Suspension and Neurodivergent Kids!
Beyond the Behavior: Why Suspension Harms More Than It Helps for Neurodivergent Kids
We got the call to come to the school, unsure of what awaited us. When my husband and I arrived, we found our son, Blake, standing in his classroom, wide-eyed and with his tongue hanging out—the environment in disarray, with teachers documenting the chaos by taking photos of him. The principal and assistant principal were visibly frustrated, and the school psychologist looked at me with rage. I scooped Blake up and left the room.
Blake had just started kindergarten six weeks prior. Two weeks before this event, we began the IEP process to support his needs. He had shown similar behaviors before, minor “trashing” when overstimulated. We had all agreed in a school plan that Blake could request a “brain break” or go to a “calm corner” as a visual cue if he felt overwhelmed.
Away from the classroom, Blake’s body melted into mine. When I asked him what happened, he simply said he’d asked for a break, and they said no.
On my return, I asked the principal what she thought caused it, and her reply was sharp and to the point: "I don’t know; I wasn’t here. But I can only guess he asked for another break, but there wasn’t anyone to take him."
I turned to the assistant principal, and he remarked, "Just so you know, he did all this with a smile on his face." That comment cut through me. They saw the smile but not what lay beneath it—Blake’s dysregulation, not delight. To them, he was a problem; to me, he was a child in distress. I said as much and left to be with Blake.
His teacher told my husband, “He was sitting quietly in the calm corner, then started pushing things over.” What no one seemed to understand was that Blake was doing everything in his power to self-regulate, and the adults around him dismissed his signals. In their world, they had done all they could, and his constant requests for a break had to stop.
Blake had also been on a plan set by the school whereby I collected him from school at 11:30a.m, and we would slowly build him to a full day. For the half-week prior, I’d been collecting him between 1:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m, and on this day, it was his first full day. We arrived at the school on that day at 1.30pm.
At 10:30 a.m, his teacher had messaged to inform me he’d been asking for brain breaks all morning. From this I understood that he was having a rough day and knew he was apprehensive about his first full day at school (of which the teacher was aware). However, it was evident the school was utterly baffled by his behavior and had not seen the same as me. Blake had been asking for help with regulation all day, and no one understood.
The principal called it a suspension-worthy offense, though she admitted she didn’t even know how long to suspend him because she had never suspended a child before (she is retiring next year). This whole scene was beyond exasperating. How had we come to this point?
Blake returned to school after a two-day suspension, only to face a substitute teacher, which the school told us about at 5 p.m. the night before, asking us to prep him. Additionally, his agreed primary support, the principal—whom he felt safe with—was absent (we were not informed of this in advance). Not surprisingly, the behavior repeated itself. Blake and another student trashed the psychologist's room. When I arrived, I saw two silly kids, overstimulated by each other and two teachers feeding them negative reactions. To me, it was manageable, so I stepped in to engage the boys, and we began to clean up the mess. I wanted to regulate Blake and return him to class, but the teacher told me, “No, we want him out.” So, I stopped and left with Blake. The other boy was not sent home. Just Blake.
The assistant principal had already warned us that more incidents would mean more suspensions, or even expulsion. So, we created a new plan: Blake would attend school for just one hour daily, easing the staff’s load and keeping him on a structured school routine. This would make sure he was not exceled before he had an IEP.
For two weeks now, Blake has entered his classroom for circle time, and the moment they transition to work—which he finds overwhelming—he requests a break. A schoolyard aide takes him outside for a walk until I arrive to pick him up. I had hoped this arrangement would give him stability and that the school would find someone to put all their skills into him for just one hour. But it has yet to help him reintegrate into the classroom.
After the suspension, it took two weeks to stabilize Blake. To an outsider, his behavior might have seemed like poor choices and bad manners; for us, it was the daily struggle of a neurodivergent child trying to cope in a world that often doesn’t understand him. The day after the suspension, he was a whirlwind—like a child overstimulated by sugar, relentless and unregulated. Nothing worked to calm him until we bounced together at a trampoline park. By the end, he was slightly more grounded, but school soon triggered the behavior again.
Imagine two weeks of Christmas-morning-level excitement, a child on a non-stop sugar high. That was Blake—hyper-aroused, unable to settle, his brain caught in a loop of dysregulation. Eventually, through a steady routine and an environment filled with patience and clear boundaries at home, he began to feel safe again, and his system calmed.
The real question: What is the fallout of suspension on a child like Blake?
Blake has learned that by trashing his environment, he can leave. In his mind, it’s a strategy that works. He says, "If I trash it, they’ll send me home." School has become a place where his behavior overwhelms not just him, but the adults around him who lack the tools to hold boundaries.
For our family, this means homeschooling in short bursts of three minutes’ work followed by three minutes’ breaks. It means working late into the night on my business because I must be there for him during the day. We are without extended family here, so the isolation has intensified. I used to call home to England to talk to my parents in the morning, but now I sit outside his school, getting as much work done as I can. The school district urged us to seek a private diagnosis to support his IEP, adding a new financial burden to our already stretched resources.
Last week, I broke down at a private therapy assessment, feeling the weight of it all. Balancing Blake’s homeschooling, his therapies, and trying to help him learn coping skills while managing my own exhaustion is more than any of them could know.
Blake’s suspension went far beyond a mere consequence for bad behavior. It impacted him deeply, teaching him a strategy that, in his eyes, now serves him: “If I trash, I will be sent home.” This was the outcome of adults who didn’t understand how to support his needs—a system that reacted instead of connecting. His safe adults becoming angered and wanting to give him a harsh lesson.
In the end, we hope to show Blake another way. But the road forward requires understanding, boundaries rooted in compassion, and the knowledge that his behaviors are his signals. He’s not here to cause trouble; he’s trying to survive in a world that doesn’t yet know how to hold him.
We have appealed the suspension on the grounds that Blake followed the agreed plan, and the teachers did not. LAUSD reduced the suspension on paper to one day from two and removed the worrisome “intent to cause injury.” We are now seeking legal representation.
#EnjoyYourSilly
From Momma Vix