How to restrain a child

Inside a Training Course Where School Workers Learn How to Physically Restrain Students — ProPublica

This week’s ProPublica Illinois newsletter is written by Jennifer Smith Richards, a Chicago Tribune reporter who has been working with ProPublica Illinois reporters Jodi S. Cohen and Lakeidra Chavis to investigate the use of seclusion and restraint in Illinois public schools.

In the year that we’ve reported on restraint and seclusion, we have worked hard to become experts on the topic.

We’re not educators, but we are dedicated learners. We read books and studies about how to work with children who have behavior disorders, and we talked to academic experts and researchers across the country about seclusion, or confining students in a place they can’t leave, and physical restraint. We learned by observing, too. ProPublica Illinois reporting fellow Lakeidra Chavis and I spent two days watching a Crisis Prevention Institute, or CPI, training for educators in the Chicago suburbs.

We saw school workers learn about verbal de-escalation and how to safely break free if a student grabs their hair or bites them. We saw how a CPI trainer walked them through standing and seated restraints and how to decide what type to use.

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But we wanted to learn by doing, too. So I asked my editors at the Chicago Tribune to send me to a five-day training in Peoria last March. They agreed that this would help me better understand what school employees are supposed to do during a crisis. The state currently requires school workers who use physical restraint to be trained at least once every two years and to be taught alternatives to restraint, including de-escalation techniques.

Therapeutic Crisis Intervention, a Cornell University-based program, did not want an observer in the small session but agreed to allow one of us to participate.

So I signed up.

I learned about how children cycle through a crisis and how to help them calm down when upset, and I practiced how to stand in a nonthreatening way. I acted out scenarios with the other class members, playing the role of the compassionate adult and then the irate child.

And then, when it was time to practice physical restraints, the trainers leading the class pulled out mats.

Four Ways Students are Restrained

The crisis-management systems commonly used in schools train employees in how to physically control students who pose a danger to themselves or others. Standing and seated restraints are typically taught; some systems also include restraints that take place on the floor.

Standing restraints are meant to restrict a child’s arms. A school worker can cross the student’s arms over his chest from behind, as shown here, or grasp the arms while standing beside the child. In seated restraints, adults use their lower bodies to hold the child still and secure the student’s arms across their bodies. Supine restraints begin with a “takedown,” and staff members then secure the student’s arms and legs. Care should be taken not to put pressure on the child’s joints. Typically, at least three staff members participate. Prone, or facedown, restraints begin like supine restraints. Employees then turn the student onto his front and secure his arms and legs. Workers are told to avoid putting pressure on the student’s back, which can inhibit breathing.

The trainees got paired up to go through the motions of restraining a child: standing, sitting, how to do a “takedown” to the floor. Everyone else there had taken TCI courses before, knew the material and was preparing to teach the methods back at the residential facilities, psychiatric hospitals and schools where they worked.

I was the new student, which meant I had a lot of catching up to do. I spent the evenings studying in my hotel room.

The seriousness with which the trainers and the participants approached the physical training has stayed with me. The trainers began by issuing some dire warnings: Restraints gone wrong can be deadly. You should never restrain a child when your emotions aren’t in check. And do not deviate from the techniques being taught — the safety of the worker and the child depends on doing them correctly.

The participants went through most of the motions in silence. You could have heard a pin drop. I found myself holding my breath.

Having read the details of thousands of restraints that had taken place in Illinois public schools, seeing versions of those holds happen step-by-step in slow motion — with a willing adult, not a child, as the person being restrained — brought a critical point into focus for me: Restraint is intense. Forceful. Physically taxing. A child is being controlled with adult bodies.

At the end of the training, we took a written test on the material and then performed a graded role-playing scenario in which we had to pretend to debrief with a child after a crisis. (Yes, I passed both the test and the role-playing exercise.)

I’m not going to apply the training in my job, of course. But it was important for me to be there. When it came time for us to write about how schools in Illinois were using physical restraint, we understood those techniques, how they are taught, what it feels like — at least a little — to use them.

That insight helped us to answer this question as we analyzed 50,000 pages of incident reports to write the project: Did the workers do what they’d been taught?

