Surely every school isn't like this?

[SchoolIssues25]

I supervised a school disco as a favour at my 7 year old child's school. The school does have issues although has a good ofsted. Ideally I would like to move him but he's happy there.
I was shocked when supervising. I know kids aren't perfect as they're kids but ffs. Kids were pushing, spitting, one lad lay on top of another so he went red and had to be pulled off more or less. The kids were so rough. I was shocked. Surely this isn't normal ?

I think it depends on the disco. Expecting to put some music on and have 7 year old boys dancing about nicely is massively unrealistic. Did they have games etc? My daughter went to a joint birthday party of a boy and girl for their 8th birthday last year. The parents had provided some balloons and that was it. They assumed the kids would dance for 2 hours. Unsurprisingly, this did not happen. The boys especially were bored and got more and more feral. It ended up as chaos. So I think if there was nothing to entertain the kids then it’s quite normal for their play to get rough as they try to entertain themselves in a busy and loud room.

Blimey, what world do you live in?!

I often volunteer for the school discos and even the usually lovely children can get very hyped up and go quite berserk…. dancing (particularly the boys) is more like running, jumping and play fighting.

I think it’s the excitement and getting each other more and more worked up.

it was the same at my school discos in the 80s…

@Mayflower282
rough and tumble is not appropriate in a school and especially not at a bloody ‘disco’

I have supervised 3 PTA discos and not seen any physical violence. Yes some silly behaviour but nothing harmful or disrespectful

Many of the most badly-behaved kids are very much NOT from gentle-parenting-type families. They are from families with chaotic lives who set very poor behaviour examples.

Gentle parenting doesn’t cause these issues. Permissive parenting does. There’s a big difference.

Not normal for us but DD’s school was a grammar in a nice area. I think that deprived areas and antisocial behaviour at school go hand in hand, unfortunately

Roughhousing in a safe environment with a parent or willing participants is fine. But a school disco obv isn’t the right venue or situation for that. My daughters love play-fighting with DH, jumping on him, all that stuff. They would never do it in a totally different environment to other people.

But I do see this often at soft play parties. It is always the boys, but I think that’s largely because the behaviour seems to go mostly unchecked by parents as I assume they think it’s a suitable ‘boy’ thing to do and just leave them to it. The old ‘boys will be boys‘ thing.

Who the fuck categorises spitting as rough and tumble??
Horrible kids, brought up by shitty parents and then allowed to act like this because idiots say it's 'rough and tumble' and good for them, I seriously i've up on society 🙄

Not normal at my dds school, their school discos are all very nice and haven’t seen any of that. They don’t seem to have behavior issues in the school.

Ok, when is it appropriate ? Because children have too little unsupervised or lightly supervised play in the digital age. I would have thought a school disco an ideal opportunity.

This is why teachers are leaving in droves.

At my DC’s school the kids who are trouble are certainly not the ones experiencing gentle parenting, they are the kids who are being dragged up by parents who are lazy and feckless, who don’t care what they do or where they go. My eldest is 12 and has often come back from friends houses shocked at how some parents speak to aggressively to their children and how many are left to just fend for themselves and have been for years.

Gentle parenting is not the problem although I get that it will always be trotted out on MN, usually by people who don’t actually have children.

My oldest is REALLY so laid back hes horizontal, quiet, follows instruction to a tea, grade 8-9 student, teacher LOVE him (an 'old soul' apparently) and he has no issues with other kids and always has been like that (side effects of his autism).

Despite the above at 7 year old he and his friend (not even fighting) decided to just punch each other in the face just to 'see what would happen'... well, unsurprisingly the conclusion of that experiment was 2 kids with black eyes.

7 year old boys are idiots, even the pretty well behaved ones.

I would hazard a guess that most people on this site do have children and most are women

There is too much tolerance of play fighting. Patents minimise it and kids therefore say we were only messing around or having a laugh. The problem is lack of firm boundaries and a dislike of other people telling your kids off. Even if their kid was strangling someone else most parents focus not on their kid but get ridiculously upset that another adult spoke sharply to their child.

Of course it's not normal.

It was woeful 'supervision' by the adults in charge.

I’m back working as a teacher after well over a decade out (primary). I don’t know if it’s permissive, gentle or simply just fucking awful parenting but something has happened over the last decade.
Most kids are great, but a much bigger number than ten years ago are entitled little sods who are being sold a lie that they are unique, special and more important than anyone else. And that their endless bloody feelings mean they don’t have to do any work, or, indeed, not spit at people.
God help future employers.

@OverlyFragrant
you asked for studies on rough & tumble play

here is a recent review that concludes

"[rough-and-tumble play] experience is important for emotional control and the learning of restraint in what may be competitive or conflictual situations"

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21594937.2022.2152185#abstract

and there are lots more papers like that if you search on google scholar. it is clear that this type of play is important and helpful to kids.

Sounds like a standard primary disco from my experience! Kids going crazy after eating sweets from the PTA stall and noise like you wouldn’t believe! Not a teachers favourite evening out for sure. Probably why they were roping in unsuspecting parents to help 😅

There are lots of child free people on this site there are almost constant threads about being child free and there is an entire board dedicated to child free people.

Do you actually believe spitting is good for kids? OP made it clear this was shocking behaviour and you keep sending information about how this is helpful to kids...

Great! They can do that outside! Not at a school disco.

Boys can still learn about appropriate and expected behaviour depending upon on the occasion, ffs.

@parietali would agree with rough play with dad - lots of studies there.

I don’t see the same with peer to peer. Some studies drawing a conclusion that kids who engage will be more ‘liked’ by peers. Well my child often asks why the mean kids are more popular. I said, maybe it’s because other children are afraid of them.

Personally, I don’t think school is the place for it.