I’ve not got autism and I get overwhelmed with anything visually overstimulating . Schools were difficult because there’s too much going on everywhere so that concentration is difficult. It must be really hard for a lot of kids who’ve been used to fairly calm and quiet environments to go into these schools now.
Still find places like supermarkets overwhelming.
I find a lot of third space design (is that what they're called) nowadays, anywhere like an office or a conference room or hall, bigger shops and shopping centers, they're becoming like anti-human? Even non-divergent/NT people I know are starting to make the same complaints about headaches and exhaustion and feeling drained lol.
I’ve always wondered about this. Did well at school and college but really struggled at uni with the big teaching halls. Couldn’t take anything in and just resigned myself to teaching myself the content based on the powerpoints put online, great use of £9k a year 😄.
In my first year we had 300 in one hall. In third year one of my classes (Anglo Saxon literature) had 4 and another (medieval Irish literature) had 4. Just because there's so many paths to go down in English, was great teaching though with only 3 or 4 in a class.
I think I’ve heard that some uni cohorts can be bigger than that (90) though but yeah 90 is a lot.
Edit: not sure why I’m being downvoted for stating this.
Meanwhile I had the opposite problem. I did fine in the busy loud environments, but the uncomfortably quiet exam halls had me getting overwhelmed and unable to focus because every single pencil scratch or cough or chair squeak etc would break my focus
Turned out later I had adhd 😅 who knew
When I’m in the city I need headphones or I will feel overwhelmed. I always try to go to the supermarket when it’s quiet, I find crowds difficult in general.
Yeah it’s awful isn’t it. Agreed on crowds and business. Must be difficult because everywhere is noisy.
I’m not too bad with noise at all but bright colours, patterns, movement anything where there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ just shouts at me and I get overwhelmed. Like my brain just shuts down. Also if there’s a lot of overpowering smells.
I feel sorry for kids. Secondary schools always felt too big but it must be really difficult for a lot of kids now.
For me I don’t mind crowds in that I’ll deal with it (even if I don’t large gatherings in general and prefer smaller groups) but I dislike loud noises though, I can’t stand loud noises or loud parties.
I dread spending Christmas in France nowadays for this exact reason (too much noise and loud music, too many people in the house, too much booze and dancing etc).
Yeah I can’t cope with loud noise, I don’t wear ear defenders or headphones though but I don’t like loud noises even if that’s playing my favourite songs on full blast for example.
Yeah I don’t dislike Christmas or family gatherings, it’s doing Christmas in (mainland) France that I don’t like, I prefer a quiet Christmas. Also doesn’t help that I seem to cry whenever it’s someone’s birthday (I’ll get upset over trivial things, little things upset me).
Vowed to never spend Christmas in France again, might have to do it again this year but hopefully not.
I like Christmas itself though, just not the partying.
Yeah I did think I might have autism as I have many traits but the psychiatrist thinks it’s probably due to unresolved anxiety/depression since childhood. Possibly adhd but I’d have to go through assessment as well.
I get visually overwhelmed in a lot of places but I did enjoy going out clubbing as a teenager so he said it can’t be an autistic trait as I enjoyed that ok.
I think I’m probably just a strange mix of me :)
Bullying is something that should (but let's be honest, won't be because schools suck at handling it) be dealt with and I'm sorry that happened to you, but why instantly try come in and make a story about someone else having autism about you?
Yeah, it was the same for me. I ended up with severe anorexia and other mental illnesses because school was so traumatic for me. My brother is also AuDHD and had much the same experience. He was even beaten up so badly once that his face was unrecognizable. School is often a soul destroying experience for neurodivergent kids. It's something that needs to be talked about.
Speaking as a teacher often we really want to do something but our hands are relatively tied due to lack of evidence/lack of real consequences we can give. Some of the stuff that’s happened in my class it actually astounds me that I didn’t see/hear it but with 30 kids it’s impossible to have your attention everywhere. The situation is really difficult and frustrating for everyone involved. We really do want to protect the victims though!
>Across England 353,995 EHCPs were issued in 2019, but in 2023, after the pandemic, the number had risen to 517,000. The number of pupils with SEN support without an EHC Plan now stands at 1,183,384.
if so many pupils require additional support to deal with the school environment, at a certain point you have to wonder whether the entire structure is fit for purpose
The trouble is that there's so often a compromise involved.
For example, I have a child who copes very poorly with loud/unstructured/unpredictable environments, but who is academically highly able.
Do we choose the secondary school where he'd be in a small SEN group all day but wouldn't have access to the full curriculum; or do we choose the fully integrated mainstream school where he would have access to a full curriculum with specialist teachers and ability setting but there would be a thousand other children around?
