Inclusion and Suicide - Fighting to Fit

This month, a child in our neighborhood with differences took his own life.

The previous post is about our family's wishes for peace and strength for his family and friends. This post is about my personal thoughts on what factors in a community environment might prevent a similar desperate act in my own children and other children with differences.  Specifically, how might inclusion play a part in helping prevent suicide in differently abled kiddos and the limitations inclusion doesn't fix.

Studies show that suicide ideation in the autism community is high and rising.  One study showed 66% of adults newly diagnosed with a form of autism, Asperger's, contemplated suicide. Another study showed that suicide is a leading cause of premature death in people with ASD.  If other parents of uniquely wired kiddos are anything like me, mental health is the top thing we worry about, read about, parent about in our kiddos.  This isn't just parents of spectrum kiddos.  ADHD, LD, developmental differences, SPD - the DIFFERENCE between how the critters think/move/behave/speak/learn and how most of the rest of the world does these things can make life HARD.  They may feel like aliens in their own community - dropped in from another planet. This is where I think inclusion comes in...

INCLUSION - such an easy word, right?  Simple.  Just don't exclude others.  Include them in the classroom, the community, etc.  Nope.  Even educational experts disagree on what really good inclusion practices should be and how to deliver them right now.  Some believe that FULL inclusion into general education with all services/accommodations being delivered in that classroom all the time is the goal.  Others believe that good inclusion does not always mean that education must happen in the classroom, and that self-contained classrooms where children do not encounter general education teachers, students or areas of the school  are appropriate.  My personal feeling is that good inclusion stretches the child's skills so they can develop while still servicing/accommodating them at a level so they can access their education. More importantly, how that is achieved best will look different for different children.

Our personal experiences have ranged from full general ed with poor supports whether those supports were delivered as push in(special ed teacher goes to general ed classroom) or push out(child goes to special ed room) to a self-contained classroom to pushing out into general ed with a 1:1 aide from that self-contained classroom to full general education with all supports delivered by the general ed teacher except when intervention is necessary.  At any point in time during our journey through all of those "settings", I never felt like it was the setting that was preventing or providing the benefits that come with inclusion. Sometimes  and thankfully rarely, it felt like the general education teacher was the barrier to inclusion. Sometimes, it felt like it was the other parents that were the barrier.  Sometimes, it felt like it was the other students.  Mostly, I KNEW that it was the DIFFERENCE mentioned above not being addressed openly that was preventing inclusion.  One time, it was definitely the principal preventing inclusion. Paradoxically, we finally found inclusion in a self-contained classroom setting, even if it wasn't the inclusion many speak of where a child with differences learns alongside his general education peers with smiles and friendliness. Instead, it was inclusion with the special ed teachers, the aides, the other children labelled "Emotionally Disturbed" regardless of their age(the classroom was K-5) and finally, inclusion with the general ed teachers with the special ed teachers as a bridge.

Through all of the placements and accommodations, we could never win the Fight to Fit.  It is 5 years past when things went sideways, and we still are Fighting to Fit. It is worth noting that The Critter is not prone to valuing others and so does not chase friendship, for lack of a better term. I worry that this will mean he is isolated as an adult, leading to depression and mental health issues, but that's what I worry about ALL.THE.TIME anyway. So, instead and for now, I am glad that he has a few peers he considers worthy of his time and is starting to learn what his peers do to maintain friendships - text, call, respond, share interests - but mostly glad that he does not eagerly chase trying to fit. I think for kiddos who are different and desperately want to fit, the absence of that feeling must be agony.

For inclusion to work, the environment it is being seeded into must be receptive.  If you place a child who blurts out, yells inappropriately, hand flaps, can't sit like peers, (insert your own difference here) into an environment where the students are not prepared to ACCEPT, let alone if a teacher is not prepared to accept, it will fail.  The child does not feel included if they are shunned by their peers and ignored by their teacher. Instead, they feel their DIFFERENCE even more acutely and even worse, they feel it is bad, unacceptable, unwanted.  I have read that anger/frustration turned inward is depression  - while it sounds like psychobabble-ese, it suits me to use that now.  Are uniquely wired kiddos more likely to turn anger inward? Are they more likely to turn anger outward, which leads to outbursts and potentially violence? Are they less likely to process those angry feelings and manage them?  My personal belief is a resounding YES!  So if the environment is not ready for inclusion, if the teacher and the students have not already had the groundwork laid so that they are capable of including others who are different and unexpected, Fighting to Fit is left as an internal issue for a child already fighting their brains, their bodies to just BE in this world not built for them.

I personally do not think that changes to educational policy on inclusion is enough on its own, and that policy on practices that change the tone of our schools and classrooms is required. Again, inclusion only works if the environment is ready for it. Our best placements were at schools that were diverse and intentional in their social emotional learning - for students AND for teachers. Tone and Inclusion are like the Calcium and Vitamin D of the educational world, I think.  Without one, the other one doesn't work.  I need to call out The Positivity Project here.  Our district is rolling this program out to help kids at a young age learn that other people matter and that those other people in your community, are still in your community regardless of differences. Across the 7 schools and all the different positive behavior and social emotional learning curriculum we've seen, this one strikes me as an amazing fit for children and teachers alike.  At our house, we like to tell the critters that "you live here, too" so that they understand that this is THEIR HOME, THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD.  This program strikes me as starting at the same point - these are YOUR peers and YOUR community, not something other and external that can (and certainly not should) be ignored and avoided.  Without that approach, inclusion is not inclusive from the point of the differently abled, it is simply sharing space.  I will say that without inclusion, which has been shown as beneficial for everyone, not just those who are different, there is no challenge to understand differences. Inclusion has challenged The Critter's peers and teachers enormously, but to the betterment of all of them.  The last time The Critter shut down in a general ed classroom, his peers were saying, "Feel better" instead of "What's wrong with him" or worse, laughing and pointing(YES, this has happened). The Critter learns that his peers are not unsafe, and school is not unsafe. His teachers and peers learn that he struggles mightily and is HAVING a hard time, not intentionally giving a hard time. Exposure works for both sides of the inclusion equation. It is the first step in the Fight to Fit - not feeling unsafe in your community just because of who you are. After that comes feeling accepted, supported and competent.  Shout out to The Autism Discussion Page for that language - safe, accepted, competent. It changed our lives, giving us goals that create a positive feedback loop for The Critter and everyone else so that everything else becomes easier.

My hope is that The Critter and Younger Critter will suffer just enough to learn and grow and not so much so that they give up on peer relationships. What keeps me up at night is that much of this is out of our hands, and instead in the hands of the parents of their peers to teach them to be curious of differences instead of fearful. As the critters age, my influence on them dwindles, and their peer's influence grows.  If peers are resistant to getting to know them, let alone downright cruel, where does that leave the Fight to Fit?

I'll close with a fantastic resource for everyone, the National Alliance on Mental Illness(NAMI). There is support for suicide ideation, family members, community alliances, and much more.
Reach out to support that is there, please.  AND, if you're in my neighborhood, send your kiddo over.  I guarantee they will be safe and accepted in our home.