Teachers And Recognising Abuse.

[Bristol]

None of mine ever noticed, i gave up hiding my self harm because no one ever noticed anyway

 

[Nessa7]

I had one teacher that noticed, but it was my senior year. She let me hang out in her classroom during the day and after school a lot.

I was someone that didn't recognize that I was abused until I began therapy. It wouldn't have occurred to me that my teachers should have noticed something, but when I talked to my T about some of the things I did remember she explained that some of my teachers did fail me. Once she encouraged me to think about it, there were a lot of signs that things weren't okay at home. I think I hid it enough that only a few teachers would have seen things that they should have reported, but those teachers ignored very obvious signs of abuse.

 

[Deleted member 29920]

My teachers didn't notice. I was very very quiet, clever and hardworking. I was neat and tidy and always had a decent snack with me for breaktimes. There were no signs of anything being wrong. I only had one friend as a child and he was quiet too. I don't think teachers have the time to wonder if a kid's being abused. I suspect it would be more obvious if the child is badly behaved. Quiet - you're just invisible, aren't you?

 

[Anarchy]

There is probably a generational difference in this.

Probably up to around 1980, if a teacher had received any psycological instruction at all, it would be either Freudian

And in the Freudian universe, actual life experiences are not relevant, and are to be studiously dismissed, it's all down to oedipal childhood fantasies, and if you're a girl, penis envy. Abuse never actually happened, you imagined it.

Or, the evil, kiddy fiddling*, BF Skinner's hardcore behavourism.

In both cases, the child was to blame and was to be punished for "misbehaviour"

I'm not sure that the current paradigm of medicalism is any better; if a child's behaviour is out, it's a chemical imbalance in their brain that needs correcting with lots and lots of prescription drugs.

I've been thinking about my own behaviour at school in the early seventies. My class was around the 40 kids mark all of the way through, it was only long after the peak of the birthrate wave had passed through that school that the political approval was given for more building and additional staff.

Even if the teachers had been on the lookout, I was in a big haystack.

My behaviour wasn't the worst, two children's homes, one with children who'd been taken into local authority care by the courts, and a sink estate of prefabs fed children into the school. I was labeled as lazy, and the label stuck.

I think that a couple of teachers at the boarding school spotted that I had problems, one probably recognised his own shit in my behaviour. We were a cruel bunch.

________________
Prof of animal behaviour, Temple Grandin, has gone on record about BF Skinner groping her leg, when she met him in her teens.

 

[Hopefully]

I had a teacher notice something was wrong. I told her some of what was going on. Suddenly I was in a meeting with the head of year, then my mum was there, then we were all with the deputy head. It was decided I was over exaggerating. I wasn't there when they came to that conclusion so have no idea how that decision was made. My only thought was, thank god I didn't tell them everything.

Only just releasing how damaging this was.

 

[Anarchy]

thank god I didn't tell them everything.

We only find that out with hindsight. What happened to you is horrible! Both the abuse and the invalidation by parents and the school!

There was a member here, she hasn't been logged in for about 18 months, so I hope that she's ok.

Her and her sister were being abused by their older brother, who has learning disabilities. She'd told a school friend, and social services got involved and went straight to the deep end.

Her parents were given an ultimatum that the girl and boy were not to be under the same roof.
The parents could not and still can't accept that the son would or could do such a thing, and would not allow him to be moved out. Her sister denied everything.

The result was that the girl was sent into a local authority children's home for her teens.

As an adult, she was trying to rebuild a relationship with her aging parents, who still couldn't forgive her for the terrible thing that they believed she had done!

The mentally handicapped abuser was still living with them.

Even when abuse is spotted and action is taken. All too often, it ends tragically for the person who was being abused.

 

[Hopefully]

We only find that out with hindsight. What happened to you is horrible! Both the abuse and the invali...

That is awful, so often things are so poorly handled and it can leave such a mess.

I often think/thought about it from that way too, as awful as it felt to not be believed I was also grateful no one intervened, that nothing happened. I felt so out of control I was glad I still had one part of it that was still just only known to me, no one could tell me what to think about that. I guess that is why now it is difficult to share that and loosen that grip and control I hold over those memories.