In so many cases, the answer was no. The training made it clear that physical restraint should be used only in a safety emergency, but we documented thousands of times when school employees restrained children for inappropriate reasons.

When students refused to come in from the playground or balked at putting away a toy from home, staff members used restraint to control them. I thought back to the warnings the trainers had issued against performing restraint when you’re angry or frustrated. I thought back to those moments on the mats when the trainees were holding down arms and legs and how, even when the person being restrained offered no resistance, the act felt so visceral, so invasive.

Even before we published our story on physical restraint, Illinois schools had begun to change their practices in response to our reporting. As part of emergency actions the Illinois State Board of Education took the day after we published our initial story about seclusion, the agency restricted the types of restraint that could be used. Permanent rules are in the works now.

We’ll continue to report on what’s happening. Thanks for reading — and learning — with us.

To tell us about seclusion or restraint practices at your child’s school, email us.

Things to think about before restraining your child SEND VCB Blog 6

Parents of children who have an additional need and who also can be violent at home often ask me how to best restrain their child, or if I know of any training providers who could train them in restraint methods. Restraining children is such a difficult issue, and everyone understandably has very strong views on it.

Broadly speaking, there are two opposing points of view among parents of children with SEND VCB (Special Educational Needs and Disability, Violent and Challenging Behaviour). One set believe that their child’s violence and self-injurious behaviour is so extreme that restraint is, at times, an absolute necessity. The other group of parents believe that restraint should never ever be used, and if it is used, it should only ever be as an absolute last resort when there is imminent and significant danger to life.

The two viewpoints can seem so diametrically opposed that there is no, or very little common ground, and this can lead to disagreements, conflicts and heated debate which is always sad. Parents can find these disagreements very hurtful and divisive, when ideally we should all be pulling together in the same direction and supporting each other.

However, “restraint” as a word is very emotive, and can conjure up images of big burly blokes pinning a child to the ground, and sometimes by using that word parents are giving completely the wrong impression of what they are actually doing. Sometimes it’s a parent’s role to prevent our children doing something, and most parents have physically held on tightly to a small child near traffic to keep them safe. If by “restraint” what you really mean is “I had to hold him back to stop him kicking his brother” it’s probably better if you explain exactly what you did and why, and don’t actually use the word “restraint” in case it wrongly rings alarm bells in others.

Restraint training is now increasingly called “Safe Handling”, and training is generally only available to staff members from organisations such as schools, local authorities, play schemes, respite centres or similar facilities. It is very difficult for parents to access this sort of training, and there are some very good reasons for this. Here are just some of them.

1. When children are in the midst of a SEND VCB episode, they are not misbehaving, they are in the deepest distress possible. Their behaviour is a direct result of their “Fight and Flight” response being triggered by extreme anxiety and fear. At that moment, they are not aware that they are lashing out at those they love the most, instead, they believe that they are fighting for their very survival. To restrain a child who is already in the deepest of distress will only escalate their fears and anxieties, and is more likely to escalate the situation rather than to calm it down.

2. A good way to think of it is to compare a child in the middle of a SEND VCB episode with an injured wild animal, who will also have had their “fight or flight” response activated. The wild animal is hurt and scared, and you only want to help, but if you approach and try to “restrain” them to take them to the vet for help, they will panic even more, and kick and bite and scratch all the more, trying to escape.

3. When staff restrain a child, they are working as part of a team. They would be unlikely to restrain alone, or to take a decision to restrain on their own either. During the act of restraining, there are likely to be colleagues in the vicinity who will witness what is happening, and who can corroborate that such actions were justified, that they were carried out according to policy, and that undue force was not used. Every incident that restraint is used is recorded. Organisations also have robust insurance policies which are likely to include legal cover for staff members who are accused of wrong-doing in relation to restraining. Parents have none of these safeguards, checks and balances.

