13 year old lobbies Congress to pass anti seclusion laws

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13-year-old with autism urges lawmakers to pass legislation ending 'seclusion rooms' in schools

That must be a good thing.

If I have a meltdown, I usually go to a quiet place to calm down. However, going there is entirely voluntary (I must choose to do it) and no physical force is used getting me there.

Why an autistic person would be forced into a seclusion room against their own will is beyond me. But then again, I'm in high school.

So what forms of discipline can schools use? This is quite ridiculous, not that any policymakers should be listening to a child, anyway. Besides, even if such a policy were sensible, it's a state rather than a federal matter.

They still do "crisis" rooms???

Somehow I don't think "discipline" is a useful technique for controlling, preventing or ameliorating autistic meltdowns. Locking children (or adults) alone in a room is abuse. Not sure why abuse of autistic children would be a states' rights issue. Or even child abuse in general. Can you imagine a politician running on a platform of states' rights to abuse children?

We're kidding ourselves if we think all misbehaviour, on the part of autistic people must be part of a "meltdown". Some is simple, wilful misbehaviour and nothing else - I know this from personal experience. By refusing to lay down any rules on some wishy-washy 1920s idea that all children's misbehaviour is the fault of "society" or other extraneous factors, we harm the child more than anyone else, who grows up in a state of anomie.

Again, you can redefine the word "abuse" to include all forms of discipline, but in doing so you don't remove the need for discipline in creating a functional, well-balanced adult.

In the private special needs schools I attended kids who got out of control got sent 3 different places. The nurses office, detention, home.

If it a legitimate meltdown usually it was the nurses office. There was a room in there with a bed and the room would be dimmed, if the student needed/wanted to retreat for a while. But there was always a nuse present and the student could open the door and come out.

Students who were plain misbehaving were put in detention which was simply a classroom with a teacher present.

And sometimes a student's parent would take them home for the day depending on the situation.

But throwing a student into what amounts to a solitary confinement cell is out of the question.

What is grounding but "locking a child in a room". This is a perfectly legitimate and humane punishment to which I and every other child I grew up with was subject.

I'd say a child being sent to their own room with a parent on hand and being locked in a closet away from home and left alone is a false equivalent.