Teachers - If you have a child in your school who misbehaves would you think the parents are to blame

Right up until my second dd hit 12.
Then I ate all the thoughts and assumptions I had made.

I would never immediately assume the behaviour of any child was down to bad parenting, speaking as a teacher and parent of a ND child who was very difficult at school.

I would want to meet the parents and as soon as I did and understood the situation we could work together to help to support the/your child. We do totally get it, all we want is the best.

Some parents never come to see us, just complain or dont reapnd, don't give school a chance to co operate and yes in these circumstances we are aware that the children simply follow the behaviour they're brought up in and need to address this by setting boundaries and showing we care.

Never an easy task but I hope I'm speaking on behalf of all teachers that every single child we have in front of us is treated equally, we care about and want the best for them. They are children, yet to learn and unequivocally need the best examples and opportunities to be given to them.

Here endeth my speech! Treasure your little ones. X

I wouldn’t immediately judge the parents.

Kids can act out for all sorts of reasons.
Of course sometimes it’s because something is happening at home/parents but sometimes it’s feeling insecure about themselves or because they’re struggling to cope in class.

The worst kid I’ve ever had was a boy whose parents worked at the school, one was a teacher and one worked in the office.
I think he was definitely revelling against something and perhaps it was his parents working there but I definitely didn’t blame them.

My advice would be to just be as supportive of the school as possible.

How are her friendships at school?

@plsbequiet
Not really. I come from a country where the misbehaviour is defined as insulting teacher, insulting kids, disrupting thee lesson and not minor playful behaviour here qnd there. Those are mentioned to parent at parents evening and no drama is made because of it.

I work with 10-11 year old kids, some with SEN yes, but I am talking about the neurotypical ones here. Some have not been parented regarding their emotions and so are doing inappropriate stuff in order to get laughs, disrupt, undermine. Why? Because emotionally they haven't learnt about how to be in a (social) group. I usually find it's because there is an issue regarding self-esteem and how to connect well with their peers. I still stand though with having a solid foundation of learning how to manage emotions from very young age, supported by parents.

@custardcream3

I think your imagination carried you away. I got called about dancing, twerking during break with his friend. And saying anus was not angrily( that is also your imagination) but during team projects where everybody was talking in groups and something went wrong

I think you should stop looking into crystal ball because you are not good at it or you are projecting your issues on somebody random basing on few letters written. And actually he is high achiever- that is all about his school career. Do you often add your imaginary comments? And the rest what you written is just toxic nonsense. A word of advise: don't do it ever to your kids.

She probably doesn't have a sense of belonging at her new school

@Restinggoddess primary schools are not good at dealing with nd people!!

Nowhere is.

Op, yes and no.
Depends on the parental engagement with the school really.

@hitherandhither
What you describing is some sort of SEN children who are uncapable of waiting quietly or waiting in line for their turn.
I am not talking about challenged kids that by the secondary school have not learnt the basics. I am talking about social circumstances with peers that is behaviour in big groups. That can only take at school.

JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything Of course you got called in over your child dancing during break. My mistake re the singing, he was actually saying anus while angry during a lesson. What 'a character' teacher should have been crying with laughter like your emoji rather than asking you to help address is behaviour and language. Yet here you are still justifying it, and not supporting adults who want to help him feel successful at school. You are making his whole school career more difficult for him.

Her attitude doesn't reflect badly on you.

But your response does.

Your daughter isn't you. She is a different person, in a different environment, in a different time.

You are making this about you, instead of getting to the root of the issue and working with the school to solve it.

You are my absolute worst nightmare of a parent; I suspect you're a troll in fact.

Lots of children misbehave, isn't that part of being a child; they misbehave and we try to teach them why they shouldn't. I judge the parents who are incapable of believing that their child might have done something wrong, as if they had given birth to Jesus

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything
I'm not really following your last post but I'll try and reply to what I think you've said.