4. A family home is a completely different environment which makes it a very different situation regarding restraint. Often during SEND VCB episodes, there is only one adult present, which means there are no witnesses to corroborate that it was done fairly, with no undue force being used. Acting alone makes parents incredibly vulnerable to accusations of abuse. How can a parent defend themselves if a bruise is noticed on a child a few days later, and the child tells their teacher that “mummy did it”? Sadly though, it may not just be a bruise. Restraint injuries can be much more serious, including broken bones or dislocated joints, and tragically sometimes, even death. Restraint can and does go wrong, with catastrophic results sometimes, even when it’s being carried out by members of staff who have been highly trained in safe methods of restraint or safe handling.

5. We are emotionally involved with our children, and our relationship with them is entirely different. This means that restraining an already highly distressed child risks breaking down their trust in us, or their belief that we love them. It also means that when our children are in the middle of a SEND VCB episode, we are likely to also be triggering our own “Fight and Flight” responses. When that happens, we are unable to access the frontal lobe part of our brain which is responsible for our judgement, problem solving, self-control and rational thinking. Basically, if we restrain a child in this “heat of the moment” situation when we are unable to use these essential skills or to think on our feet, we inadvertently put both ourselves and our child at risk of physical injury.

6. A child may be able to accept a staff member restraining them, but they may never fully understand why their parent did it to them, and this can have a long term and detrimental effect on the parent/child relationship, when it is of paramount importance to strengthen this bond and relationship as part of being able to support them to overcome their violent behaviours. A child will not have the maturity to understand that a parent restrained them to protect them from harm, they are likely to remember the incident in terms of that mummy or daddy “tried to hurt me”.

7. In that moment of restraining our own child, we are teaching them that physical force is legitimate and can be used to get our own way. This is exactly the lesson we do not wish to teach a child who has SEND VCB.

8. To attend a course on restraint or on “safe handling” normalises and legitimises doing this to our children. With the best intentions in the world, it changes the landscape so that restraint is often no longer seen as the absolute last resort, it can start to feel that it’s OK to use it as the first resort, or perhaps the only resort.

9. Most reputable safe handling training providers won’t accept parents onto their courses because they know that there can be no on-going workplace support nor a team approach or implemented policies and procedures to be followed. They can’t take the risk of an unsupervised lone parent restraining a child and it could also have an impact on their insurance.

10. A small child of perhaps seven years old or under can be relatively easy to restrain. However, children grow up and get bigger and stronger. Ideally, we should be working with our children when they are still small on strategies, techniques, emotional regulation and lots of other life skills that can help them find other ways to express their unmet needs besides resorting to violence. If we concentrate on restraint as a primary method of controlling them when they are small, what happens when they are sixteen years old, bigger and stronger than we are, and restraint is no longer an option?

11. When we restrain, we are actively seeking to solve the situation from an adult perspective, instead of imparting the essential tools and practice time that a child needs to be able to find their own solutions to self-regulate their emotions.

12. Would you ever restrain an adult stranger in the street? If so, what set of circumstances would there have to be for you to actively seek to stop an adult moving around of their free will? Perhaps they are wielding a knife, or threatening to push someone under traffic? It would have to be extreme circumstances for you to even consider intervening to restrain a fellow-adult. It would also help to have witnesses to speak up for why you did it, and you would also need to have enough of a reason to hold up in a court of law if the person you were restraining accused you of assault. It would be a one-off, once in a lifetime event, and something that you would wish you hadn’t had to get involved in. When you are considering restraining a child, it can be a good idea to use the same set of criteria that you would use before making a decision to be a “have-a-go-hero” in the street. Is anybody’s life in imminent danger? Is there any other way I could solve this crisis? Are there witnesses who can stand up for me? What can I say to a judge in court to absolutely prove to him or her without a shadow of doubt that I had no choice? With our children, and in our own homes, there is nearly always a choice, although when our brains are not functioning correctly due to the fight and flight instinct, those choices are not always obvious. In the same way that I can’t tell you that you must never restrain a stranger in the street under any circumstances, it would be equally irresponsible of me to say “never” in relation to a child. However, please be aware that you are making yourself very vulnerable to child protection proceedings, and please be sure that there really is no other choice. I would also strongly advise that you write down everything that happened, and sign and date it so that you have a clear record of the incident from your perspective.

