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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To Think A Teacher Should Be Able To Control a 4 Year Old?

88 replies

midori1999 · 28/02/2011 17:13

Maybe control is not quite the right word, but...

My friend's DS is 4. He is also extremely clever. My friend finds him a little difficult at home, but nothing exceptional. I've looked after him a bit and he is determined, but nothing outrageous.

Today he was sent home 'on report' with a letter from his teacher asking my friend to give him a 2 minute time out when he got home and also to replace a rubber he damaged during school time. Last week my friend was asked to go in to the school to give her son a time out for behaviour the previous day as the teacher had been unable to give him a time out at the time of the behaviour. From what I can gather there have been a few other letter home about behaviour.

Is this really normal procedure in schools now or is this an unusual way of dealing with things?

AIBU to think a teacher should easily be able to 'outsmart' a 4 year old and get him to behave?

OP posts:

Niceguy2 · 28/02/2011 17:16

It depends what you are expecting and what the child has done.

Bear in mind the teacher will have 29 other kids to deal with too and can't concentrate on a single child like a parent can.

I also see nothing wrong with asking a parent to sort their child out. Perhaps I wouldn't have asked the parent to "timeout" him but I think its reasonable to ask a parent to support their efforts.

stoppinchingthedummy · 28/02/2011 17:17

No yanbu if at 4 years old she can not control his behaviour without involving his mum every time i would question her ability with children.... my ds is full of beans ,his teacher will call me in to say he pushed someone whilst playing super heroes they have a traffic light system but parents are not told about this unless absolutly necessary - i know because i ask (my bad!)

Also i always thought behaviour is to be dealt with at the time not 5 hours later etc -especially in young children!

londonone · 28/02/2011 17:18

I think you have no idea! How exactly would you deal with a four year old hell bent on defying you, running away, throwing things etc? Remember you can't grab hold of them unless the situation is dangerous and you have thirty other children who you are also responsible for. What would you do midori?

LadyThumb · 28/02/2011 17:18

'my bad' what? What does that mean?

littlebylittle · 28/02/2011 17:18

Of course they should, on a one to one or even in a group. But a determined four year old in a class situation might need training in how to behave in a group situation. Not quite sure why your friend called in, that seems unusual, but all too often people fail to "do the maths" and work out that 'determined' in a family situation might equal 'very tricky and unfairly disruptive to the running of the class' when in a group of up to thirty.

Lawm01 · 28/02/2011 17:18

well, it sounds as though the teacher is finding it difficult to get your friend's son 'under control' and maybe he/she is trying to balance the amount of time it would take to tackle this thoroughly and effectively with also trying to teach and lead the other children in the class.

Maybe he/she is trying to make your friend aware of the difficulties, but is not, for whatever reason, able to resolve the situation once and for all.
Perhaps it would be good for your friend to bring it up with teacher and ask if they can agree a way forward in terms of behaviour and discipline - sounds like it needs addressing properly by both parent and teacher.
I do agree however that a teacher 'should' be able to control a 4 year old, but maybe they are newly qualified/don't know how/don't feel its their place to discipline if the parent isn't? I'm not saying your parent is disciplining, just maybe they two of them have different ideas of acceptable behaviour.

jaffacake79 · 28/02/2011 17:20

It sounds ridiculous. She should be able to manage his behaviour then and there, not hours after the incident. Ask for an appt to discuss things further.

WriterofDreams · 28/02/2011 17:20

A delayed time out will have absolutely no effect so asking her to give him a time out is really odd IMO. I'm a teacher and if a child's behaviour was very bad I might contact his/her parents but I wouldn't ever prescribe a punishment for home, as I think it's quite rude and pointless.

On your other point though, I would like to see you control 30 4 year olds, I think it would be hilarious!

LessNarkyPuffin · 28/02/2011 17:20

Is he used to hearing no?

stoppinchingthedummy · 28/02/2011 17:20

Oh good lord sorry lady thumb i meant im perhaps wrong for that

londonone · 28/02/2011 17:22

jaffa - what would you do if you had a child who kept running out of the classroom?

stoppinchingthedummy · 28/02/2011 17:22

Writerofdreams is it not the job of a teacher to be able to control 30 children? Pehaps thats my misconception of their job but if you teach a class of 30 4-5 year olds there will be times when you need to control them right?

GooseyLoosey · 28/02/2011 17:22

Is this a primary school or a nursery?

I don't think it is normal in a school and if it is in a school, your friend needs to arrange a meeting with the head as soon as possible to sort out a coherent strategy for your son. Surely a child can be sent to sit outside the head's office without the need for parental involvement.

If the teacher cannot control the child then this needs to be looked at as soon as possible for everyone's sake and appropriate measures put in place.

