Thread by @KimFosterNYC

Today I was called to the elementary school office to pick up my 10yo son. He choked another boy during an episode of rough-housing that turned into a fight. I was told he was being suspended for that day + one extra. (Vacation from school!) #LongThread 1/17

The new Vice Principal looked up my son's record + reminded him of the long list of previous bad choices he has made since kindergarten + let him know that these mistakes would follow him through middle school, high school + impact his future. 2/17

My child has brain damage. He has Reactive Attachment Disorder. In the most formative years of my child’s life, his brain has been damaged by hunger, neglect + abuse. He never developed properly. Many of the choices he makes are out of his control. 3/17

At home he broke down.“There’s no point trying, I’m going to be homeless,” he says. "I've done a lot of bad things." This is a big worry for him, because his mom was unhoused + addicted to drugs before she died of an overdose. 4/17

He worries that he will never be okay, that he is hopelessly broken like her. So I have a shattered boy in my living room who is bereft. It’s now our job to build him back up. 5/17

I know the school is hoping I punish him to reinforce making non-aggressive choices, but that’s not how it works for kids with brain damage - you can't punish a kid into fixing their brain. 6/17

That’s why kids can be suspended, threatened with bad things, sent to juvie, arrested + thrown in jail + they still make bad choices. These kids keep making bad choices because they are impaired. 7/17

Did you know that some researchers believe that 60% of #prisons have people in them with at least one traumatic brain injury (TBI) compared to 8.5% of non-incarcerated individuals? 8/17

So I’m asking: What if we treated people with brain damage instead of isolating them from society + imprisoning them? 9/17

100 years from now will we be looking at our #carceral system + wondering why we imprisoned sick people? How will history treat us? As barbaric? Inhumane? 10/17

When will we figure out that some humans respond to negative threats (like me!) but many others can’t make the right choices, even when confronted with grave consequences? 11/17

Here in #Vegas, the largest mental health facility in our city is the Clark County Jail. Why are we jailing people who need help? (Check out @CCSD_LVMPD for updates on what kinds of offenses people are being jailed for. (It’s fascinating + sad.) 12/17

This does not mean we want our son hurting other kids. (The other child is unhurt, thank goodness.) We do not condone violence. Our son has lost his ipad and Playstation for the time he is suspended + must finish his missing school work. 13/17

And instead of yelling + punishing him, he will get lots of cuddles + connection from his dad + I, as we try to repair some of the attachment issues he has that make relationships hard for him. 14/17

The kinds of schisms + abnormal fight-or-flight responses that push him to be aggressive when he doesn’t need to be. The kinds of behaviors he learned as coping strategies in the first few years of life + while managing some 5 foster placements before the age of 4.
15/17

I see now there is no real place for him in our educational system. And we are not sending him through the super-corrupt, vile #TroubledTeenIndustry. If I leave it up to his new VP, she will try to suspend, shame, reprimand, and punish him into compliance. It won’t work. 16/17

It will just chip away at his soul+ his sense of self until he gives up. My son at age 10 is already in the #carceral pipeline that starts with school + ends with prison. And I am just not going to fucking stop until there is change for all kids like my son. 17/17