The reality is that there are many parents who may read this who are using restraint with their children, and if that’s you, the last thing I want is that you feel blamed or judged for using restraint. When our children first develop violent behaviours at home it is so bewildering and shocking that we will instinctively do whatever we can to stop it happening, and that often means that restraint becomes an established pattern and response. When SEND VCB first starts happening very few parents understand that it is due to anxiety, distress and fear, and so it gets treated as a “behaviour” issue, with traditional “carrot and stick” parenting techniques used to try to curtail it. It can be years before parents understand that it’s about anxiety rather than naughtiness, and then a parent has to make a huge adjustment in their parenting approaches to be able to implement the sort of strategies that can work well to turn children’s behaviour around.

At the start of a family’s journey with SEND VCB, restraint can seem like the only thing that can stop the violence in its tracks. It takes time to learn about different approaches, and to learn new skills that we can use instead. So many families will feel they may need a lot of time while they learn and then implement other strategies before they feel able to move away from restraining,If that’s where you and your family are now, it would be great if you can aspire towards a time when restraint is no longer used at home, as much to protect you as to protect your child.

It’s also easy for some parents in the thick of things with SEND VCB as a daily occurence to think that maybe other parents don’t need to use restraint. They may think that maybe other people’s children aren’t as extreme, or as frighteningly violent as their own are, but I promise you that isn’t the case. It takes time, there are no easy solutions or overnight quick fixes, but you can turn things around for your child. There are now numerous families I know who have successfully made huge progress with their children’s SEND VCB. Some of them a year ago were using restraint methods every day or even several times a day and now they simply don’t need to at all. It has taken enormous effort, tenacity and gritty determination, and there are some days, or even weeks, when nothing seems to work and things seem to be going backwards. Yet they have persevered, and there are now a significant number of families who have moved on from restraint, and are leading their children into calmer, happier and safer futures. This time last year they didn’t believe it was possible either.

If you want to do it too we’re all here to help. See below for links to other resources, join our closed FB support group for parents or come to one of our Workshops. You aren’t alone and things can and do get better.

More Support

Webinars and training, Facebook Support, resources to read or watch

Have you been to one of Yvonne’s webinars yet?

They cover a range of topics relating to behaviour issues in children with additional needs, and are packed full of insights and strategies that can help you to support a child in moving beyond their extreme behaviour patterns towards much happier and calmer times with a brighter and much more hopeful future to look forward to. Due to NHS England Funding, current webinars only cost £2.50 each, with free places for families in financial hardship. For more information please click this link – https://yvonnenewbold.com/webinars-workshops-courses-and-books/

Yvonne runs a Facebook Page called The SEND Parent’s Handbook for parents of children with disabilities and the professionals who work with their families.

If you are a parent of a child who has SEND VCB, Yvonne also runs a closed Facebook Support group, which you would be welcome to join, called The SEND VCB Project – Support Group for Families

There is another Facebook Page called The SEND VCB Project – Public Page which is for anyone to find out more about this and closely related issues, and it’s open to everyone

Resources on SEND VCB – for families and professionals who work with children or vulnerable adults

If you’d like to buy a copy of “The Special Parent’s Handbook”, which is the book I wish someone had been able to give me on the day Toby was born.

It’s got virtually everything I’ve learnt since about Additional Needs Parenting so that SEND parents don’t have to go it totally alone.

Here’s

the link to order yours

Alternatively you can order it from Amazon – here’s the link to the page

Yvonne is a member of the Amazon Affiliates Program which means that if you click on an Amazon link from this website and subsequently make a purchase, she will be paid a small commission.

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How to keep a child interested in learning after school

One of the most difficult tasks for parents these days is getting their children to do their homework. Over the past few years, the learning process has completely changed: today, teachers give homework, stimulating creativity in their implementation. Now, homework is not a question-and-answer task, it stimulates conceptual and analytical thinking. Also today there are many distractions. So this balance is quite fragile! Another important aspect is that the tasks are often complicated and children need the help of parents or teachers to complete them.

