To think change is desperately needed in schools?

I think one of the reasons so many people blame Covid (something I’m currently researching) is because during Covid children were:
socially isolated
surrounded by news of death
subject to more frequent abuse in some cases
witness to more cases of domestic violence

The list is endless, research shows that Covid is classed as mass traumatic event and the impact on mental health and behaviour is just starting to emerge.

My daughter has minimal screen time, is outside constantly, plays with her toys and friends..she still has ADHD.

I still believe though the biggest impact on behaviour from children is coming from lack of boundaries from parents.

Spot on. Children will always test boundaries, that is to be expected. It is the parents who need to set those boundaries and hold firm and not give in just because it's the easier option. There is no such thing as a quiet life. If you give in the bad behaviour always escalates as the child tests the new boundaries you have allowed them.

Third post on the thread nailed it 🔨

If you talked to a speech therapist I'm sure they would say socialising babies and toddlers does matter. There's science behind it..

When these kids are violent, what happens? Do the parents get called in? What sort of responses do you get from parents? And how bad does it need to be before you can exclude them?

So many people blaming covid... why?! "Undiagnosed needs" I don't believe either. Too many parents let their children be on YouTube & inappropriate gaming all day then say their kid has "adhd". It's not adhd. It's these children not going out in the fresh air and burning off real energy like we did 20 years ago.

Totally agree OP! It is shocking at the moment. I work in a mainstream primary school and the attitude from age 5 is awful. They think they can choose what lessons they do. Parents back them and kick off & verbally assault staff. Classrooms are regularly trashed. Expensive equipment smashed & broken. Children & staff attacked. It is so far removed from how I remember primary school & the fond memories I have.

I'm not kidding: they've tried that in parts of Scotland - have brought in cadet instructors to start up a school cadet group. They always tackle the 'difficult' children

I've only read parts of your thread but I'm a primary teacher and teach 5/6 year olds. It does feel like the norm now to have students hit or kick you or throw chairs. To be honest, I'm exhausted every single day dealing with constant low level behaviour issues then a regular occurrence of violent outbursts. I do fear where we are going to be in another 10years time.

I work in a primary school and used to work in early years, the behaviour has got significantly worse.

It’s a mixture of the impact of covid, undiagnosed additional needs and massively down to poor parenting. There was a time what a teacher or school said was what was listened to, now parents question every decision you make and how it’s upset their child.

Children now threaten parents with the police/social services, parents threaten schools with every legal loophole and it’s out of control. School staff deserve to be respected, we are for 6 hours a day mum, dad, teacher, nurse and everything else in between for the children we work with. We certainly don’t get paid enough so a bit of respect from SLT and parents would be nice.

@CestLaVie123
Indeed.
And yet we are told that schools are too strict and cannot cater for every need.
The shit that school staff have to put up with (and I speak to a lot of them and used to be one) is mind blowing, and yet still they are castigated.
The move from the more authoritarian parenting of older generations to what is now basically permissive parenting in a wild overcorrection to compensate is in IMO to some extent as responsible as social media and we will have a swathe of children who think their rights are the centre of the universe and that rules do not apply to them. I see this daily where consequences are meted out and then the parents call in with some excuse as to why that should not apply to their child.

I retired from teaching, primary. The memory I took from my last day as a nine year old child throwing a chair across the classroom; anger issues due to home life. We were all in danger, 30 children and me. Not one ounce of support from senior management. That was ten years ago, I can only surmise how much those incidents have increased.

All of this 100%
Thank you @shearwater2

True.

Just today we've had female staff kicked in the face, bitten, stamped on, pushed, sworn at.

Just a normal day in a normal mainstream primary school.

Agree

I work in a secondary school and a male student called one of my female colleagues a "slut" and actually hit another female colleague. Our (female) manager just laughed about it. There is ZERO safeguarding for staff, in our case especially female staff.

MNHQ said that if we would like a dedicated place for brainstorming changes that are needed nationally then we should go to site stuff and open a thread to request it. If a lot of people post to say that they agree then they would make a new place for discussing.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff

Stop expecting everyone else to be your child’s parent, get off screens, take kids out for 10 minutes to the park or wherever, instead of buying the latest gadgets invest in spending time with your kids doing things with them, teaching them how to brush their hair/teeth, how to count, how to behave.
It’s not easy, it’s a pain repeating yourself to teach them basic skills, but as a parent you have to do it, not rely on others to teach your child basic skills before they start school.

^

This with bells on. Accountability from parents.

@DrBlackbird
Yes exactly. DH is lucky to work in a nurturing supportive outstanding secondary school with a good catchment and yet he still spend a lot of his lesson times asking kids to put away phones or dealing with social media based arguments etc etc. boils my blood

This. As the saying goes. If it's free, you are probably the product.

Social media is breaking children and breaking democracy but makes a few men extraordinarily wealthy.

@shearwater2
Seriously?
DH is a secondary teacher, DSis is a family liaison officer in a secondary school and I'm an educational psychologist..the majority of the problems all three of us see are DIRECTLY caused by the obsessive use of phones by teenagers, social media and the constant ability to be in touch with hundreds of people (many harmful) any minute of the day.
I'd ban all phones in schools, ignore the parents who insist their kids need them for 'safety' and ban all under 16 from any form of social media.
And schools have only changed in the last 15 years due to high needs being placed in schools that cannot cope with them because that is not what mainstream school is for, DH school is far from Draconian, more over accommodating for the gentle parenting that is destroying most kids.

The issue is - and I hate to say it in a way - there is an enormous cohort of people in the country who simply don’t give a fuck about their own lives, their children’s lives, or the lives of the people around them. Their lives are chaos, their minds are almost unable to display the reasoning/emotional intelligence of other people, and they could have all the support in the world and not change.

I think the profile of society has changed. Back in the day a very low earning or lower working class person would have a hard daily manual job, their time was filled and the only intoxicant available to them was alcohol. Now you don’t HAVE to work - plenty of people spend their life on benefits, there’s a huge array of intoxicants available to them some very cheaply, their brains are addled and they spend their lives in the company of other people who are basically unable to function properly either. As far as their kids go there is now cheap junk food and screens to babysit them and the rise of ‘permissive parenting’ makes it socially acceptable to let them have whatever they want where before they would’ve been smacked and put to bed early (not saying that’s great but it’s discipline).

I think the level of help people need is now far beyond what we as a country can provide and afford. The level of intensive input every one of these people would need is staggering.

There are alternatives but they would be found unpalatable by the public and seen as a violation of human rights.

I have to wait for the formal letter but I plan to challenge it. It's a NHS diagnosis.

@Mumma2024 That's incorrect, they shouldn't have done that. It's against NICE guidelines. If she's got a diagnosis from NHS and the money, reach out to a private psychiatrist. We managed to get a medicine review with one on zoom for £300 as we had a diagnosis already. It was about £100 a month in private prescriptions until titration was done, so about 3 months, than our GP took over on a shared care agreement. Eventually CAMHS agreed to take it over as they said she's been on medication with a positive effect 🙄