@garethkthomas.bsky.social
Helping adults understand children with trauma.
Is anyone else seeing this? Is anyone else worried?
Is this just the way the world is today (no big fuss), or should we be doing something about this?
I bump into my boys, who had gone out earlier to play cricket.
They’re both sitting on the ground, on their phones.
My youngest messages her friends, but they don’t want to go out because they’re busy with their game consoles, smartphones and VRs.
She’s not too bothered, because she’ll just watch TV instead.
The streets are quiet, aside from the odd dog walker.
I pass one child, on their own, riding their bike.
For the rest of my hour-long walk, I don’t see another child.
I just took an early evening walk around my village.
Lots of families live here.
(Our primary school has two classes of 30 for each year group.)
You wouldn’t know that—because none of the children who live here are outside.
From The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac.
24.07.2025 14:08 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
“If we want our sons, our daughters, all young people to read, we must grant them the same rights we grant ourselves.”
24.07.2025 14:08 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Dr Sue Morris-King (Deputy Director for Schools and Early Education at Ofsted) tells MPs that schools with good levels of attendance think of it ‘like safeguarding’.
23.07.2025 15:34 — 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
From one of the slides I use when delivering training.
We must understand the difference between accepting behaviour, and endorsing behaviour.
They are very different, yet I often see them confused with each other.
Me too. One I’ve returned to a few times. And I’m reading his new one now, too.
22.07.2025 18:07 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0I’ve just followed them, thank you.
22.07.2025 18:06 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Obsessing over the most minor infringements (such as forgetting a planner) won’t help. It will harm.
What will change things is if we focus on the outliers, those who need the most support. And if we help them (instead of punishing them further).
I first read about this in “Humankind” by @rutgerbregman.com.
One of my all-time favourite books.
As he says in the book: “Neighbourhoods aren’t made safer by issuing parking tickets, just as you couldn’t have saved the Titanic by scrubbing the deck.”
Gladwell knew this well. He called it the law of the few. He dedicated a third of his book to it.
In October 2024, Gladwell released an episode of his podcast titled:
The Tipping Point Revisited: Broken Windows.
In the episode, he said:
Broken Windows was all about focusing on the many, not the few.
Infections, fashion trends, word of mouth... It’s always a few who do most of the work. So, those few should be the ones who receive the attention, support, and resources.
A 2015 meta-analysis of thirty studies on broken windows theory didn’t reveal a shred of evidence to support Bratton’s methods.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
Bratton and his officers became obsessed with the stats.
Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
They became less interested in taking on bigger, more complex crimes.
Broken windows theory was harming, not helping.
It turns out that crime rates had started to decline before Bratton became involved.
Similar results were observed in cities that didn’t take the same hard-line approach.
One thing indeed increased... complaints of police misconduct in NYC.
Here’s the problem...
Wilson (and his co-author George Kelling) based their “broken windows” theory on one dubious experiment, which never appeared in any scientific journal.
It was run by Philip Zimbardo, famed for the now heavily criticised Stanford prison experiment.
In 1994, Bratton was promoted to NYC police commissioner.
His motto: “If you peed in the streets, you were going to jail.”
Crime rates plummeted. Between 1990 and 2000:
– Murder rate: ↓ 63%
– Muggings: ↓ 64%
– Car theft: ↓ 71%
They put him on the cover of TIME.
People liked the thinking. One of them was William Bratton.
In 1990, he was appointed chief of the NYC Transit Police. He was known for handing out copies of Wilson’s original article.
His first order? Stop all fare dodgers.
Arrests went up. By 400%. 📈
Back in 1982, James Q. Wilson wrote in The Atlantic:
“If a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.”
The phrase was popularised partly by Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book, The Tipping Point.
Forgotten your planner? Day in isolation.
Why would any school do this?
Because... if you don’t focus on small things, they spiral into big things.
This... is broken windows theory.
Here’s why it’s rubbish... 🗑️👇
What I hear:
If the focus is on connecting with children... how will they ever learn?
What I think:
Without connection, there is no learning.
It's interesting that we have this concept of having a “good baby”.
One that sleeps through the night, doesn't fuss too much, etc.
The idea of categorising children based on their need for connection starts at a much younger age than I had imagined.
Yes, Dobble in the UK, I believe.
21.07.2025 19:21 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Nobody wants this outcome, I'm sure.
We need to think seriously about what we are doing to children.
You don't grow great kids by drowning them in the fear of punishment. 🪴
I played this with my 12-year-old every week for almost a year.
Never once did I win.
And it pains me to admit that I was *really* trying.
Trauma Talks, the latest podcast series from @TheCoECT.
Episode 1: Transforming Education for Trauma-Affected Children.
Listen here...
www.buzzsprout.com/1523869/epi...
When some schools hear about the need for a trauma-informed approach to teaching...
“I think a lot of people worry that A, it's going to cost a lot of money and B, it's going to be a lot of work.” — Sarah Naish
Featuring a shout-out for @jennknussen.bsky.social 🙌