Thus, it is very important that parents play a significant role in supervising their children's homework. It should also be noted that children remember more when they work conscientiously on homework, because this is a repetition, which means consolidating the material studied in class. Moreover, with the active participation of parents in doing homework for children, this becomes an interesting game.

An important task for every parent is to ensure that children have a sincere interest in doing homework. If not, then why not? Check out tips on how to get your kids interested in doing homework and improve their academic performance.

Give the kids some rest after school

Children need time to relax because they spend all day reading books. They are already tired and forcing them to read books again will only lead to hatred towards them. You should give the children some time to rest before doing homework. Let them play for a while, watch TV, or do something constructive for relaxation and a change of scenery before doing their homework. In case homeschooling you can schedule classes, with rest intervals, according to the school plan.

Give children a comfortable place to do homework

Children do not have to do homework at the table all the time - they get bored much earlier than parents think, and therefore it is important to keep their interest. Let the children choose their own place. Let them feel comfortable while doing their homework. If you have chosen a private tutor, make sure that the child and the tutor will be given a separate room for study, assignments and homework.

Interactive classes for kids

Learning with a tutor is more fun. Give your kids English lessons they'll love!

Meet Preply tutors

Working with electronic devices

Technology has changed our lives for the better. As a result, students are often assigned homework that requires the use of the Internet, resulting in the need to use computers and tablets. Instead of looking for solutions to problems, you can let your children control their devices and only help them find solutions to homework problems. This makes homework more interesting and allows children to gain additional knowledge. Please note that you must constantly monitor your children's computer usage.

Homework deadlines

You must set homework deadlines for your children so they can follow them and do their homework ahead of time. There may be exceptions, but make sure the kids stick to the deadlines. Homework time has a significant impact on children. If the time frame is too vague, then the children will quickly get tired and bored. For young children, homework should be no more than half an hour, depending on the child. If homework is expected to take longer, talk to teachers so kids don't hate doing homework because it's too much.

Find the perfect time to do homework

Some children are active in the evening, while others work faster towards the night. As a parent, you should determine the ideal time for doing homework. If the child is not active in the evening, doing homework will not interest him and it will take more time to complete it. Even when hiring a private tutor, make sure that the classes take place at the most appropriate time.

By following these tips, children will be motivated to do their homework and improve their school performance. Since doing homework is important for all children, make sure your child is interested in doing it and is applying the information learned in school.

By following these simple tips, you can improve your children's learning and help them learn anything faster .

How to keep your child's attention while learning

How to keep your child's attention in class - effective learning techniques used by experienced teachers and the best online schools and online courses.

Loss of attention in the classroom is a common phenomenon that negatively affects the productivity of classes and the quality of learning. It is not necessary to scold the child for being more interested in looking at the pigeon outside the window instead of diligently solving boring tasks. But how to help the student concentrate on the right, but boring subject? What is gamification? And why should a parent know about attention retention techniques? Tutortop discussed the topic with Algorithmika, an international school of mathematics and programming for children, and sorted out these issues.

Why children are distracted

Teaching methods for primary school children, teenagers and graduates are different. The reason for this is the peculiarities of mental and physical development at different ages. It is necessary to use different programs and ways to convey information to the child, taking into account his perception. Even if this is one material, for example, in programming courses, children should study in the appropriate age groups, where methods are applied that are easily perceived by the student. For example, as in the Python Pro courses in Algorithmic, where the child becomes a co-founder of an IT startup and solves interesting problems during the entire training.

Children of elementary grades

Yesterday they were pupils of kindergartens, today they are schoolchildren. For a first-grader, school is a new place, a different environment. The child has feelings and fears, whether he will fall behind, whether he will be able to cope with the tasks.

At primary school age, children completely change their activities. The transition from playing in different manifestations to more intensive learning, performing boring tasks. It is important that this process is not abrupt, one-step. To make it easier for the child to get used to the new rules, it is important to include tasks in the form of a game in the educational process. And in the first months - to make the game a mandatory part of the program.

Another trick is to add informatics to math lessons. This will help to attract the attention of children and show them that the computer is not only a toy, but also a tool for creating and solving problems.