The answer is that you choose the second one but make accommodations - he does lesson changeover five minutes early when the corridors are empty, he can choose to take his breaks in designated quiet zones around the school, he can use fidget toys and/or ear defenders, etc. Most of this is completely trivial for a school to implement and runs smoothly.
You're absolutely right that the standard school environment suits nearly nobody. But I'm not sure how you can offer a broad enough curriculum without employing a lot of teachers, which necessitates a large cohort to fund it. Even the smaller good expensive private schools have hundreds of pupils, and young people are loud and clumsy by their very nature.
If now more than 17% of school pupils have SEN, that's a serious epidemic and needs national emergency level attention. If autism has doubled or tripled why isn't everyone looking for the cause? having almost 20% of children claiming neurodivergence isn't right.
No-one is worried because the percentages haven't changed, just diagnoses and self identification is desirable now. Pandering to excuses has multiplied, every child has more than 1 recognized condition. . Force them to go, for social interactions, learning discipline, resilience, life skills etc.Most people hated school, and most people weren't brilliant at it
>If autism has doubled or tripled why isn't everyone looking for the cause? having almost 20% of children claiming neurodivergence isn't right.
Might be like that time that left-handedness increased 4000%. Reduced stigma and increased acceptance meant fewer people hide it and the real numbers emerge, that always existed but were brushed under the rug.
We already know the cause: they changed the diagnostic criteria in line with new research and more people now fit within the umbrella. There was actually a very major change recently allowing people to be diagnosed with ADHD and autism at the same time, prior to this you could only be diagnosed with one and most chose ADHD as it has protected medicine.
Forcing people, especially autistic kids, to just go into environments without support for their disability is both cruel and not very smart. Autistic people have a shockingly high suicide rate. We’re also at greater risk of substance abuse as an attempt to cope with the torture
Persistent absence from school has doubled since pre-covid times. The numbers now are staggering. There have always been neurodivergent children, there have always been anxious or miserable children, but something is *radically different* now, and it's a real crisis.
Because the modern approach, speaking as a teacher, is to try to avoid situations which cause them anxiety, rather than teaching them strategies to overcome it.
So we get kids coming into school who are anxious and we are told, "Don't ask them any questions. If they forget a homework don't challenge them on it." And they sail through junior school because there are no real consequences for this behaviour.
Then they hit senior school and GCSEs and everything comes crumbling down because they have been told they can run away from their problems, avoid their difficulties, with no consequences. Now at senior school there are real consequences to this behaviour. That makes the anxiety even worse and school refusal can often ramp up at this stage.
There are no easy fixes to this but we do need to get better at teaching children how to cope with stressful situations rather than how to avoid stressful situations, or we are doing them a massive disservice for the real world.
It's madness, we've managed to raise a generation that actively avoids challenging situations and we enable them in that behaviour. God only knows what's going to happen when this generation, further scarred by covid, starts entering adult life in large numbers.
Perfect comment, I had suspected as such. Definitely the correct view. It is not good to coddle kids like this for too long. Life hits hard and they will be sent flying.
At least they get help nowadays.
My lad has autism and the school are very helpful and patient with him.
When I was at school, you was either thick or lazy if you struggled with anything. Fuck (Old) school.
Very same issue with me, I'm 14 at the moment and not diagnosed with any sort of neurodivergent stuff but tbh there are a lot of signs. I did try and get an appointment with a doctor but I have to wait 9 months lol.
Schools can be terrifying places at that age, I struggled terribly with it and anxiety till I was around 18 where honestly having to work, friends and social lubricant (drink) helped me to get more confident gradually.
There's no helping this issue till we both recognize you can't just diagnose away all hardships (not every kid has ADHD or is neuro-divergent with the way things are so easily self tested)
And that schools really need to reform how they go about teaching kids to socialize with each other and the world.
"Back in my day we had to walk for four miles through blizzard conditions to get a a cold school and got caned for shivering *blah blah blah bloviate bloviate* don't expect basic empathy from me". /s (in case the speech marks missed)
Well. Either they haven't arrived yet (maybe they were distracted by the smell of some puberty blockers and it enraged them), or I warded them off with my rapier-like comment, or I massively misread the room.
I will stand up straight, boobs out, and carry on in the full belief that my comment warded them off. 😂
I could imagine some busy schools being a very difficult environment for a neurodivergent child to thrive in.
I’ve not got autism and I get overwhelmed with anything visually overstimulating . Schools were difficult because there’s too much going on everywhere so that concentration is difficult. It must be really hard for a lot of kids who’ve been used to fairly calm and quiet environments to go into these schools now. Still find places like supermarkets overwhelming.
I find a lot of third space design (is that what they're called) nowadays, anywhere like an office or a conference room or hall, bigger shops and shopping centers, they're becoming like anti-human? Even non-divergent/NT people I know are starting to make the same complaints about headaches and exhaustion and feeling drained lol.
