Badly behaved children getting all the rewards at school

[magicgoldpot]

This really annoys me and I would appreciate it if any teachers on here could give me an answer as to why this happens.

My ds started reception a few weeks ago and every single day I've collected him the teacher says how well behaved he has been. She's even referred to him as a 'star pupil'.

Ds came home saying Ben ( not real name ) pushed him hard in the back and he fell and grazed his knee and hand. Next day Ben wouldn't do what the teacher said and so the teacher shouted and it scared ds. Other incidents too and not just with Ben.

Anyway, at pick up Ben comes out first and proudly shows his Mum he has 2 stickers, so do a few others. For good listening apparently! Ds comes out and has no stickers but I am told by the teacher he's been amazing today.

This has happened a few times and ds asked me yesterday if he will get a sticker one day. He says Ben always gets one but he's naughty. I told ds do not copy what Ben is doing as that is not the way to get a sticker/ reward. You will get one one day.

So why do teachers reward 'naughty' children for the slightest bit of good behavior, when the children who are always good and follow the rules get nothing?

Because they are trying to incentivise the naughty kids to be good. Your son doesn't 'need' a sticker to behave.

It can be very frustrating for good kids (and parents). These schemes will continue through school so try to rise above it. (Although when you.drop him off a jokey word with the teacher about 'Ben was asking me what he has to do to get a sticker - as like all kids he loves stickers....' followed by a laugh...
Sometimes just puts the idea in teachers head that he also needs a sticker!

I can’t stand it.

‘Love to shop’ vouchers are given out like confetti to the most badly behaved children at my place of work.
Other students don’t understand it and I don’t understand it.
It’s a lazy way to deal with discipline problems.

Yes, babe if my life when kids were in primary. ' Why does Ben get a star of the week because he went 2 days without punching someone? I have never punched anyone, and never been star of the week...'

I understand that some kids need support to improve behaviour, but it basically rewards erratic behaviour and ignores steady good behaviour. Grr.

Bane of, not babe if, but you get what I mean....

Tell your DS that because some of the other children still need to learn how to sit nicely etc. the teacher will give them stickers to help them understand but because he has already learned he will get a reward every Friday from you. Then get him a kinder egg.

It’s a well known fact that the well behaved kids get star of the week etc last. You’ll be able to tell where your kids are on the behaviour/ability scale depending on when they get it to some extent.
Also, my ds and dd were 2 years apart in the same school. Miraculously they got star of the week on the same week, no coincidence there

Totally get this as it’s how I felt at school. However, now I have one child who struggles and the other who finds school easy, and believe me, the child that struggles at school really needs this, something positive and a boost to self esteem. My child who is academic and finds school easy doesn’t need to be recognised as there are plenty of opportunities (reading in assembly, work displayed on walls, academic awards) where she shines and gets recognition.

I understand that some kids need support to improve behaviour You very obviously don’t

I’ve found myself giving good behaviour points (ex secondary school teacher) when a child who normally causes disruptions spent a whole lesson completely engaged in the lesson. I caught myself and didn’t as there were children who’d spend the whole behaving.

Currently arguing with DSs school over their behaviour incentives as he noticed in year 1 that “the naughty children get all the stars, how can I get stars”. I do think it’s poor form to give rewards that lead to bigger rewards out like confetti to children who can’t meet the minimum behaviour standard where children who always meet the minimum behaviour standard are barely rewarded.

This is exactly why I always had something small like a sticker or a small milky way bar or the odd time a comic for my two at infants and primary. Both mine were very well behaved, because I had always instilled good manners and behaviour.
I would be told all the time what a pleasure they were to teach but yep, always the same little gits with lazy parents who were often rude when spoken to by teachers who got the star of the week or the class rabbit or a sticker or certificate.
My DS has Asperger's so to him at the time, no prize for him meant he was naughty. He is very literal. He would be in tears about it hence the little treat in my bag.
By the time DD was in year 3, and he was year 2, I had had enough too.
That parents evening, we had an open one were everyone just mingled and grabbed the teacher. The naughtiest kid in classes mum was as usual standing blaming the teacher for her child being a misbehaved little horror. Whilst she was still standing there I asked the teacher about DDs progress and she sang her praises on politeness and manners and excellent work. So I said, isn't it a shame that you never show that to my children with the same level of praise you heap on certain other children. The teacher looked awkward. So I said, it's quite disconcerting for my DC's to see the same faces getting rewarded for sitting still for less than a minute once a term. It's demoralising.
Queue chav mum shouting at me asking did I mean her child, and me saying, why would you think that, is it because you know you've taught your child to be as ignorant and rude to teachers as you are?
I walked away before it kicked off but lo and behold DD and DS came out with star of the week for their classes. And DS teacher actually said thanks as she was sick of the heads attitude towards merits.
Sometimes a word is all it takes.