Grades 2-4
By the second grade, the child has time to get comfortable. He understands how the lessons go, what is required of him. The game is no longer required. But gamification is a good way to stir up interest in a child, especially in the afternoon, when fatigue makes itself felt.

Grades 5-6
The transition to high school is yet another stressful experience. Although the changes are not as significant as when entering first grade, early adolescence overlaps. There is a desire to become not just a part of society, but to gain recognition from peers. This is taken into account when developing the program. Gamification is getting a new incarnation.

Teamwork appears. This can be problem solving, preparing a project with the whole class, or dividing students into groups. The main thing is that children develop the skill of teamwork, the ability to communicate and achieve results by working together.

Grades 7-9
Teenagers want to look like adults, so they act more seriously. Children's games that were acceptable a couple of years ago are no longer suitable. Although gamification is still relevant, but in new manifestations. For example, joint work on a project or role-playing games, where the roles of participants are clearly distributed. Tasks for teamwork are becoming more complex and voluminous.

Please note. At the age of 13-15, teenagers already know how to critically evaluate the successes and actions of others. They make good cause-and-effect relationships, see whose work led to success. Therefore, the teacher requires maximum objectivity in the assessment.

How to keep children's attention in class: effective techniques

Experienced teachers already after three or four months intuitively understand when students start to get tired and lose concentration. And they know how to keep the attention of children in the classroom. Change activities, switch to a different task, or distribute private lessons. There are many receptions. The most simple, but effective:

Changing intonation and whispering

Changing intonation, volume, tempo, placing semantic stresses - these techniques are thousands of years old. But that doesn't stop them from being effective. An easy way to grab the attention of even tired students.

Using blanks

The same type of routine tasks quickly get bored, make children distracted. In order not to lose attention and concentration, it is worth diluting the program with a discussion of situations with students.

For example, when many similar equations have to be solved to fix the multiplication table, interest is lost already in the fourth example. Team competitions in solving problems between several groups will help to keep attention. Or checking the correctness of the solution in pairs.

Examples with empty abstract numbers can be replaced by situational problems close to life.

Alternation of activity

Monotonous activity quickly tires. Monotonous tasks should be avoided. We discussed the topic, wrote it down, did a physical warm-up, divided the class into groups, did a test. The more dynamic the lesson is, the better the material is absorbed.

Physical culture minutes

Short physical warm-ups are a requirement of sanitary standards. And a good way to briefly change mental activity to physical activity, which has a positive effect on concentration. Inclusion in the program of short mobile activities is also about health.

However, physical education can be educational. Which is especially true in computer classes, where active games are prohibited. For example, a teacher displays a statement on the screen. If it is correct, the children raise their left hand; if not, they clap their hands.

Fizminutka - a good technique to keep the attention of children in the lesson. This is a change of activity, an opportunity to consolidate the material. If carried out in a playful way, it increases interest, motivation to attend classes.

No negative emotions

Scolding a child for being more interested in watching what is happening outside the window instead of listening to boring lectures or solving tasks that are out of touch with life is not only senseless, but also unacceptable. Yes, this will force him to mobilize, only to take a defensive position to the manifestation of aggression. You can forget about the concentration in the lesson, the perception of the material.

Loss of attention is part of the organizational process. And you can return it only if you really interest the child. Only tactful actions work here, without unnecessary emotions.

How to use gamification at home

A child's education does not end in the classroom and continues at home. But often parents put the result in the first place, forgetting about the feelings of the child. Small failures should not lead to stress and more diligent study of the educational material. In the end, the child goes to school or attends courses in programming, robotics, design for his own good. You need to talk to the children, ask what is interesting.

To make homework easier, they can also be translated into a game form. For example, collaboratively disassemble scripts in Scratch or the interface of a designed mobile application. Discuss alternative ways to solve the problem.

In the process of learning at programming courses, parents are not always able to adequately check homework and assess whether the child completed it correctly. Especially when children are learning languages with complex syntax such as Python or C++. Here, the element of gamification will be teaching the parent to the child. Unbeknownst to himself, he will fix the material and independently check his work.