I am the mother of two neurodivergent Latino boys.

My youngest was diagnosed with autism around the age of two. That diagnosis became a passport to supports and services. His older brother, however, went under the radar for far too long, masking his own neurodivergence. Both of my boys have always been described as loving, caring, hardworking, and the kind of kids who help others.

So when my oldest suddenly began accumulating referrals at school, I knew the labels being used to describe him were not who my son was.

Defiant. Insubordinate. Noncompliant. 

Instead of asking what was happening to the honor roll student they had known for years, his distress was met with security involvement, exclusionary discipline, and responses that escalated rather than de-escalated situations. There were times when school staff called security instead of a trusted adult who understood him. Those experiences reinforced fear instead of safety.

What many people didn’t see was that by the time his behavior became visible, he had already been struggling for a long time. His attempts to regulate himself—becoming quiet, putting his head down, withdrawing, or using familiar coping strategies—were misunderstood as defiance or noncompliance.

As his mother, I watched the emotional toll grow. School avoidance increased. Anxiety intensified. Trust disappeared. Instead of focusing on learning, we were focused on helping him survive the school day.

I spent countless hours advocating and requesting evaluations. I wasn’t asking for lowered expectations—I was crying out for help. I was asking for understanding.

Too often, it felt like nobody was listening. My repeated advocacy for my son’s basic humanity was dismissed.

Then, on December 12, everything changed.

A school administrator called law enforcement on my son after he refused to go to an assigned in-school suspension. He put his hood up, stayed quiet, and put his head down. Those attempts at self-regulation were once again interpreted as defiance.

My son was handcuffed and brought home in the back of a police vehicle.

He wasn’t a criminal. He was a disabled Brown student in distress whose need for support was mistaken for a need for control.

No child should experience that.

No child should have to fear the very adults who are supposed to protect them. No family should have to fight for their child’s dignity, humanity, and safety.

When a school responds to disability with force instead of support, the harm doesn’t end when the crisis is over. Families like mine are left to repair what systems tore apart: a child’s sense of safety, trust in adults, confidence in school, and belief that they belong. 

Our experience taught me that seclusion, restraint, and other coercive responses are not solutions. They leave lasting emotional harm, especially for disabled children of color, whose intersecting identities often shape how their behaviors are perceived and responded to. When schools rely on control instead of connection, they miss opportunities to teach, co-regulate, build trust, and truly understand the child in front of them.

Today, I continue to advocate from that lived experience so that other families don’t have to walk the same path. I believe schools need better training in neurodiversity, trauma-informed practices, de-escalation, disability-informed supports, and culturally responsive care. Families deserve to be true partners, and schools must move away from compliance-based responses toward environments that presume competence, honor neurodiversity, and prioritize regulation, relationship, and belonging.

If our experience helps one educator pause before calling security, one policymaker strengthens protections for students, or one parent realizes they are not alone, then telling our story is worth it.

Every child deserves to experience school as a place where they can access safety, belonging, dignity, and support—not fear, control, or exclusion.