@Itisbetter

I understand that some kids need support to improve behaviour You very obviously don’t

That’s nonsense. When you have a small child asking why does he never get rewarded for always doing as he asked then come back to me. Why should he be punished for behaving? In their mind that is exactly what is happening especially when you get a reward for getting 10 stars, 100 etc.

Because naughty children are not naughty all the time, they can do good things too and these should be recognised. Recognising how much better these choices are than the wrong choices makes a HUGE difference. You might think of Ben as naughty now, but his behaviour (and therefore his impact on everyone else, including the teacher's time) will be a hell of a lot better for getting praised, as well as told off when appropriate. The threshold for any support is so so so high that any way to manage a child's behaviour so that it has less of an impact on other children has to be welcomed. If the child is lucky enough to have any TA support, that also explains more stickers as they are getting lots of 1:1 time so their TA is more likely to reward specific tasks. By all means tell the teacher your child is getting disheartened - I'd make a special effort to praise your child more - but that doesn't mean children like Ben don't need praise too. I have no idea why a PP refers to it as lazy - most teachers will be trying whatever they possibly can to contain the behaviour of children like Ben, and not really even for Ben's benefit but for everyone else's.

sarahockwell-smith.com/2014/09/19/the-problem-with-stickers-and-reward-charts/

Because naughty children are not naughty all the time, they can do good things too and these should be recognised.

But the good things they are doing in this example are the things a lot of the other children do daily anyway.

Exactly

To some kids it's just soul destroying.

DD once said she was going to chuck all the books everywhere and tell them teacher to go away or swear at the helper because then she would get a sticker. Luckily I managed to dissuade her but you can see how some kids end up giving up behaving as it gets them no recognition.

My daughter found these types of rewards very demotivating and upsetting for the first couple of years at school despite me explaining that some children need these rewards to try and help improve their behaviour. We’ve never done rewards at home, so it was alien to her anyway. She’s Yr 5 and so over rewards now though!

Not a teacher but worked with groups of at risk children, mainly supporting them with their education.
I'd imagine the teacher gives Ben a reward to try encourage good behaviour. Him listening that day may have required a huge amount of effort compared to the other more "well behaved" children and if teachers were to wait until he had a "perfect day"they could be waiting an incredibly long time and in the mean time Ben would end up totally unmotivated and defeated. My client group tended to have a high amount of challenging behaviour so the sticker system worked well and we always rewarded efforts and intentions rather than just actions. For example one child may get a sticker for not running away when going to the playground whereas another child might get it after completing all of their homework. It all depended on what was considered difficult for them, required effort on their part and what type of behaviour we were trying to promote.
However I would always take note and ensured that each child got stickers on a regular basis. Each child would have there own list of things to complete, which was personal to them, before getting a sticker. We also put a lot of value on praise rather than just stickers. Your DS may be being praised a lot during the day and the teacher may not realise he is so aware of the sticker system. These may not be handed out in front of the class - I tried not to do that in order to avoid your situation.

You could possibly use this as an opportunity to talk about differences. "You are such a good listener, the teacher tells me and you all the time how amazing you are at it, maybe Ben is finding it a little harder than you right now, just like you find "x,y and z" hard so it's nice that Ben gets a sticker for his hard work on listening isnt it? "

Ben may have many reasons for his behaviours, could be underlying disability (autism isn't always obvious), he could be having a difficult time at home, could be finding it particularly hard adjusting to things after the upheaval from covid, could be his personality, could be a number of things ranging from totally innocent to upsetting and concerning.

Speak with teacher, I'd avoid bringing Ben into it as they cant and shouldn't discuss another pupil but ask about how your DS can get stickers as he appears to motivated by them and is losing confidence seeing others get them and not him. You may not have the whole story either, often children will leave out parts and teachers are reluctant to tell parents about every misdeed in the day. They would be on the phone for hours speaking to every parent every evening if that was the case. May not be in your case at all but just worth noting it's not a case of just "naughty" or "good" children.