Social skills are practised within not just the immediate family, but also the wider family and also whilst out and about (shops, transport, parks etc). Learning how to be with others, whoever they are. Learning how to deal with frustration when bored (eg waiting to take turns in a game or a piece of playground equipment). Learning to wait quietly whilst a parent shops. Those soft skills need lots of support and practice for children to be able to learn how to regulate their emotions. Yes, school will help support this in a classroom setting, but this really does begin with parents at home, whether a one parent family or not.
Etc

The social skills aquisition takes place in the social circumstances. And given the fact that nowadays the reality is that many are lone parents, many are 2+1 I am not sure how you imagine that they will learn social skills and functioning in the group at home. By mums lecturing them?
Also, if that was the case then it would only prove that Covid has not done any damage, and that education is only down to what is in the books therefore can be done online in more peace.

But I believe that the school is more than what is in the books.

Most people don’t know how to manage children’s behaviour. They’re either under- or over-reactive to poor conduct, especially when kids are young. Luckily, most kids are NT/fairly biddable and happy to go along with the rules/routines when in school. Good teachers will be able to manage the vast majority of kids in the vast majority of situations.

Unfortunately, a small handful of children aren’t having their needs met at home/school. Generally, their parents are unsupportive of the school. This small cohort of children cause 90% of the problems in schools.

I wouldn’t put your DD in the second group. What is behaviour like generally at her school? What are her friends like? Might she benefit from a change of form group, or even school?

@custardcream3

As for the pp who found their child singing, dancing etc 'a character' have you thought how disruptive to a lesson 3 or more children being characters in a lesson could be?

And where I wrote that it took place during the lesson? During the break time! Yes, that was an issue. Singing sounds promising but I don't recall him to be keen on it. That must be your addition.

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything

Sorry, posted too soon

I would also suggest though that parents educate their children on acceptable social behaviour. Not everything is down to a teacher to sort out. A teacher has approx 30 children to teach whereas the average family have two!

Not sure why you quoted me

hitherandhither sums it up. I wouldn't automatically blame parents I'd be thinking SEN but if I spoke to parents and they came back with their child is just bored I would be heavy eye rolling. In my experience extremely clever children can develop in mainstream classes, all good teachers give indication of how to take work to a high level, do independent research etc. If a child is shouting/ screaming/ throwing things etc because they are bored then there is still something very wrong that parents need to work with teachers to address. They cannot reach their potential with that behaviour and I'm sceptical a more challenging lesson would solve it. I'm amazed at the parents being proud not to back or support teachers. They are telling you that your child is not going to achieve what they could. At the end of the year, that child and their future is still yours, the teachers go back to caring about their own family and the next years intake. Thinking you've won by not supporting or taking their advice is not really as clever as you think it is. Children with parents who talk positively about teachers and school do better academically and are happier in that environment. Saying your child is bored is very short sighted. As for the pp who found their child singing, dancing etc 'a character' have you thought how disruptive to a lesson 3 or more children being characters in a lesson could be? You endearing character is not making the most of teaching time and ruining it for others.

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything

Education is about learning and not only from the books, but also the social skills.

No. Many teenagers are horrible but that does not reflect the parenting UNLESS the parent defends the bad behaviour at school, in which case …

I would wonder if the secondary school were pitching the learning at the correct level for my child

Most poor behaviour in secondary school is not caused by the work not being sufficiently challenging!

OP - politeness in parents does not necessarily produce well-behaved children. Parents who are polite and mild-mannered sometimes find it hard to deal with a teenager who is not like that.

Yeap, I should be administering corporal punishment for my son saying to a girl in his class that he wants to marry her and have kids with her 🙈. 😃

Honestly, all is not down to the parent reaction but down to how rational is the teacher and actually what was said and done. If a kid was really rude and disruptive or if the teacher is exaggerating the problem.

We want to bring up thinking humans and not " yes madam" machines. When they suppose to make mistakes and learn if it is not when they are still kids? Education is about learning and not only from the books, but also the social skills.