were not made a priority at all. Compliance and convenient behaviours were the priority for them. He did not trust the school staff, and for very good reason.
Thus, their attempts at modifying my son’s behaviour were ineffective. He didn’t feel accepted or cared about, they made him feel like a “bad” kid, not someone the school welcomed and appreciated.
The EA, with help from her administrator’s influence, viewed my son as the problem. He was only 7 years old at the time, in grade two. Apparently he was responsible for the trauma the school had caused him, not the adults in the building.
Instead of being frustrated with their poor leadership, lack of support, and lack of resources, the EA took her anger out on my son.
Imagine if she and others had pushed back instead, explaining that if things weren’t working for a 7 year old child, perhaps it was the school who needed to change, not a second grader?
I am all for personal responsibility
I’m not saying children should never be held accountable. I believe they should, but only to a degree that is developmentally and situationally appropriate, and in a gentle way with the intent to teach skills.
Speaking of personal responsibility, I want to acknowledge that this is a very human response, especially when we’ve been trained or taught to see things this way.
In our education system, and other systems, programs are rooted in behaviourism. We see the child and their behaviour as the problem and avoid looking at how the context and environment are contributing to their distress.
A little story
When I was a green young youth worker, I totally had this same attitude (although I will say, I was about 20 years old at the time, whereas this EA was in her 30s and a mother herself).
In my first job out of College, I worked in a group home with teens. I wish I could go back and do about 90% of things differently, but I didn’t know better (yet). I do now, so I try very hard to do a hell of a lot better.
I remember frequently telling youth they needed to “make better choices”, threatening and doling out consequences for noncompliance (ew).
We had zero trauma-informed training or practices and reacted only to the behaviour of the youth, with little to no regard for the trauma they had endured and were still enduring.
The management was awful. Not only did they take this approach with the youth, they also behaved this way toward their staff. There was no support, only blame and shame.
Similar to the EA, we operated under constant fear of getting in trouble, yet were not given the tools to do any better — which was exactly what we were doing to the teens in our care.
Instead of pushing back against harmful policies and bullying from management, we often directed our frustrations towards the youth. It was their fault because they were not doing the right thing, not making “good choices”, not following our directions.
Of course they weren’t. Our rules were shit, and living in that house was compounding their trauma on a daily basis. I would have behaved so much worse had I been in their shoes.
It’s not okay
While it’s a completely human response, it is never okay for us to take our anger and frustration out on the children in our care. We need to hold ourselves and each other accountable, and support one another to do better.
If we notice a colleague struggling, we need to offer help, or talk to someone who can. Standing idly by while an adult is behaving in a harmful manner toward a child makes us complicit in their actions.
To be clear, I’m not just talking about our duty to report abusive behaviour. I’m talking about misdirected anger, snarky comments, inconsistent and unfair use of consequences, and anything which hurts instead of helps the child.
If an adult is burnt out and needs support, or even just to switch out for a little bit, they need to be able to do that. Whether it’s at home where you tag out with a co-parent, or at work, where you switch off with a co-worker so they can take a minute to regain their composure.
Working with children can be amazing. It can also be incredibly stressful and exhausting, even more so within systems which are under-resourced and under-funded.
We need to take care of ourselves and each other, so we can be our best for the vulnerable children in our care. We deserve that. They deserve that.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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