It’s a well known fact that the well behaved kids get star of the week etc last. You’ll be able to tell where your kids are on the behaviour/ability scale depending on when they get it to some extent.

This is not true. When I am choosing child of the week (Y5 teacher), I choose the children who have had a great week. It is often the child who is always well behaved at the beginning because I don’t have to think that hard about what they have done to deserve it.

In lessons, I made sure to always excessively praise the children who were always doing the right thing. I didn’t do stickers because they weren’t interested but I did do house points. Every child would get one when they made the right choice regardless. If they were always making the right choice, they always got the house point.

Yes, some children need more encouragement to make the right choices than others but every child needs to be recognised.

@Groundhogdayzz I suggest that you ask your dd when she’s an adult if she should have got stickers. My dd was a well behaved average dc. She got zilch from school.
I sometimes wonder if teachers have any idea what it’s like to be too well behaved to be incentivised and yet not academic enough to get awards.
Luckily my dd had good friends and loved school but she still felt the burning injustice regularly.
2 years ago she got a bursary from a top university to do her masters, it was wonderful for her self esteem. And she did it herself.

My DS3 was that ‘badly behaved child’. Please be assured that behind the scenes I was being made to feel like a shit mum by the school. My only saving grace was that they knew my two older neurotypical children and told me that they knew it probably wasn’t all my fault because the older two were okay. He was completely overwhelmed by the school environment. He was diagnosed with terrible eyesight at the end of Reception, despite several previous trips to the optician, autism at the end of year 3, dyslexia at the end of year 5. Understanding his challenges has helped me and the school to put in place things that would help him and his behaviour is now fine.

You’re a couple of weeks Into reception. They are trying to work out what’s going on/who might have additional needs/who comes from an abusive family/who had a terrible time in lockdown. Things will hopefully settle. If I can offer a word of advice, after 13 years of having kids at primary, do try not to take it all to heart. The previous advice about rewarding your own child with a kinder is great, if you feel he needs it. There’s lots of research that shows children are better motivated by intrinsic rewards than extrinsic - the teacher may be giving him plenty of verbal feedback and praise and she’s telling him and You how great he is at pick up. Try to focus on that a bit more. But yes, perhaps a little note to say he’s a bit despondent re: no sticker, but no comment about the naughty kids, getting them. As a school governor I can tell you it will not endear you to the teacher.

Queue chav mum shouting at me asking did I mean her child, and me saying, why would you think that, is it because you know you've taught your child to be as ignorant and rude to teachers as you are?

Queue chav mum? Could you sound more bitchy and judgemental?

Also, you were ignorant and rude to the teacher so I don’t know why you thought you had the moral high ground.

It’s a well known fact that the well behaved kids get star of the week etc last. You’ll be able to tell where your kids are on the behaviour/ability scale depending on when they get it to some extent.

Ah, my copy of the Teachers Handbook doesn't include that. Is it perhaps in the Shit That Parents Pull Out Of Their Arse edition? The best behaved always get star of the week in the first few weeks of my class as it's so easy to choose them. Once I know the class better I can start establishing who had a good week for them.

That's a really great post from autumnboys above. You're a couple of weeks into the year. There's probably a lot going on behind the scenes with this child...I'd leave it a few weeks and if no change, then talk to the school.

When you have a small child asking why does he never get rewarded for always doing as he asked then come back to me. Why should he be punished for behaving? In their mind that is exactly what is happening
It isn’t “being punished” to not be praised for doing something you find easy. The teacher is rewarding the child for behaviour/outcomes that are good for them compared to their ability. For example she would give a prize to child A for being able to write his name while child B who’s been doing that since nursery might get praise for finishing a paperback. Are you seriously suggesting that the able should be the only ones to receive encouragement.

Teach your children to compete against themselves not others.

Some dc find it harder to control their impulses than others. The teacher is focuses their resources on the dc who are struggling in this area, the same way they'd read more often with a dc who is struggling with this.

I was just clear with my dc that the awards they gave at school were not really for being the best at something, but were to help kids who were struggling. They didn't love it, but they survived relatively unscarred.

LadyofTheManners - It's 'cue'.