If its at a nursery where the whole relationship is based on a contract with the parent and child, its not so clear cut, but I think I would be considering a different nursery.

penguin73 · 28/02/2011 17:23

If the child is persistently naughty - even if it is quite low-level - do you really want the teacher spending all her time dealing with this rather than teaching the rest of her class. It's hard to know whether she is being unreasonable without knowing the full story - how long has the child been misbehaving for, what else was done prior to the steps you are talking about etc? A child doesn't have to be outrageous to be time-consuming and difficult to deal with in a busy school day with a whole class to look after and I would expect parental involvement if a regular occurrence.

pozzled · 28/02/2011 17:24

"A delayed time out will have absolutely no effect so asking her to give him a time out is really odd IMO. I'm a teacher and if a child's behaviour was very bad I might contact his/her parents but I wouldn't ever prescribe a punishment for home, as I think it's quite rude and pointless."

Agree completely with writerofdreams It seems like a very strange way of trying to manage his behaviour. On the other hand though, I do believe that it's very important to keep parents informed of behaviour issues. Maybe the teacher is trying to involve the parent and work together, although apparently not in a very helpful way.

GiddyPickle · 28/02/2011 17:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WriterofDreams · 28/02/2011 17:27

What I mean is that the teacher is right to contact the mum about the little boy's behaviour if it is very bad - expecting her to "control" him and not ask his mum for help if he is very disruptive is being unreasonable IMO. If a child is throwing things, screaming etc there is very little a teacher can do to sort this out short of contacting the parents and putting some behaviour strategy in place. On the other hand this teacher suggesting that your friend give her DS a time out at home is bizarre as it won't help at all and makes the huge assumption that the mum uses time out as a punishment, which she might not.

Sassybeast · 28/02/2011 17:29

In theory a teacher 'should' be able to control a 4 year old but if the 4 year old is repeatedly challenging and causing disruption, then it's not unreasonable for the teacher to involve the parents in enforcing discipline. She may have 6 or 7 other 'determined' children who are a 'little difficult' and 'full of beans' Add that in to the 20 or so other children that she may be trying to teach and you can see where problems arise. Not sure that i agree with the delayed time out but I suppose it starts to teach them that the same rules apply at home as at school (assuming that there ARE rules at home)

veritythebrave · 28/02/2011 17:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

saffy85 · 28/02/2011 17:30

It sounds ridiculous. However one person's determined and extremely clever child is another person's stubborn, arrogant out of control nightmare. I'm not saying this child is any of those things obviously but how he is at home as the possibly the only child his mother has to keep in line is different to how a teacher with 30 or so other kids to keep control of.

I do think if a child does something really bad like bully, hurt someone, deliberately destroy property etc their parents should be informed. However, issueing a time out hours after the event wouldn't work with my 3 year old I wouldn't have thought. Infact time outs don't work on all children anyway. Sometimes there are better ways of getting through to a child that their behaviour is unacceptable, like no tv that day for example.

Think it's a bit that the teacher doesn't appear to deal with the bad behaviour from this child but tells his mother how to go about punishing him. That part would get my back up. personally.

mummytime · 28/02/2011 17:30

This is ridiculous! Why? Because for this age punishment should happen as close to the event as possible. So any time out should have happened immediately. The school should also not be asking a parent to punish a child for an offence at school, the child won't associate the two, never mind they will probably have totally forgotten what they have done wrong.

In my DCs school they had a grey cloud which you were sent to for small misdemeanour and a black cloud for serious ones. This gives an instant time out, whilst the teacher can continue teaching.

Really if a teacher can't come up with a similar response then they shouldn't be teaching. Parents should be brought in for major issues only.

LDNmummy · 28/02/2011 17:32

If you had a classroom of 30 kids and one kept disrupting, how would you control that child while keeping on with looking after all the others. If the teacher has to keep a constant eye on one child then it will disrupt learning for all the other children.

Primary school children seem easy to teach but no teaching job is easy, the child sounds like he is repeatedly causing problems and I can understand why the teacher has had to call the parent in on this.

veritythebrave · 28/02/2011 17:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

stoppinchingthedummy · 28/02/2011 17:34

No i agree the parents should be involved and i think the severity of his behaviour is the main thing here- throwing chairs,attacking others is NOT acceptable however if he broke up a rubber or something quite minor then i think punishing him at home is not the way forward.

Children thrive on praise and if a child is continualy labelled a naughtey child and always told off they live up to that. If there is a real issue with your friends ds she needs to call a meeting with his teacher without him there and discuss the issues and possible ways forward.

lesley33 · 28/02/2011 17:35

YABU
In a school setting the most difficult children to control are amongst the 14/15 year olds age group and 4 year olds. Schools get 4 year olds who have obviously never been told no or made to do anything they don't want to do.

I have known children this age who refuse to sit down- running around the classroom and crawling under desks; as well as children this age who at ever opportunity try to run outside of the class or school.

It is difficult to control a 4 year old who has never been controlled before. And most of the time teachers do manage this, as most of these 4 year olds will become 5 year old children who do behave in class.Normally after being in school for a yeasr they have learned from the teacher what is appropriate behaviour.

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