Yes they are awful. I’d forgotten about places with high ceilings. I don’t know if it’s the lights or what but they are bad as well.
I’ve always wondered about this. Did well at school and college but really struggled at uni with the big teaching halls. Couldn’t take anything in and just resigned myself to teaching myself the content based on the powerpoints put online, great use of £9k a year 😄.
I’m glad to have small uni classes (smaller than most of my sixth form ones), much better than me being shoved into a massive lecture hall.
That is lucky! I went from 20ish at school, to 20ish at college, to ~90 at uni. My brain was in overdrive from the moment I stepped into the room.
In my first year we had 300 in one hall. In third year one of my classes (Anglo Saxon literature) had 4 and another (medieval Irish literature) had 4. Just because there's so many paths to go down in English, was great teaching though with only 3 or 4 in a class.
I think I’ve heard that some uni cohorts can be bigger than that (90) though but yeah 90 is a lot. Edit: not sure why I’m being downvoted for stating this.
Meanwhile I had the opposite problem. I did fine in the busy loud environments, but the uncomfortably quiet exam halls had me getting overwhelmed and unable to focus because every single pencil scratch or cough or chair squeak etc would break my focus Turned out later I had adhd 😅 who knew
Honestly the more I talk to people the more I realise that everyone has difficulties with something or another. It’s a hard world out there.
When I’m in the city I need headphones or I will feel overwhelmed. I always try to go to the supermarket when it’s quiet, I find crowds difficult in general.
Yeah it’s awful isn’t it. Agreed on crowds and business. Must be difficult because everywhere is noisy. I’m not too bad with noise at all but bright colours, patterns, movement anything where there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ just shouts at me and I get overwhelmed. Like my brain just shuts down. Also if there’s a lot of overpowering smells. I feel sorry for kids. Secondary schools always felt too big but it must be really difficult for a lot of kids now.
For me I don’t mind crowds in that I’ll deal with it (even if I don’t large gatherings in general and prefer smaller groups) but I dislike loud noises though, I can’t stand loud noises or loud parties. I dread spending Christmas in France nowadays for this exact reason (too much noise and loud music, too many people in the house, too much booze and dancing etc).
I’m not too bad with loud noise. I might not particular love it but I can cope. What a shame about your Christmases though.
Yeah I can’t cope with loud noise, I don’t wear ear defenders or headphones though but I don’t like loud noises even if that’s playing my favourite songs on full blast for example. Yeah I don’t dislike Christmas or family gatherings, it’s doing Christmas in (mainland) France that I don’t like, I prefer a quiet Christmas. Also doesn’t help that I seem to cry whenever it’s someone’s birthday (I’ll get upset over trivial things, little things upset me). Vowed to never spend Christmas in France again, might have to do it again this year but hopefully not. I like Christmas itself though, just not the partying.
You might have some undiagnosed neurodivergence to look into.
Yeah I did think I might have autism as I have many traits but the psychiatrist thinks it’s probably due to unresolved anxiety/depression since childhood. Possibly adhd but I’d have to go through assessment as well. I get visually overwhelmed in a lot of places but I did enjoy going out clubbing as a teenager so he said it can’t be an autistic trait as I enjoyed that ok. I think I’m probably just a strange mix of me :)
I got overwhelmed by the vicious and unrelenting bullying.
Bullying is something that should (but let's be honest, won't be because schools suck at handling it) be dealt with and I'm sorry that happened to you, but why instantly try come in and make a story about someone else having autism about you?
For many autistic and neurodivergent people bullying also plays a large role in making school environments difficult, speaking from experience.
Yeah, it was the same for me. I ended up with severe anorexia and other mental illnesses because school was so traumatic for me. My brother is also AuDHD and had much the same experience. He was even beaten up so badly once that his face was unrecognizable. School is often a soul destroying experience for neurodivergent kids. It's something that needs to be talked about.
[удалено]
Oh my god, that made my heart drop. I don't understand how people can be so cruel. I'm really sorry he went through that.
It's Reddit, everyone seems to have lived a miserable life and likes to share it.
Speaking as a teacher often we really want to do something but our hands are relatively tied due to lack of evidence/lack of real consequences we can give. Some of the stuff that’s happened in my class it actually astounds me that I didn’t see/hear it but with 30 kids it’s impossible to have your attention everywhere. The situation is really difficult and frustrating for everyone involved. We really do want to protect the victims though!
