Behaviour Charts
Publicly displayed tracking systems for student conduct, such as colour-coded charts or clip systems—tools that often shame, stigmatise, and control.
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When schools say a child went from “zero to sixty”
Let’s rip the mask off this polite, professional charade: when schools say a child went from “zero to sixty,” they are lying to protect themselves. They are covering for the adults who ignored every warning, missed every signal, and left a child to be harassed, baited, and humiliated until their nervous system screamed for survival.…
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The orange shirt I folded
I was folding laundry late one night, brain running on the kind of background grief that rarely quiets, when my hand closed around the orange shirt. I moved to set it aside—automatically, instinctively—because I remembered September was coming, school would be starting, and Orange Shirt Day would follow quickly after. That shirt would be needed…
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Disgusted with myself: how school advocacy erodes self-compassion
Some days I feel my own face harden, the jaw locking and the air leaving my lungs in a clipped exhale, the eyes narrowing into a refusal that feels like muscle memory. It is the same recoil I have seen across the meeting table, the same signal that too much has been brought into the…
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Confident Parents, Thriving Kids—unless you’re autistic
Why school systems should reject behaviourist programs disguised as mental health support. Our daughter was melting down almost every day after school. She would cling to me at drop-off like she was drowning—like she had to hold onto me or she would lose herself, unable to breathe, unable to bear it. She was already telling…
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Fight flight fawn freeze: surviving school
There are children who throw chairs when cornered, children who slip quietly out the door or hide behind the portable, children who don’t speak for hours, who go limp, who answer every question with “I don’t know,” and children who nod and smile and say “okay” to everything—until they collapse at home, trembling and broken,…
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Anxiety is not an overreaction: why neurodivergent distress demands a different response
There is a kind of anxiety that rises up like a wave—not sudden, not irrational, not the result of faulty thinking or poor coping, but steady, cumulative, and earned. A body that has learned the world is not safe, not soft, not designed for it. A body that has been punished for asking for help,…
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Why sticker charts fail
Sticker charts and other incentive-based systems promise to motivate children through tangible rewards, yet they too often undermine genuine engagement by teaching students to focus on external validation rather than on the inherent value of learning or participation. When a child’s behaviour is redirected toward earning stickers or tokens, the activity becomes a transaction instead…
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Beyond blame: reimagining discipline in a trauma-informed world
Collective punishment is neither effective nor ethical. It disciplines the group for the actions of one, eroding trust and reinforcing the very dynamics of power and fear that trauma-informed practice seeks to heal. In its place, we need something older and deeper—an approach to discipline rooted in relationship, regulation, and repair. Indigenous teachings and relational…
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Regulation isn’t colouring a box: how neurotypical emotion models can harm autistic kids
The Zones of Regulation chart is made of four tidy boxes—blue, green, orange, red—a short list of emotions, each offering the illusion of clarity, simplicity, legibility. It’s a system that looks soft, friendly, and progressive, but that often functions as a mechanism for shaping children’s expressions to fit the comfort and control needs of adults,…
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The cost of compliance – the foundational critique and case for change
When children are dysregulated, the response from educators is too often punitive. For neurodivergent students in particular, the cost of these responses is high: shame, trauma, social exclusion, and a deep erosion of trust. But it does not have to be this way. Restorative alternatives are not new. They are ancient practices found in many…
