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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 6d

Ooooh... new book from Charlie Mackesy out this month. 😍

Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 20d

There's no parent-blaming here. My youngest chose to stay home and watch TV instead of walking the dog.

But I do worry. Where did all the kids go?

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 20d

5pm, after school, on a mild September evening.

This purpose-built facility in our village is empty.

Not a child in sight here, or on the two surrounding playing fields, or in the two nearby playgrounds.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 21d

Keep school at school. Keep home at home.

For children with trauma, this is often essential.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 22d

Why do schools do this?

An email goes out asking, “Are you nervous about being back in school?” on the same day they’re putting a child into a “lunchtime lockdown” for chewing gum (a well-known regulation strategy for children with trauma).

Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 25d

From an interview with Peter Lamont, author of Radical Thinking.

Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 27d

All three of my kids were shown graphic videos of Charlie Kirk’s assassination yesterday.

They’re three different ages, in three different education settings (two of which have phone bans), across three local authorities.

One of my kids doesn’t have their own smartphone.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 28d

Would you say that's the primary driver of this increase?

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · 28d

UNDERSTANDING behaviour is not EXCUSING behaviour.

👉 Going below surface-level behaviour is not dismissing behaviour

👉 Being radically curious about behaviour is not accepting behaviour

👉 Accepting what drives behaviour is not endorsing behaviour

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Sep 9

Therapeutic bath. 🛁 ❤️‍🩹

Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Sep 8

As our kids return to school, I’m thinking of all those wonderful security blankets in the form of humans who work tirelessly with our kids.

Children with trauma want a better life.

That starts with never feeling that scared again.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Sep 7

Is this sustainable?

From Lana Hempsall in The Spectator.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Sep 6

www.tes.com/magazine/ne...

Tom Bennett: strict rules ‘dovetail perfectly’ with inclusion

The DfE attendance and behaviour ambassador defends his record and tells Tes why he wants to check on teacher-training providers

www.tes.com

Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Sep 6

“A more substantial factor for me was the fact that staff and leaders said they felt safer and better trained,” [Bennett] said.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Sep 5

Fostering doesn’t have a recruitment crisis.

It has a retention crisis.

From Mary Wakefield in @thespectator1828.bsky.social.

Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Sep 3

We don’t have a behaviour crisis.

We have an understanding children crisis.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Sep 2

The job of adults isn’t just keeping children safe.

It’s helping them feel safe.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Aug 12

My son recently finished secondary school.

He was there for 5 years.

I never met any of his teachers.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Aug 12

We need an education and social care system that *knows* children.

Knows them on an individual basis. Knows their family. Knows their story.

We are moving further away from that with each passing day.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Aug 12

I’ve found that those times without tech (or at least communal/shared tech, such as TV) are often the best parts of my day. It feels like we’re together.

Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Aug 11

Thanks, Katie. Good to hear I’m not the only one.

Do you feel you’re in the minority amongst the families you know?

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Aug 11

Can we normalise kids not taking mobile phones into their bedrooms?

We have this as a house rule (even when friends come over), and we’re very much in the minority.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Aug 9

I’m watching one of my kids thrive in part-time work.

After so many years in education, where the consequences of behaviour are illogical and unnatural, the consequences of actions in work make perfect sense. Seems a much better way of learning.

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Aug 8

That’s so lovely to hear. It’s the book I recommend the most.

I jumped at the chance to help with writing the next one!

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Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹 @garethkthomas.bsky.social · Aug 8

The original A-Z was my go-to as a foster parent.

Countless times I turned to it when I didn’t know what to do, and was given strategies and hope. It also helped me feel less alone, at points where I felt more alone than I thought was possible.

uk.jkp.com/products/th...

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