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Discussion

"not himself"

I work in a school where all the students have special needs. We have many teaching assistants that work with the kids. I hate it when a few of them bring a student to be seen with only a complaint of "he's not himself today." and expect me to send the child home. Most of the time after assessing the student I can find nothing wrong and send him back to class. The TA's get upset and try to make me second guess myself. The student then goes back to class and makes it through the day just fine. I try to explain that these kids with autism, severe emotional disturbances, and other issues will not act the same everyday. They will have good days and bad days .... but most every day... someone will stop by numerous times with a student who "is not himself today"....ugh

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    • Featured Replies

    I get this a lot with my special education students, too. There is always the expectation that you'll automatically send the child home if he is "not himself". It's so frustrating!!

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    I deal with this alot, not necessarily in special ed students, but with my younger grades. Plus, once the teacher starts the "Aww, you don't seem to feel good" doting, the kids really don't have a reason to "improve". Lots of teacher attention and the chance to go home. I stand firm on my 'send home' guidelines at the risk of upsetting the teacher.

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    • Author

    Thank you for the responses. Good to know I'm not alone...

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    This just causes the student to start thinking there must be something wrong. It's usually because they are just tired. This is just frustrating-as if we don't have enough students with real issues to deal with! Thank goodness most of our schools now have guidelines to cut down on student absences which includes not being sent home unless running a fever, vomiting, or something that truly warrants it. Teachers still try to get around it all the time though.

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    • Expert

    Another thought...

    We have neighbors across the street who are citizens but who are from a war torn country. The rest of the family, with the exception of some siblings and cousins who live in Europe now, are still living in the "old country."

    They have four children who range in age from three to nine. The boys are three and almost five, while the girls are seven and nine.`

    The three and nine year olds seem to take whatever comes their way in stride, while the five year old (almost) is afraid of everything and

    his seven year old sister is obsessed with killing, war, and everything similar. I know her behavior varies greatly from day to day at home and at school.

    She's a very bright child and is in regular classes, but on her "worried" days, I would imagine her behavior does vary greatly.

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    I think that it's fair to say that we all have our days when we are "not ourselves". And I can understand that in a special ed population that they want to rule out that there is a medical issue. But Often times I can look at a child and can tell that they don't look ill, don't feel warm or have a temp. Their behaviors may be a bit more aggressive or vocal. It is true that some of the staff will get frustrated and will expect us to send them home on their notion that something is off. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes the child will come back to me an hour later having throw up. But I try to explain to them that I can't just send them home based on the fact that their behavior is off.

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    • Author

    I agree . I know sometimes the child is truly ill or has some other issue going on. I do appreciate the TA's imput as they spend much more time with the child than I do. It's just frustrating when they come to me for advice and then don't want to hear what I have to say.oh well it's part of the job, I guess.

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