If you walked into a room with 14 year-old Lily Hyde, you鈥檇 probably hear her giggle before you found her. She鈥檚 not your stereotypical, broody teenager who is embarrassed by their parents. In fact, she lights up when she sees her mom Chantelle come in. Lily lives with non-speaking autism and is developmentally around the age of a toddler.
鈥淪he's really just a sweet, innocent little thing,鈥 Chantelle said, describing her daughter. 鈥淚鈥檝e had other children's parents look at her and say, 鈥楳y God, I haven't heard my child laugh like that in two years鈥︹ but she could look at me 100,000 times in the day and every time, it鈥檚 like she hasn't seen me in a week.鈥
Those joyful moments make up most of their days in Rothesay N.B., but her mom admits, there are times when Lily also loses control.
鈥淲hen Lily gets highly dysregulated and she's severely distressed, she might try to scratch or, you know, she's bitten me, unfortunately, a couple of times,鈥 Chantelle said.
That has also happened in Lily鈥檚 classroom. But Chantelle claims Lily鈥檚 dysregulated behaviour at school was kept hidden from her. She did, however, notice that Lily was becoming more aggressive at home, severely shutting down, and even expressing that she didn鈥檛 want to go to school.
鈥淪he looked at me every morning at the school bus stop, pleading and saying no, but I didn't know what was wrong,鈥 said Chantelle.
That was until another mother from the school told her what she had seen.
鈥淪he walked by a room seeing Lily on the inside of a glass window door, screaming and slamming her hands on the window鈥 an adult used their full weight to hold that door closed,鈥 Chantelle explains. She can barely hold back the tears as she describes the incident that she said kept her up at night and shaking for days in disbelief.
鈥淚t's really, really hard to imagine how people could do this to such young and vulnerable children.鈥
Most provincial guidelines state seclusion and sometimes restraints are to be used as a last resort and only in emergency situations. New Brunswick鈥檚 Education and Early Childhood Development policy said seclusion should not be used without parental consent. Chantelle Hyde said she never would have allowed it.
鈥淲e never discussed, never talked about,鈥 Chantelle said. 鈥淭hey were literally lying to me in front of my face in meetings essentially, if they knew about this and didn't tell me.鈥
Chantelle said she was left in the dark -- a pervasive problem across Canada, especially for children with disabilities. Informal surveys from , and show hundreds of Canadian parents are learning about their children being secluded or restrained from other parents or peers, not from schools themselves.
It鈥檚 not surprising to Guy Stephens, the founder and executive director of the , who is based in Maryland. The Alliance only started three-and-a-half years ago, and has garnered over 20,000 followers online. He started the non-profit corporation after he said his 17-year-old neurodivergent son -- who also suffers from ADHD and anxiety -- was physically restrained, dragged down a hallway and thrown into an empty classroom.
鈥淗e had become so traumatized by that, that he didn't want to go back to school. After a lot of soul searching, we ended up homeschooling him for the following two years because he was afraid to go back,鈥 Stephens said.
So Stephens started researching who was affected by these practices. He found seclusion and restraint practices are disproportionately used on both children with disabilities and black and brown children.
鈥淧eople will lead you to believe it's a 16-year-old with an attitude,鈥 he said. 鈥淣o, it鈥檚 not. That would be the outlier. More often it鈥檚 a seven or eight-year-old 鈥 that is more easy to control.鈥
He compares seclusion to solitary confinement - a controversial practice for prison inmates. Stephens claims people resort to restraints and seclusions because they believe it鈥檚 the only tool in their toolbox.
鈥淭eachers often believe that it鈥檚 the only thing they can do and they need to do it or other children or themselves will be at risk. The truth, though, if you look at data, is that what we find is that teachers and children are more likely to be injured the moment you lay hands on them,鈥 Stephens said.
The Alliance has identified key methods that have worked as .
Stephens said that children who have already been restrained or secluded will likely experience stress if presented with this kind of technique again. He said this could lead to retraumatization, feeding a vicious cycle in the classroom.
鈥淲hen kids go into fight or flight mode, barking orders at them is not the answer. You need to help them calm down. Kids - when they get that escalated 鈥 they're not able to make rational, logical decisions.鈥
Aviva Dunsiger is a primary school teacher based just outside Hamilton, Ont. She said when kids become escalated, it can be debilitating to a classroom.
鈥淭here would be throwing of things, screaming, particularly with one child who is non-verbal鈥 it wasn鈥檛 deliberate behaviour, but it was kind of the reality,鈥 said Dunsinger who at that time, had 31 children in her classroom.
She has taught kindergarten through to grade six for 22 years and has adopted a set of tools that help her navigate outbursts.
鈥淚n a classroom environment, it might mean I鈥檓 creating different spaces for students looking at what calms individual students. How can we observe where the triggers might be and then respond proactively?鈥
She notes that while every educator carries with them a different background and experience, a personal concern of hers is that many are unknowingly starting a self-perpetuating cycle.
鈥淚f kids are always being removed and punished鈥 that can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I worry about the kids who would walk in already feeling that stress.鈥
Back in Rothesay, N.B., Chantelle Hyde is working hard to break that cycle. She鈥檚 written to political candidates in the last provincial election, advocating to end the use of seclusion and restraint. And most recently, she鈥檚 teamed up with the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint to publish that help in moving away from the use of these types of techniques.
鈥淎n end could be put to seclusion almost immediately without any serious detrimental effects to the people in the situation.鈥