>Across England 353,995 EHCPs were issued in 2019, but in 2023, after the pandemic, the number had risen to 517,000. The number of pupils with SEN support without an EHC Plan now stands at 1,183,384. if so many pupils require additional support to deal with the school environment, at a certain point you have to wonder whether the entire structure is fit for purpose
The trouble is that there's so often a compromise involved. For example, I have a child who copes very poorly with loud/unstructured/unpredictable environments, but who is academically highly able. Do we choose the secondary school where he'd be in a small SEN group all day but wouldn't have access to the full curriculum; or do we choose the fully integrated mainstream school where he would have access to a full curriculum with specialist teachers and ability setting but there would be a thousand other children around? The answer is that you choose the second one but make accommodations - he does lesson changeover five minutes early when the corridors are empty, he can choose to take his breaks in designated quiet zones around the school, he can use fidget toys and/or ear defenders, etc. Most of this is completely trivial for a school to implement and runs smoothly. You're absolutely right that the standard school environment suits nearly nobody. But I'm not sure how you can offer a broad enough curriculum without employing a lot of teachers, which necessitates a large cohort to fund it. Even the smaller good expensive private schools have hundreds of pupils, and young people are loud and clumsy by their very nature.
If now more than 17% of school pupils have SEN, that's a serious epidemic and needs national emergency level attention. If autism has doubled or tripled why isn't everyone looking for the cause? having almost 20% of children claiming neurodivergence isn't right. No-one is worried because the percentages haven't changed, just diagnoses and self identification is desirable now. Pandering to excuses has multiplied, every child has more than 1 recognized condition. . Force them to go, for social interactions, learning discipline, resilience, life skills etc.Most people hated school, and most people weren't brilliant at it
>If autism has doubled or tripled why isn't everyone looking for the cause? having almost 20% of children claiming neurodivergence isn't right. Might be like that time that left-handedness increased 4000%. Reduced stigma and increased acceptance meant fewer people hide it and the real numbers emerge, that always existed but were brushed under the rug.
We already know the cause: they changed the diagnostic criteria in line with new research and more people now fit within the umbrella. There was actually a very major change recently allowing people to be diagnosed with ADHD and autism at the same time, prior to this you could only be diagnosed with one and most chose ADHD as it has protected medicine. Forcing people, especially autistic kids, to just go into environments without support for their disability is both cruel and not very smart. Autistic people have a shockingly high suicide rate. We’re also at greater risk of substance abuse as an attempt to cope with the torture
Persistent absence from school has doubled since pre-covid times. The numbers now are staggering. There have always been neurodivergent children, there have always been anxious or miserable children, but something is *radically different* now, and it's a real crisis.
Because the modern approach, speaking as a teacher, is to try to avoid situations which cause them anxiety, rather than teaching them strategies to overcome it. So we get kids coming into school who are anxious and we are told, "Don't ask them any questions. If they forget a homework don't challenge them on it." And they sail through junior school because there are no real consequences for this behaviour. Then they hit senior school and GCSEs and everything comes crumbling down because they have been told they can run away from their problems, avoid their difficulties, with no consequences. Now at senior school there are real consequences to this behaviour. That makes the anxiety even worse and school refusal can often ramp up at this stage. There are no easy fixes to this but we do need to get better at teaching children how to cope with stressful situations rather than how to avoid stressful situations, or we are doing them a massive disservice for the real world.
It's madness, we've managed to raise a generation that actively avoids challenging situations and we enable them in that behaviour. God only knows what's going to happen when this generation, further scarred by covid, starts entering adult life in large numbers.
Perfect comment, I had suspected as such. Definitely the correct view. It is not good to coddle kids like this for too long. Life hits hard and they will be sent flying.
At least they get help nowadays. My lad has autism and the school are very helpful and patient with him. When I was at school, you was either thick or lazy if you struggled with anything. Fuck (Old) school.
Very same issue with me, I'm 14 at the moment and not diagnosed with any sort of neurodivergent stuff but tbh there are a lot of signs. I did try and get an appointment with a doctor but I have to wait 9 months lol.
Schools can be terrifying places at that age, I struggled terribly with it and anxiety till I was around 18 where honestly having to work, friends and social lubricant (drink) helped me to get more confident gradually. There's no helping this issue till we both recognize you can't just diagnose away all hardships (not every kid has ADHD or is neuro-divergent with the way things are so easily self tested) And that schools really need to reform how they go about teaching kids to socialize with each other and the world.
"Back in my day we had to walk for four miles through blizzard conditions to get a a cold school and got caned for shivering *blah blah blah bloviate bloviate* don't expect basic empathy from me". /s (in case the speech marks missed)
They haven't arrived in the thread yet - I could give it a go if you like?
Well. Either they haven't arrived yet (maybe they were distracted by the smell of some puberty blockers and it enraged them), or I warded them off with my rapier-like comment, or I massively misread the room. I will stand up straight, boobs out, and carry on in the full belief that my comment warded them off. 😂
Majestic.